Chowdahead

I have been getting several Federal E-File rejections which have garbled text. It seems to me like it's a technical problem with the e-file itself and not with the actual tax return. Usually, a rejection error will be straight forward like dependent name and ssn do not match. But this year I have seen a number of rejects that just come back with a bunch of coding that makes no sense to me. My only choice is to re-create it and re-send because I don't know what's wrong and I don't have 2 hours to spend to get through to ATX to troubleshoot the issue. Has anyone else here run into any returns with a problem like this?

After I updated automatically to 12.7 on Server ATX 2012 will not open on the workstation. When I initially tried to open it on the workstation it said there was an update available so I tried to update but then it generated an error saying a file could not be accessed and I could choose Try Again, Ingnore, or Cancel. I cancelled and ran Netsetup on the workstation. I uninstalled ATX 2012 on the workstation, and reinstalled. Now it will not open. The ATX splash screen doesn't appear and it doesn't appear in my list of running processes. I tried to launch it 10 times and it doesn't run. I have rebooted. I have disabled Windows Firewall and antinvirus on both Server and Workstation I have even mapped a drive to the exact folder on ther Server where the program is installed and gave Full Control. It doesn't appear to be an access issue because Netsetup uninstalls and installs on the workstation. I just cannot launch the software on the workstation. The Server is working normally. Have been on hold for tech support for an hour. Still waiting. Any ideas?

Who in the world would run this year's program without Auto-Save enabled? There are two things I did 10 days ago to help mitigate the 20 crashes a day I was experiencing. Set Auto-Save to 5 minutes. I would set it to every minute if I could! I wish it would Auto-Save upon each keystroke like Google Docs! Disable Auto-Update at start-up. I was starting the program so much due to crashes in the middle of returns that I had to disable this feature so speed the reboot process up! And it's hard to judge if business is lower than the same time last year due to the late e-filing start date. Plus, many people held on to their docs because they assumed they couldn't file before Jan 30th, so they didn't even visit their preparer. Plus many rental property owners cannot file yet due to no being able to calculate depreciation. Plus I have some students holding out for the availability of the 8863. Should all even out in the end (hopefully). But I also agree that if ATX doesn't offer some sort of compensation for this debacle I will be switching to another program, even if it costs me double. Honestly, if I had to pay twice what I paid for ATX I'd pay it to not suffer the stress I have suffered this year. I think I aged a year in a single weekend! Plus I'd be interesting in a class action, however, I can only imagine it would be difficult to quantify damages over such a large group.

All of a sudden since the 12.6 update the residency documents checklist for the EIC started to appear as a yellow warning list during a return check. It warns that this should be completed before e-filing. Why wasn't this showing up before? I called a couple of fellow preparers and they stated that their programs have been displaying this since the beginning of the tax season. This is the second time ATX has done this with the EIC. There were were several other questions on the EIC that were originally not required to be answered but all of a sudden they were required during an update. This also caused a number of my federal e--files to be rejected with a bunch of garbled code because ATX changed some of the boxes to be automatically checked "Does not apply", Ughhh.. I need coffee. Am I making sense?

However, if the taxpayer was a "Non-Resident Alien" in that tax year, then they do not qualify for the EIC according to the 8867. Yet I heard a woman on local Spanish-Language radio here the other day openly saying that this is possible and people are leaving money that is theirs on the table. So this is being discussed even on the airwaves. I just don't know how that question regarding Non-Resident Statis can be ignored. The question posed is not asking about the client's status at the time of completing the 8867; it's asking what the person's status was during the actual Tax Year being filed.

Disable antivirus software and reboot. See if that helps. Make sure you set the anti-virus to be disabled even after a reboot. This solved many problems for me.

I have disabled my anti-virus software until ATX fixes this year's disastrous program. So far, performance on the server has increased by about 80-90% since disabling the anti-virus. Performance has increased about 50% on the workstation where anti-virus was also disabled. It's a risk but I am losing customers left and right because each return is taking me an extra 30-40% more time to complete becasue of the frequent crashes and sluggish performance. Yesterday 2 walkins walked out of my office because I was taking so long to get a return completed. The program crashed once during prep and then crashed when I went to print. When I launched the program the ATX splash screen displayed for a full 7 minutes before loading! Saving the return takes 20 seconds each time I pressed save! 1 out of 5 print jobs caused the program to crash. Since disabling antivirus this has all gone away, although it did crash once on ther server when saving , and it hung while printing, but this was twice in 4 hours compared to 5 times an hour before. Performance is almost on-par with last year's program with the anti-virus disabled. We use Avast by the way. It seems the anti-virus is interfering with the program's ability to operate. I'm assuming this is ATX's fault. Perhaps they didn't code the software properly so anti-virus software wouldn't interfere. There is supposed to be a remedy in the next update this week according to the Blog. In the meantime, we are limiting our web surfing to just news sites andcertain safe sites (like this one). Firewall is still active. I just hope it's not too late to salvage this tax season.

There is a question on the 8867 I believe that asked if the person was a Non-Resident Alien for any part of the year. if you check yes, that will disqualify the person for the EIC I believe. Sine the person was here illegally (or without Permanant Residence Status) during those years, I think they may be considered a "Non-Resident Alien" for those years before they had a Permanant Residence Card and hence an SSN issued to to them. So essentially you would have to check "No" in that box in order for the EIC to calculate.

Is anyone else seeing that certain Payers don't seem to either rollover or save in the Payer Manager? I swear I've added the two local state unemployment offices about 20 times onto a 1099-G because they cannot be found in the Payer Manager. There are lots of people collecting unemployment so to have to enter these in all the time is a time waster for me. I also have a popular local temporary staffing agency that refuses to show up either, despite being on many orior year returns and being entered multiple times. The "Add to Payer Manager" box is checked all the time. When I go to the Payer Manager, all of these "missing" Payers show up a multitude of times in the Payer Manager, but they refuse to show up within the returns. What gives?

At around 1am last night I discovered I had a return like this as well. The return is showing errors but the errors have been corrected. I restored the field and tried everything. I gave up and will try to fix it again today. I actually have two returns like this. The other one is an error saying the ckient isn't 18 so he cannot use Fee Collect, but the guy is 31-years-old!!

This is my life right now! This message is seared into my brain at this point. My dad helps me out on a workstation and yesterday I had never seen him so frustrated... and he has been helping me for 9 years using ATX. He's yelling at me "Check the forums!", "Call this company and find out what they are going to do!". I told him it's a 2 hour wait for Customer Support.. if you can even get into the queue. The workstation he uses constantly just hangs while opening returns. Yesterday he sat in front of the computer for 20 minutes waiting for a return to open. The screen simply said "Loading Return", with the nice and fancy animation. In all that time he had to make small talk. I work on the server and the program generally crashes about 5 times per hour. Usually when either printing or deleting a form from the return. This happened to me at about 1230am last night. Tired. Exhausted. Trying to catch up and go home and when I right-clicked a form tab to delete it.... the screen greyed out suddenly and the dreaded box came up "cchfs has stopped working the program will close". I literally screamed and pounded my fists on the desk. When I need to open ATX 2011, it's like I died and went to heaven -- that's how smooth that program ran!!!

I wish they would include the state refund(s) up there as well. Woild make life even easier.

Exactly, but I only file 1 or 2 paper returns an entire tax season. The rest are all e-filed. So why do the the Client Copies need to automatically include the Federal Attachments for State when there is already a Federal return in the packet?

Anyone here know how to disable the "Federal Attachments for State" in the Print Dialog Box? It shows up under Client Copies which makes no sense. Why does a client need a second copy of their federal return for their records? Makes no sense? I went into the Print setting and looked under all of the Statement and Worksheet options and I cannot find anyway to disable "Federal Attachments for State" from printing. This is like an extra 12-20 pages every single return if I forget to uncheck it while printing. Then I just end up shredding it. This is not good for the paper and toner budget.

I have Windows 7 on both machines.

So far, here are the issues I have found with ATX this year, even with the latest update. Mind you, this is while only having worked on the more normal and basic returns since many of my clients who own rental property must wait until the end of February. I'm sure there are more, but these I actually had time to jot down while using the program. this is the first time I have had to do this with ATX. I've always had minor problems, but 95% of the time I was able to solve it through this site or the KB. My systems have 4GB RAM each. Apparently I am going to have to install more, although users with more RAM have reported similar issues. Unstability. The program crashes about 10-15 times per 12 hour work day. Crashes usually consist of a Windows 7 dialog box saying the program is unresponsive and must be closed. This usually happens either when rolling over, adding a form, or changing the print copies from Filing Copy to Client Copy. Slow!!!. It takes longer to do everything, especially Rollovers, adding a form to a return, and even creating E-Files. This gets exponentially worse the longer the program is used. See next bullet. Memory consumption. When first opened, the program consumes a reasonable 120 MB of system memory. As more returns are worked on, this rises to as high as 1.2GB of system memory used, even if only one return is open at a time. By comparison, ATX 2011 uses only 64MB of system memory. As more memory is consumed, the program becomes unbearingly slow and requires a sustem reboot to clear the memory. Dialog boxes frequently appear behind the main window so I don't see them. When a return is opening, the entire program will sometimes disappear from the screen for 5-10 seconds and then reappear when the return opens. Checkboxes like Filing Status sometimes appear to be unchecked. Shen you click them the check will momentarily appear and then disappear because you actually unchecked it and the return will recalculate. On the dependent worksheet, removing a dependent from a rolled over return still leaves behind the Relationship, even if you change it to <blank>, the previous relationship entry will re-appear. You cannot delete this field. It doesn't appear to affect the return but it's still sloppy in my opinion. When attempting to rollover over returns, a message regarding "insufficient resources" will appear 2-4 times per day at minimum, forcing a restart of the program. Printing is wildy unstable and unpredicatable. Despite unchecking many different forms in the Print settings, I still get a lansdscape Client Mailing Sheet in some returns, along with the desired portrat Client Mailing Sheet. Switching from Filing Copy to Client Copy to Preparer Copy often causes the program to become unresponsive. All Copies contain State Attachments for some reason which is basically another copy of the Federal return. There is no way to turn this off in the Print Manager (from what I have found) and this has to be unselected during every print job unless you want to consume an extra 3 boxes of paper this tax season. Why does the Client Copy need the Federal Attachments for State???? At times printing will simply break and say "Printing Failed". Only fix is a system reboot. The Print Manager will sometimes inexplicably revert the Default Printer to Adobe PDF for some reason when opening a return started before the default Printer was established within the program. The default printer will then need to be selected for each Copy all over again. Opening a Return that was started on the workstation will sometimes default to the Workstation printer instead of the server printer, requiring you to retrieve the printout from that printer instead. Howver, clicking "Print page" in that same return will still print to the server printer. The Client Letter manager has become so unbearimgly complicated I am not sure it's even worth using. It's not intuitive and requires tons of extra clicks and extra work. When using Fee Collect, the refund amount is not automatically recalculated to reflect the deducted preparer fees, despite saying that it does reflect it. There is also an option to "Show Cents" in the refund amount, but cents never show up in the letter. This must be manually calculated each time in the Letter Options. State Client Letters will always say the state refund will be mailed regardless if Direct Deposit is selected on the State E-File Info tab, unless you manually go in and change the Letter Options each and every time. What happened to last year when all I clicked was "Forms>Client Letter and both Fed and State letters would appear with no extra clicking. An error is sometimes generated stating that the client cannot use Fee Collect because he/she is not 18-years-old, despite the fact that the client is 31-years-old and the date-pf-birth on the File Info tab on the 1040 form is clearly a 1982 birth year. Replacing the form with 1040A has no effect. I have not found a solution to this bug other then re-doing the entire return from scratch. Only the default Admin username can create e-files. In the Security settings it appears that you can designate a user as an "Administrator" but when you attempt this it tells you there can only be the default Admin username as an "Administrator". So I have no idea why "Administrator" is an option on the list along with "Office Manager" and "Tax Preparer" if it cannot be assigned. You will need to login as the actual Admin username in order to create e-files. Checking the "Remember Me" box on the login screen has no effect as it remembers nothing next time. On the workstation, the program will frequently hang at the ATX 2012 splash screem and proceed no further. The only remedy found is to Ctrl+Alt+Del and kill the program, run netsetup, uninstall, run Netsetup, re-install. This must be done several times per day. On workstation, "Forms Mismatch Error" will frequently block opening of returns and require opening it in ATX 2011 first, and then opening it in ATX 2012. Occasionally even this will not work on workstation and must be done on the Server. Important forms like Last Year Comparison are unavailable. State E-file Info form is still unvailable, preventing e-filing of State Returns with the Federal Return. There are probably more but I am too tired to think right now. Feel free to post what you have found.

I am on hold with ATX over yet another issue. The new thing this year is that the idiotic voice system asks you every 10 minutes if you wish to remain in the queue. If you fail to press "1" in 30 seconds it says "Goodbye". What kind of idiotic, uncustomer friendly gesture is this? Plus, the response of the system is slow. You press a key and it takes over a minute to respond with the next menu. I have already been disconnected TWICE after waiting for 20 minutes each time because I put the phone on speaker while I attend to other returns or field calls. So if I even get distracted momentarily while this idiotic message comes up, I get hung up on and have to call back and start at the back of the queue. The wait time is over one hour. Frequent calls to ATX. Now their system makes it more difficult to just put them on speaker and continue to work!!!! Can this year really get any worse? Who is running this company? Do they even know how a tax office operates?

The ack from the IRS is still pending. I expect that tomorrow or Friday. However, with Fee Collect you will see a bank status pretty quickly because the bank is the one that collects the fees.

Sent my first test e-file late last night.... a return using Fee Collect. As soon as it was accepted the Bank Status indicated "Rejected by Bank". I have no idea what this means. So I view the Rejection Errors and this is literally what appears. I'm sorry but... WTF??? It literally says "In other words...". What kind of beta product is this???? For those of you who don't know, this language is usually inserted as a placeholder in software that is in testing. The actual language is supposed to actually appear in finished software. Now I have to make sure my fees are going to be collected before I take a chance on any more. I am currently on hold with ATX and the wait time is over an HOUR. This year has been a disaster. I have never seen anything like this!!!! It's one issue after another.. after another.. after another. And I am completely up-to-date.. including the latest patch which took AN HOUR TO DOWNLOAD.

I am at the point that when a client sits down I immediately roll them over and open their return while making small talk for the 2-3 miniutes I know it will take to get their return open.

This is an upgrade over last year? I am counting myself foryunate that I am even able to open the program on my server and workstation, but this year's program is taking about 10-20 times the amount of time to rollover or simply open a return. Rollover is slow. But opening a return, even after opening it multiple times, is way too slow. I timed how long a simple 1040 return took to open and it was around 1 minute and 12 seconds. And when it's about to open it the entire program (as in I can see my desktop or other program running behind it) oddly disappears for about 5 seconds and then the return displays on the screen within the program. Plus everything just seems sluggish. The list of returns to rollovers sometimes take a few seconds to appear. And all of this is on the server. The workstation is 10-20% slower. When I open up ATX 2011 I'm almost shocked at the speed compared to this year. Returns in 2011 open almost instantly. I have a Dell Vostro 260 3.3Ghz with 3 GB of RAM so although it might not be the fastest PC out there it's plenty enough to run all my other apps very quickly. ATXX 2012 stills seems like it's in testing phase.

Yikes I see that Form 4562 Depreciation and Amortization is on the list of forms that cannon be e-filed until Late Feb. or early March! This means owners of rental property, are going to pretty upset.

I've considered going paperless but you can never go truly paperless. I wouldn't feel comfortable not storing the original W-2s and signed e-file authorizations. Plus their are other important docs like privacy policy, and bank docs that are necessary.

Does it integrate with ATX?

I just want to pick your brain on how you organize your client files. For some perspective, I have about 700-800 clients. I absolutely hate writing client names on file folders by hand. However, I have tried to use labeling machines like Dymo and I find that they have a high operating cost because the cartridges are very expensive. Plus it gets time consuming to have to manually punch in the name, and then have to retype or reprint if there is an error. Is there a better way that integrates nicely with ATX, such as a specialized label printer or something?