Lion EA

WIth over $400, your client is probably going to get that Nastygram re SE. So, just alert him to give it to you when it arrives so you can respond for him.

For the #1 type, if you have any worries about his real residency situation, cut him loose. A polite letter, as has been suggested, during the off season to tell him you are concentrating your business in a different direction; give him some franchise phone numbers if you want. For the #2 type, I also like the earlier suggestion of booking a tax-planning appointment at $XXX/hour with her. She probably doesn't want to know badly enough to pay and just wants to complain. But, if she's genuinely interested then tell her that now in the off-season is when you provide tax planning, and that you will NOT have the time to do so during the busy tax season. For ALL clients that are needy, I increase their fees each year, a lot.

Only if he earned $700 plus the $1,000 he reported. If the $1,000 included the $700 and if it really was not a for-profit business, then you're done. But, I can see an IRS letter re SE tax in his future.

I will probably continue with TTB Deluxe in paper as it's subsidized by my NY/CT-ATP group and sometimes I just need something in paper to shove under a client's nose fast !! And, it comes with Lasser's Pro, too. But, for my workhorse, I will probably renew IntelliConnect. I like how it works both within and without ProSystem fx. I get faster with it each year, and it adds features each year. But, I am looking at new products this year....

I just searched "locking mailbox" and found hundreds of designs. So, you can pick one that will be obvious to your clients, but not obvious to your mailman! And, that fits your home's style and colors. I think the most important point is that it allows a really fat package of tax documents to be inserted totally. Although, even more important is that it's securely fastened to your house in some manner that you trust and that will be perceived as trustworthy by your clients. I'm not sure a post would be secure -- even if no one can break into the box quickly, they could cut off the box to steal and break open at their leisure. That's why I like my mail slot -- the documents land in my locked house. I did consider having the mail slot in the wall of my house so packages land in my front closet to keep out the cold, but decided I can add a flap of insulation if needed (which I haven't). Can you have a mail slot in a door or in a wall with packages dropping into a box fastened inside your house? Instead of a box outside your house where someone could steal the box? Then nothing lands on your dog!

Even without a mail slot, I still think you need a storm door if your house is cold !!

A couple of years ago I had a carpenter client install a large mail slot in my front door. I still have a storm door which stops most drafts. And, my entryway is a small square from which you turn right into my living areas or left into a short hallway and then right into a longer hallway to the bedrooms, bathroom, and my office; so really no extra cold (or hot and humid) air creeping into the house. I love it. And, best of all, my clients love it so they use it.

But, handy for those forums re specific software or software issues you don't have. I don't use it on this General Chat forum but do use it on the others from time to time. I've also used it after being away and viewing this forum on a mobile device or borrowed computer only to find when I return home that nothing was marked Read while I was away. Of course, I have to skim through to get caught up first.

Thanx, I needed that !!

Groan!

Like everything in tax, it's case by case! Volume, # of licenses, individuals &/or entities, how many states, and on and on. TaxWorks users trading up to UT are getting a great deal. The rest is up to negotiation. I think some deadlines are coming up 15 May or end of May, so talk to your sales reps again!

I have my NY certificate with an expired date, because I don't have to renew as an EA (but had to get the first year -- thank you NYSEA for fighting for us EAs to get rid of the renewals!).

Although I'm not likely to change, I do like to keep up with what's out there. I have so many people on extension this year with Congress delaying forms, that this would be a possible year to work with a new program doing extensions to get up to speed. So, I was on an Ultra Tax webinar this morning. They don't do anything ProSystem fx doesn't do, and couldn't answer a couple of my questions that would be deal breakers. But the rep is talking to me later today or tomorrow. RFassett and anyone else on this board: I've used ProSystem fx for six tax seasons, so please feel free to call on me. It's not presumptuous! My practice is just me. I don't do a lot of returns, but they are not simple. I have a little bit of a lot of things: partnerships, S-corporations, trusts, and nonprofits, and even a corporation that catches up every three years or so. Most of my returns are individual, many NY commuters and other multi-state returns. I wish I could concentrate on just individuals. But, when a spouse starts an LLC with a partner or grandma opens a trust for a client's son or a client otherwise adds a new return, I don't want to send them away. My software and its tech support have been my safety net. What I don't spend on office rental or an assistant (just haven't been able to keep an assistant capable of learning taxes out here in the boonies) I spend on my software. If I were younger and likely to expand and to add preparers, I might spend more on office space and less on software. Different strokes.

Feel free to ask me any ProSystem fx questions.

Oh, I do remember those days. Maybe a teenage girl who's always dieting?!

I need a teenage son again to help with tech !! Mine is now 30-something and living between two mountains with limited communication, so his tech skills have been slipping. One of his friends was a big help for awhile, but is now busy with career and family. Maybe I could adopt. Be a godmother. Do any of you have a loaner?

I carry my hp 12C with me when I go to a client's for a quick calculation (love the flexibility of RPN and being able to hold numbers in the calculator's memory instead of mine) and for financial calculations, and it sits on my desk for that quick calc while on a phone call. I do have a paper tape adding machine, was my father-in-law's, that gets plugged in for audit prep to run the tapes and attach them to stacks of receipts, and my very part-time assistant prefers to use it when I have her totaling a client's "shoebox." (One of my shoebox clients is the one I lost this year, detailed in another thread, so I think I'm down to only one shoebox client after getting the others to bring me organized totals after some training on my part and showing them how much they'd save in bookkeeping charges.) My office looked that way for ONLY ONE DAY, because the professional NY photographer and his assistant styled it, moving furniture, bringing in the kids' pictures from the living room, lighting it attractively, etc. Of course, I was up all the night before cleaning and organizing bookshelves, etc. Just like all of you I'm sure, I have stacks all over my desk and floor and every surface. I have a client coming this afternoon to pick up so will move all my desk stacks to the floor or the bed in the guest room (home office) and make sure no client information is showing. I might even dust !! I haven't vacuumed in a while as I have too many papers on the floor. The writer is also a pro from CA maybe, did all the interviewing via phone and email. Loved them all. PS There are some videos out there and audios that came from a preliminary interview by a CCH marketing guy. Don't know if you can link to any of them from the magazine article. If you do see a video, notice my desk, as I had not yet received all my new monitors nor taken off the hutch to give me more desk space. In fact, the last connection for the third monitor arrived the evening before the magazine shoot, so I'd been using only two monitors and hadn't worked out my current configuration. Found one: https://www.brainshark.com/cch/vu?pi=zHSzkeeTjz2PNBz0&text=cchgroup

I lost one this season. She was a very needy client (for instance, wanting legal advice because I'm cheaper than her lawyer!) taking time and depressing me with her complaints about her health, divorce, children, etc, during my already stressful season. I raised her price each year. She moved to a southern state, but continued to mail me her materials. Finally, this year, she called to tell me she'd found a less expensive preparer local to her and thanked me for all my years of help and offered to return if she could afford me again and to send her boyfriend's more complex tax situation to me and that type of thing. I wished her well. I do lose clients to death some years and, as you mentioned, to marriage if the spouse has a stronger relationship to another preparer (I usually lose the female clients, but the males bring in their new wives. Are we still a male-dominated society?). But families continue to send me more relatives, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. So, I have a net increase every year.

So, I switched the landscape monitor to my left as I got farther into tax season 2011. And, my office was clean that day for the photo shoot. In fact, the photographer and his assistant styled my office, but not me! It's never looked this good since.

The other picture I have is too big to upload. But, it's about the same as the one in the magazine link. Thank you, John, for the process to attach files.

http://www.cchgroup.com/opencms/opencms/web/TAA/Microsites/Partners/files/Partners_CCH_SP11.pdf Scroll down to the bottom right to click on Spring 2011 and then go to pages 6 and 7. I sometimes have my laptop open, too. My techie put a Share folder for things I want available on both my laptop and desktop, the files I work on at a clients on my laptop but then like to open the Excel spreadsheets on my 24" desktop monitor.

I have my left monitor landscape with this board and email right now, but also have Chrome tabs open for news, mail from my two bookkeeping clients, Facebook, and Twitter, and have an Excel spreadsheet minimized; often have QB open or minimized. When actively working on a return, the left screen might have client documents that were scanned or client email open or a client Excel spreadsheet or client QB or any combination of client data. On the middle portrait screen is the current tax prep; and on the right portrait screen is the government forms of tax prep now that ProSystem fx has a dual screen option. Portrait for tax prep so I don't have to scroll down to view a full page. I usually have the prior year .pdf minimized and available to pop up on the left or right screens, or on the middle if I'm comparing prior with current government view, or even the prior year program if I'm searching for how I entered something in the past. All three (24" Dells that were on sale a year or two ago) pivot between portrait and landscape and all swivel, so I can turn a screen to a client (but I seldom prepare with a client sitting here, maybe review on screen when they come in to finalize). I was told to use an odd number of monitors with the center one for current data entry. A colleague has six, three over three. Before ProSystem fx had dual screen mode, 2010 and earlier, I had prior year on the left portrait, current year on middle portrait, and right landscape with all the other things I want open.