Medlin Software, Dennis

For those with employees, do you trust them?  I am asking because you are likely in the tax prep business, and have to have the trust of your clients.  With that said, you are likely to need to also trust your employees as they represent you.

Just lost a customer because I could not promise them our password protection would keep out their untrustworthy employees (I am not foolish enough to make such a guarantee...).  The person was offended when I inquired how they could have employees they do not trust, yet have those same emplyees handle client information.  I can see setting up surveillance as a prevention tool (I have them around my home for just such a purpose, good fences and good cameras make good neighbors out of bad ones), but I cannot see how having employees you know you do not trust is beneficial.

"She did purchase all of the chairs, sinks, dryers, tables, furniture and fixtures as well as the name and the clientele."

"The previous owner walked away with the money and will proceed to render services out of her home."

Not that the buyer asked your advice, and it is likely too late to intervene:

What did they buy as "clientele"?  As a former renter, the new owner should not have to pay for her own list of clients.  The other renters are not likely sharing their list of clients.  The former owner?  The former owner may have "sold" their list, but the value is little since many/most will follow the old owner.  (Having a daughter with "complicated" hair, we follow the stylist no matter where she goes.)

Even the shop name is of little value since the former owner is simply moving to another location (home).

True story.  My daughter's stylist worked for a chain in a mall.  When she moved from the chain to renting a booth elsewhere, we did not hear about it right away.  When we called the chain for an appt, the receptionist was not shy about telling us where our person moved to and giving us her cell number.  It is such a personal business, this is what may happen to your client as well, as your client may even be the one letting the customer know where the former owner is - if she does not, the customer will eventually find out and become a former customer anyway.

added:  If there was some sort of master list under the former owner's control (the only way I would see the list as having a value), the former owner was more than likely an employer since they controlled the clients and thus, scheduling.

Make sure you like the keyboard and the display, the two things you have to "live" with.  Secondary is whether or not I can get a higher capacity battery, and how much.  All new machines have enough hardware (or can be upgraded) to run most applications - unless you are trying for something special, like the fastest FPM for a game...

I understand, but the flaw is payroll is not all that static, with form and calculation changes... While we do not suggest updating every payroll run (as others do/require), I cannot think of a month where I have not changed something. A CD is outdated as soon as burnt.

We can always tell when media is going to change. Matches the time when we purchase a fair sized lot of current media. Finally got rid or our last box of 5.25 and last box of 3.5 floppies. For our current version cycle, we are at 6% receiving a CD. Of those, it is safe to say a large chunk download and never use the CD. Old habits, such as having a hard copy on hand in case the entire internet fails are hard to break.

MCB, your first order was in Nov of 2002... Our longest continious customer goes back to May 1986.

I am fond of following the regs and printing forms to keep for compliance. Dropping another copy in the mail is easy too.

Thanks for the mention...

Remember one oft forgotten "bit", if you never try to restore, you have no backup to rely on. Take the backup out for a "drive" once in a while so you can be somewhat confident it will work, contains what you need, you have the tools to restore, etc.

At least one backup should be off site, say on a cloud service or in a different location (not next door or in another room, but somewhere different, where you could actually work from).

Multiple backups. Have only one? Hardly worth the bother as it will no doubt fail when needed. Have a rotation of many, so if the most recent fails, you can go back a short time and try another. For tax prep, I would not want to repeat more than a day's work, so I would probably have at least 14 backups in rotation, so I can go back day by day for the last two weeks.

Write out and practice a disaster recovery plan. How will you get another computer/printer. Another internet connection. Another phone line, with forwarding your current number. How will you handle mail forwarding. What happens if you are unable to continue working.

Programmer by day, baseball official for avocation.

http://www.naso.org/Resources/TaxTips/Expenses.aspx

http://www.naso.org/Portals/0/TravelExpenseConsiderations.pdf

No home office, no transportation deduction when leaving from home.

If one leaves their primary location/job for a second location, you can deduct transportation expenses.

The only time I do not leave my first job for my avocation is for training meetings, although that is changing after reviewing this information...

The NY State Withholding Identification Number is "based" on the FEIN. NY can add a branch code suffix, or an alpha prefix.

I am rooting for the umpires... What happend last night is almost exactly what should have happened, except the umpire at second should have announced he had decided to change his call, not the crew chief. Technically speaking, no umpire can overrule another, but an umpire can take information from the others and change their own call...

Absolutely not advice... the only info I can remember about payments from a pre-tax plan was when the amount could be considered reimbursement (such as for medical expenses). But, it not something I deal with often so my memory is not fresh.

Aflac is a company name, not really something one can say is a specific plan type, or what tax reg it falls under.

Consulting the plan docs will be best.

The quick answer is usually based on who paid the premiums, and how. If the employer paid, then it is likely taxable. If the employee paid with after tax money, then it is likely not taxable. If the employee paid with pre-tax dollars, it is likely taxable.

But, consult the plan docs...

Our payroll software is strictly for payroll (excluded 1099's).

W-2's on plain paper or fills in forms.

If required by your state and/or SSA, you can efile W-2.

No support for W-2c

Our AP program can be used to fill in 1099-MISC forms

No support for efiling 1099's

No support for and c forms

Thanks for the kind words!

One can accomplish something similar by leaving the "home" computer on, and using off the shelf (free) remote access software. Prevents the data from residing on some unknown server(s) you have no control over, which in itself, may violate privacy laws in your state.

If what I have read here is correct, the new program uses the .NET framework. I do not, so I am no expert in that area. Personally, I gave up using any MS shared runtime libraries (meaning I do not use any MS programming tools) as they are filled with things I never will use, and which I have ZERO control over.

Looking at some wiki information on .NET, there are comments about there being performance issues with "garbage collection". "In large applications, the number of objects that the garbage collector needs to deal with can become very large, which means it can take a very long time to visit and rearrange all of them."

Probably makes no noticeable speed difference either way. The slowest part of your computer, besides the display process, is the file process. When the delays (for safety's sake) added by having a network / multi-user data setup, the using of the data becomes the bottleneck. What data from a file? Have to read the file, see if is in use, get any unsaved changes, increment the use count, etc., etc. Want to add/change something? Have to change the file, stop all uses of the file, update the data in all uses, restart all uses, let the others know you changed something, etc.

Whether or not you actually use a network is a small factor, as the software has to assume you are until it can be proved otherwise...

A single user program is like a parent doing a chore themselves. Gets done properly, at the needed time.

A multi-user/network program is like asking your child to do something. Eventually it may get done, maybe properly, assuming you remind, remind again, nag, check, recheck, instruct on how to do it correctly, then redo it properly yourself.

Both ways can get the job done, but with differing levels of complexity and elapsed time.

It could be the provider wants to make all business accounts static. Sometimes they like to use a static IP to make it easier to monitor your activity, such as if you are hosting a site on your own computers, which might not be allowed.

So you may have no choice unless you can drop the business account and go to a personal account.

Tech wise, if they called you to let you know, they should be able to handle the change easily, probably a one or two click setup change in your router, and a router reboot. It should cause you no problems - if you were doing something which made the IP matter for your needs, you would already know it, and how to handle it on your end.

From the RR, for those not wanting to use the link:

"Whether amounts paid to employees for employee-provided equipment, including vehicles, that are used by the employee to provide services as an employee are wages subject to federal employment taxes?"

"Situation 2 – Business A also hires laborer D to perform services as an employee. Employee D uses D’s pickup truck for transportation along the pipeline. Employee D is paid an hourly wage of $X for the performance of services as an employee and is also paid an additional amount of $Y per day for providing the pickup truck. Business A does not require D to substantiate mileage or actual employee business expenses incurred while performing services as an employee of A. Employee D is not required to return any of the daily amounts paid for the pickup truck if the amount paid exceeds the employee business expenses D incurred in connection with the pickup truck while performing services as an employee of A. (Laborer D is not an independent contractor.)"

"Under the facts specified in Situations 1 and 2, the amounts paid to employees B, C, and D for providing equipment, including vehicles, used in performing services for the employer as an employee are not paid under an accountable plan. Each arrangement fails the business connection requirement because in each situation the employer pays an amount to the employee regardless of whether the employee incurs (or is reasonably expected to incur) business expenses that would be deductible under §§ 161 through 198. Each arrangement fails to require the employee to substantiate employee business expenses, as required by § 1.62-2(e). Finally, the arrangements do not require the return of excess as required under § 1.62-2(f)."

"In Situations 1 and 2, because the amounts paid to the employee for providing equipment, including vehicles, for use in performing services as an employee are not paid under an accountable plan, they are wages subject to the withholding and payment of income and employment taxes."

(THE ONE EXCEPTION I SEE, WHICH WOULD NOT APPLY TO OP:)

"Under the authority of § 7805( , a taxpayer that actually paid amounts separate from wages for the use of employee-provided equipment (such as described in Situation 1 and the truck described in Rev. Rul. 68-624) and reported these payments on timely issued Forms 1099 for calendar years beginning before January 1, 2002, may continue to report these payments on Form 1099 for periods ending on or before December 31, 2002."

"Situation 1 – Business A is engaged in pipeline construction and repair. A hires welder B and heavy equipment mechanic C to perform services as employees in connection with the construction of a pipeline. Business A requires B to provide and maintain a welding rig for B=s use in providing welding services and requires C to provide and maintain a mechanics rig for C=s use in performing repair and maintenance services at the work site on the employer=s heavy equipment. B and C are required to provide rigs sufficient to perform the required employee services. (Neither employee B nor C is an independent contractor.)
A welding rig consists of a truck equipped with a welding machine and other specialized welding equipment required to perform welding services. B is paid an hourly wage of $X for the performance of services as an employee. In addition, A pays B an hourly amount of $Y per hour for providing the welding rig. This rig reimbursement is only paid for those hours that B performs services as A’s employee."

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/rr-02-35.pdf (edited to an irs.gov link)

This is the ruling I gave to the employer the one time I ran into this.

If this is still the law, the OP is in a tough spot. The proper way to file is to show it as income, pay the employee part, and let the IRS deal with the employer. The client/employee may not want to "rock the boat", and want you to treat it incorrectly (according to the ruling) as a proper 1099.

Not an expert on this...Saw this once, from a payroll perspective. The employer changed (properly IMO) to adding the amount as part of their pay, and paying all employer taxes on what used to be "rent".

I thought that might do the trick. I "wish" there were a driver flag to indicate a PDF or other "printer", as opposed to a piece of hardware you load paper into, but there isn't. Many (including myself) are left with only scanning the printer name (which can be edited by the computer user) when it might be better to use (or not) certain types of "printers".

Just thinking. How is ATX hiding primo as an option? What if you went into control panel, and changed the name of the primo pdf "printer" to something else, say "HP LaserJet II" (a known name) or "HP LJ 9999" (a fudged name)?

Won't work if ATX forces final printing only through their own driver, but if there is a printer selection dialog of some kind, maybe they are simply scanning the printer names and not including known PDF drivers...

needmoreupdate, Something wrong with saving with each bit of data entered? I think not. What if there is a power outage? A network glitch? Imagine filling out a long form, the software does not save each field, and you have to give your computer a three fingered salute, the power goes out, or whatever.

A SSD for active data is not the best use (at present). SSD's are currently best used for static things, like your OS and program files. At some point in the future, after years of real world use, then maybe a SSD for heavy changeable data.