Tax Prep by Deb

3 hours ago, Medlin Software said:

One "common" issue, with printing, is the Windows Registry containing/retaining invalid printer information.  There may be some sort of printer clean up tool (I have no idea), as I manually clean up the printer section from time to time.

For most, uninstalling ALL printers, then reinstalling just the printer(s) you are currently using, will get things going again.

I have that problem but uninstalling a re-installing didn't work.  ATX did show me a work around and it only happens when I first open ATX.  

Yes the market place does have HDHPs.  I currently have one.  I know it is so tricky.  My insurance guy is always calling me for info, and then when I start working on it from my end, I call him.  We have a wonderful working relationship.  He deals a lot with Covered California and it is a constant thorn in his side, but to give him credit where credit is due, every client I send to him and they allow him to get their insurance is always dead on when it comes to the end of the year calculations.  He is so good at what he does that I almost beg my clients to go to him and never try to get insurance on their own.  Those that choose to do it themselves are the ones that have mega troubles at the end of the year.

I'm replying off the top of my head but I believe if I remember correctly it is AGI then certain non taxable income added such as the non taxable portion of social security.

I work closely with an insurance agent and he would tell me what income level would be needed.  Don't forget too that if you need to reduce the income a little a contribution to an IRA would work as well as contributions to an IRA if the policy is a high deductible plan.

Don't forget the 500 dependent credit new this year.  I would keep him on his parents return and file him as a dependent on someone else return just to get him a refund if he has one coming.

Sorry that it had to affect your return at all.  Those fires were horrible, hope you and your family are OK otherwise.

Good catch however that is rarely the case.  I do drill clients (Yes drill, I keep them talking until I feel they are telling me the truth) and in all my cases they are either their kids or no relationship at all.

Not unless her kids are his kids.  If only hers they do not qualify him for head of household.

I kind of think like you said, mine was part of a test batch.  Usually I don't transmit early but new to Drake this year I wanted to check out the process.  I am amazed at the speed of Drake! 

Thank you for the tips!.  Now if I could figure out the mayor's thing,  and how to quickly select what I want to print.

58 minutes ago, Terry D said:

Is it possible this return was accepted by  the Drake servers and not the IRS or CA? From the client manager, right click on the client's name and select "Open Efile Data Base For Selected Client. This will give you the transmission detail. Maybe you just got one thru.

To answer your second question, in the client manager, the status will be displayed. It will show accepted, rejected, pending; etc. Also, look at the left side of the screen under alerts and notifications, if you have a notice you have acks to process, click that and it will give you the status as well. Trust me when I say, once you get used to Drake, you won't regret it. Yes, a small learning curve. In the early years of ATX/Sabre Pro, I always fought with how to know the status of a return. Last year I used ATX was 2007 so a lot may have changed.

It is showing as IRS accepted, and the state CA accepted.  Seems odd if they are not opening up till next Monday.

Now I am confused.  I have a single client very easy return.  I went ahead and prepared it last week and transmitted it to Drake so that when everything opens (I assumed next Monday) that she would be early in line.

Normally I don't send the state until Fed comes back, but because I know everything is ok I sent both.  State (California) came back the same day accepted.  I was playing around today and it seems like my Federal has been accepted as well.  I thought they were starting next week.  Am I just not understanding Drake?  First year using it and I find this part a little more difficult than ATX.  How do you all keep track of the ones that have been sent, pending, ect…  If you hold the state, what do you use to remind you to go back and send it?

Have you tried stopping the service than restarting it?  It's been awhile but I believe I had to do that once.

I switched to Drake this year and am amazed at how quickly and smoothly it runs.  As others have stated their support is very good with little to no wait time.

Did you try rebooting the computer?

I would.

when you select the file to upload, I believe at that time you can change the name on the file name bar.  I haven't done it in a while, but it seems to me this is what I did.

4 hours ago, Yardley CPA said:

Bob...I purchased and just sat through CCH's iPortal training that Deb is referring to in her post.  It looks fairly straight forward and syncs with the ATX Tax Program.  Here's some additional information on the product:

https://taxna.wolterskluwer.com/firm-management-and-workflow/ifirm/portal

I hope to set it up this weekend. 

 

Yeah, it's suppose to sync, but whenever I would try to send something from ATX program to the portal, nothing would happen.  Maybe they improved it for this year.  Also please watch out for any return that you change the address on.  Part of the training I went thru was to get all of my ATX clients into the portal data base.  That went very smoothly, however whenever I would make a change on the tax return thru ATX (such as address) then you will get a pop up asking if you want to sync with the portal, I said yes of course, but what happened was instead of changing the address in the portal, it changed it on the tax return.  I had several of these happen throughout the filing season and didn't figure it out until then end when I counted the number of returns that had been filed with the old address.

Not saying it will happen this year, but check it out.  Make sure that before you transmit the return, the address did not change back to the old one.

They have one I used last year.  It works great, but I never could get it to integrate.  I had to create a pdf and upload it.  They give you some good training and help you set it up.  It was rather expensive, over $500.  This year I switched everything out to Drake and there portal works just as good but is at least 1/2 the price.  My clients that used it, loved it.  It can be used either thru a pdf upload or clients could take pictures and upload them.

Thank you!  That's what I thought.

Question for a newbie.  I downloaded the earlier version.  Do I download the new version again? Or just update?  Do I have to uninstall the earlier? Or does it install over it?

Also if you post your problem here we may be able to help.  I had a problem and called Drake it took quite awhile but my support guy finally figured it out and it was simple.   If its the same problem I may be able to help. 

And with the Federal government shut down, there is no clue as to when things will be re-opened.  Hold on folks, I think this year is going to be a rough and bumpy ride!

Not a whole lot.  They have some very good practice returns to get you orientated, are very quick to pick up the phone, won't let you go until they get the problem resolved, (in my case I was the problem and when we both figured it out had a good laugh!).  I do not think you will be disappointed!  I too held off because of the learning curve, but what may slow you down a bit in entering you will more than make up for it in the speed of the program.  It loads instantly and not once has it even hiccupped!

I haven't done a complete season with it yet, but I am looking forward to it and am not disappointed so far!  As far as a learning curve, I figured this year even with ATX we were going to have a learning curve so why not start totally new?

Also on the Drake part of this board, they are eager to help and very quick to respond.  After all how did we all learn ATX?  It certainly wasn't because of a user manual.  We learned a lot on our own and asked help from others.  Believe me when I say that will not change if you switch to Drake!

Moved to Drake this year myself, so far loving it!

Ok, I am so new to this and the solution is probably right in front of my face, but I have a 2016 S Corp that I am trying to finish.  My client is not able to e-file it because she is currently working with a Revenue Officer and she wants all returns hand delivered.  Everything is set to go except I noticed that it is printing the clients signature.  How do I get the printed signature off?  Also I want my signature to be printed, how do I set this up?  I have spent the whole morning trying to figure this out.  Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I have Windows 10 pro and mine loaded ok.  Have you tried a reboot?  I ask that because I had problems loading the conversion program but after rebooting everything worked fine.

I am trying to finalize a S Corp return.  There was charitable donations on the books and I have recorded these (I'm using Drake Software this year) and they are showing as I expected as a deduction not to the Corp but on the Schedule K for the shareholder.  So far so good.  However when I go and look at the California return, they are giving the Corp a partial credit and carrying the remainder over, nothing flows to the California Schedule K.  Am I missing something?  I'm new to Corp return preparation but, I can't help but feel that I have not marked something correctly, or is this one of the instances in which California does allow the donation on the actual Corp tax return?

Any help will be greatly appreciated.