joelgilb

And Bobbie apparently reads this forum as well

Is this ATX's way of pretending to appease us?

Personally I am not going to waste anymore of my time!

Well, I did beta testing on the new FAM this past summer and I am not a myth.

And the FAM works!

just not ATX 2102

Yes, I have purchased the separate FAM for several years now because we need to do depreciaion calculations throughout the year. The cost was about $225, which was the renewal price. I believe the first year cost is $300.

First year cost is $449.00 but they routinely discount it to the renewal price to get you locked in.

New printers almost always come with starter cartridges that have less toner. This is because the printer manufacturers sell the printers so cheap that they often aren't making money on printer sales, but are on cartridge sales. This is the Old Gillette Razor sales promotion: "Give away the razor and sell the blades".

Just received an (canned) e-mail from my assigned sales rep. He is actually a pretty nice guy, so I feel for him. Still I don't intend towaste the time responding.

"Dear Valued ATX Client,

We will have wrapped up another tax season, in a couple of weeks. I am sure that some of you will take some much needed time away to relax after the conclusion of this tax season. When time permits, I would like to request a favor of you.

This year has been quite different than any other. This year ATX tackled the task of attempting to technologically advance our operating platform from a DOS operating platform to a more Windows compatible version. This change was a necessity, that had been put off for as long as was feasibly possible. In addition to this change, ATX made a good faith effort to improve the program with a few “wish list” features, that our users had always desired to have. While, we realize that for many of our users these changes were an improvement, we also cannot ignore the fact that we had many other users that experienced their share of issues this year.

I, as your assigned account manager, want to hear directly from you about your experience this year. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. By hearing from you, I will do my best to insure that you are satisfied with our response.

ATX has always maintained a reputation of providing a quality product at a reasonable price, and we intend for this to remain our standard going forward. Furthermore; ATX is allocating enormous resources to insure that the ATX program will progress and not regress from what you have grown to expect it to be.

Please accept my request for your feedback. It will be appreciated.

Thank you,

Brandon G. Sims

Account Management Specialist

CCH Small Firms Services,

a Wolters Kluwer business

225 Chastain Meadows Ct. NW

Kennesaw, Ga 30144

(O) 800-495-4626 ex. 1233

(F) 800-834-4859

[email protected]"

I remember him and his posts too. Isn't he a lawyer? A search for his user name couldn't find it. More of Kimmie's handiwork thanks to BoobyinNJ and that Kamman was posting about class action lawsuits.

Kamman I think believes that there is no way to have a class action suit on this one, but I could be wrong.

Kamman purchased Pro Tax early this season after all the ATX problems.

Think you men ProSeries by Intuit, and yes he did. HE no longer posts at the regular ATX board since he is no longer a member there. This is because he did not purchase the software this year and ATX finally closed his account.

And, yes he is a Tax Lawyer. Sharp and very witty guy, his input there is missed.

Still, by next year this time, I will probably lose my access there also, for the same reason.

The 140 efiled returns includes both federal and state. Both businesses and individuals. I know it isnt a lot compared to the amount I am seeing from some on here, but then, they may be on networks and are accounting for their whole office. We have one standalone. I am not sure the reason behind the original question.

Joel, glad to join you. Hope I can help here too. Is this the only non-atx board out there, or is there a whole secret underground ATX society out here?

Think this is it NY. And none of the persistent griping at the other board!

Jack, I don't think that's completely true. Someone over on the official forum posted yesterday that they are at the 1700 mark for returns processed so far this season on a standalone installation and are not having the major problems except for general slowness and some crashing. There are too many variables to make sweeping generalizations about the functionality of the program from one user's setup to the next. One think is for sure, and that is that the program wasn't designed to run properly on a network.

Jack:

While the program does become more unstable for many when there is a large volume of returns, jklcpa is correct. Thing is the problems users are having are not all consistent. Still there is a greater likelihood for problems with high volume and networks, because the RavenDB is being used in an unsupported way.

They don't know, they are sending these out to everyone in the hopes they hit those of us using the programs that are having trouble.

I would say it is too late to change now/ Bear with it and you'll get through it. Then after season you can start looking for alternatives for next year.

Thought this might help.

HarlessTax posted this on the Reg Atx board:

"... Our computers are all top of the line and ATX developers have been to our office since they did not test the software on a networked environment. Also the use of the RavenDB is being done in an unsupported manner. A RavenDB exec told me personally the way ATX was using the database is going to continue to cause issues.....from slowness to corrupt files just for starters. They suggested the database be used as a server and all users access the database opposed to the database being embedded in the software and then shared to all users."

Emphasis added

I thought that this one was important enough that it should be posted here as well.

My concern is that this is not an isolated incident and those of you doing over 500 returns may have the same problem, so exporting your returns might be critical.

so here is the ATX Reg Board thread on this (quoted the posts but left off the names & none of these posts were from me):

The amount of issues and corrupt returns has increased dramatically since we broke the 500 mark. The question for ATX is: Will it help to export then delete our completed returns? By reducing the amount of data in the database will it become semi stable again? We are averaging 5-7 corrupt returns a week for the past two weeks. I am losing 1-2 hours a day just f***ing with database issues.

My return manager is getting really slow and I only have 300 returns. Everything is there, but it takes soooo long just to select a return!

As I've said previously, I believe ATX 2012 has fundamental design flaws. The database they are using is flawed and in my professional opinion, can not be fixed by ATX this tax season. I have also heard from a programmer who is familiar with the database they are using (RavenDB). He said the database will become slower and more unstable as it fills up with more clients, potentially resulting in corruption. I recommend you consider switching to other tax preparation software, such as Drake or ProSeries.

I crossed over the 1000 return mark last week i thought i could remove them by exporting but once they have an accepted status you can export, but it will not remove them from returns manager. i wasted hours after beening told by customer support to do this. she did not tell me they can not be deleted. I have had alot of slowness and my work station crashes (server has not crash but only twice) in last week. server is on windows 7 with 8mb 12.11 i have had no corrupted returns.

As I predicted: https://community.atxinc.com/forums/post/126308.aspx

I don't think there is anything you can do.

As I've said previously, I believe ATX 2012 has fundamental design flaws. The database they are using is flawed and in my professional opinion, can not be fixed by ATX this tax season. I have also heard from a programmer who is familiar with the database they are using (RavenDB). He said the database will become slower and more unstable as it fills up with more clients, potentially resulting in corruption. I recommend you consider switching to other tax preparation software, such as Drake or ProSeries.

And

Welcome NYTaxLady!

I know the networks are screwed. I'm just trying to find out what the common denominator is between those of us on standalone s that aren't having issues, and those on standalones that aren't.

It is the way that ATX programmed the database internally in the software rather than shared on the server. Harless has a better handle on this though.

Running a network here and the software was virtually unusable on state of the art workstations. Program Load times upwards of 10 to 15 minutes and client file load times were similar (remember these were times as of vers 12.8 for me, don't know how current versions would improve this.

Your client will have to login into the ATX site and go to downloads to obtain the latest update which is 12.12. This can not be installed from inside the software.

What is life without a good belly laugh!

Could someone contact them and have them join this board? I refuse to even log in on the corporate board since they shut it down.

If these guys are as knowledgable as you say, they might help us get out of the "crippled" state of this software.

Jack:

They have been notified about this board more than once, as has NYTaxLady, another very experienced and helpful member of the regular ATX board. I just don't think they want to come over here.

Still, I don't think they will help much, more than than they already have. NYTaxLady started a nice WorkAround thread, that they have contributed to as have I. May be worth logging in over there just to see if there is anything in that thread that might help. We have all tried to compile the fixes and workarounds posted all over that board into that WorkAround thread.

Joel,

...

Reading these forums has given us some comfort to know that we are not alone in dealing with all these problems. To some extent, misery does love company.

Somehow we are going to make it to April 15 with some dignity, but it won't be easy.

None of this is anybody's fault except for ATX. Period.

Can't agree more, I have been more active in the forums this year both for the support and the comfort they provide.

And btw, I and few others in different threads posted the same article. I just checked the thread I started and found the comments interesting. So, you might want to read this thread at the regular ATX site:

https://community.atxinc.com/forums/1/150199/ShowThread.aspx

As the latest poster indicated:

Mrjond, "Wow not a single approved comment to this article? Interesting"

LitTaxAdmin's comment in that same thread:

"CCH has a BBB rating of F as well. See: http://www.bbb.org/atlanta/business-reviews/computers-hardware-software-and-services/cch-small-firm-services-in-kennesaw-ga-27370070 "

Blevins Comments:

"Wow, so most of the "problems" have been with getting used to the new platform?
REALLY?
As if this many of us are major idiots who never deal with other software, or new software, and this is all just a matter of "getting used to" it?
And outdated computers?
Give me a break.
Yes, I'd like to know how much they spend in advertising in The Progressive Accountant.
I guess most of us are just regressive accountants.
Insulting.
I want a fast program. If this is how ATX 2013 will definitely be, I definitely won't be back next year. I've held out hope that they'd change the platform/database for next year, after this year's fiasco, but this doesn't give me much confidence.
Can't wait until this season is over. Although, from the sound of this, I'm just an old tired outdated accountant who might as well hang it all up.
Ha." Empahasis Added

Don't forget the comments in this thread about this article. Apparently Florida Tax Man and I are not the only one that thinks Joan offended us.

Hey Florida Tax Man, feeling a little testie? It's ok to vent here (to a degree), it's healthy and fun to disagree, but I don't think it's ok to attack another member in this way. Cool it.

Not trying to defend Florida Tax Man and when I posted my post, I really did not know Joan McHugh was our Joan and did not do so to bash the the author. Since, I have not used ATX since vers 12.08 and then just barely I do not really know how well 12.12 works.

From posts here and on the regular ATX community. clearly others don't think ATX 2012.12 is working much better than previous versions. They also don't believe that there are any ENHANCEMENTS in the ATX 2012 (I don't need to reiterate what ATX removed rather than added to the new platform).

Now as for bashing, honestly, Joan's comments in that article were bashing! She essentially called all the users having problems with ATX STUPID IDIOTS! She basically said that the ATX members having problems, were too stupid to understand how to move to a new platform. I feel that this comment includes those that changed software (a new platform I might add), and have gotten up to speed quickly, becoming productive for the first time this season.

She further bashed the other ATX members and users, by saying that they had antiquated systems, not understanding it was time to upgrade . You find that appropriate?

As for antiquated systems being the problem, she totally missed the boat on that one anyway. I have a few friends who were and are still using ATX. One friend of mine is having the best experience with ATX using a stand-alone PC that is over 10 years old, running WinXP, in I believe a 32 bit environment (possibly a 16 bit). He is having virtually none of the problems the other members are having, except that the program is slightly slower than previous years. This is because ATX was programed for a 16/32 bit O/S, not the more modern Win7 or Win8.

One of my other friends is using a State of the Art 64 bit PC with 32K of Ram and with an overclocked Intel I7 3960 and has had nothing but problems. If she had read many of the posts at the regular ATX site she would see, that ATX 2012 does run better on older systems.

So no offense, Joan doesn't have a clue what she is talking about. If you really want to understand some of the problems, you should read LITaxAdmin's and Harless's posts over at the regular board. Clearly these two have systems experience and understand the problems.

I for one, now that I know it is our Joan, resent the inference, in a PUBLIC ARTICLE I might add, that all of us that have had problems with ATX are STUPID IDIOTS that don't understand how to move to a new platform and use the software. If anyone should apologize, it is Joan!

You're killing me with all your latest posts.

I can't stop laughing!

And I need those laughs!

I notice the same article indicated that the BBB recently lowered its rating on TRX Software to an F.

My response to the sales reps will be: Sorry I moved on to an alternative option.

To be honest, I feel almost as sorry for the sales reps as I did for the Caribou Maine employees that all got canned when CCH took ATX over.