JohnH

I'll have to agree with the comments about the sales department. One reason my my late renewal was a little negotiation I was carrying on with them on a relatively minor matter, partly because I believe the sales department gives one a pretty good indication of management's respect for their customer, or lack thereof. I was trying to add some info on whether this is a company I want to plan to do business with for the long haul. The non-accounting half of my work life is spent selling biomedical capital equipment in a professional setting, so I have some strong opinions on what constitutes valid sales practices vs gutter selling. I'll have to say that my experience with them was nothing for them to be proud of. Each sales person tried their best and did a decent job of trying to service the customer. However, when my requests caused them to consult with their manager, the response they were told to give me was only worthy of the sleaziest car dealer I've ever had the misfortune to deal with. Very disappointing and not an encouraging sign for any future relationship.

If TaxWise ever had a board, I'm betting that at some point it was shut down in a rude & abrupt manner in order to "maintain their commitment to a high level of customer satisfaction." The Tax Book also has an excellent forum which is managed by its owners, but isn't beholden to any software provider. As an added bonus, they publish a top-notch reference book which rivals Quickfinder and IMO is much better in many ways. Enrollment is open - you don't have to be a TaxBook subscriber to participate in their forum, but they do enforce some pretty strict rules about what is & isn't appropriate (some on this Forum might even call them arbitrary). http://www.thetaxbook.com/

Gail: I just now tried it and it worked fine. My new password uses exactly the same letters and in the same sequence as the original, but the last 2 digits are "02" rather than "01". Only problem is, I'm now using my Feb password during Jan and I can't change back (but I'll adapt, for the good of the team)

At some point you've got to do what's best for you and complain about the service with your feet next year if you believe that's what's called for. I only renewed this past Thursday afternoon; didn't get the promised email, so I called on Friday afternoon. The rep gave me the code over the phone and followed up with an email. As KC pointed out, my spam filter may have trapped the email, but it was easier to call & ask than to search the spam inbox for something from them.

Remember to change that password at least every 45 days as well. And you can't revert back to a previous password until it's buried 10 deep in the list. I'm thinking a good way to handle this would be to select a password that ends in two digits. For these two digits, just use the curent month (01, 02, 03,...12). The on a certain day (ie. the first Monday of each month), just remember to change the last 2 digits of the password to the current month.

Yeah, you're right. No reason to be unrealistic. He should have only promised 900%

What I don't understand is why the crook only promised a 200% return on the money in one year. With someone this gullible & greedy, he should have promised at least 1,000% just to keep it interesting. This situation reminds me of the dialogue from a somewhat confused HBO serires a few years ago (Samson is the carnival owner and Lyle is the local sherrif): Samson: I'm telling you, Lyle, this operation's legit. Lyle: I ain't never heard an honest man use the word "legit."

And just think, ATX thought the forum wasn't accomplishing much. I wonder how many people out there who don't have access to this Community (because the haven't heard of it) are sweating out this problem with nothing in the way of a solution except a promise that they'll "have a meeting" about it.

My experience has been the same with Zillion Forms since I installed it about 3 weeks ago. Have updated every day or so and have experienced no problems. After almost jumping ship for individual return prep software, I finally made a decision & purchased 1040 Office today (1/10/08) so I'll be loading & updating it shortly. It's encouraging to hear things are (mostly) going smoothly for others on this forum. (I'm still disappointed over not getting a coffee pot or microwave in the deal)

Great point KC. I guess people's willingness to do a little extra work is better motivated by reminding them that you're trying to help them keep THEIR ox from being gored rather than someone else's.

1) They can have as many bank acocunts as they can keep up with. 2) That's the first time I've ever heard of a percentage for payroll. It's unrealistic and totally irrelevant to the real world. The percentages paid to staff for a 20-member church meeting in someone's home would be quite different than those numbers for a 10,000 member church meeting in a brand new building with tons of overhead & debt service. 3) I do recommend that churches keep offering envelopes for 7 years. It isn't a requirement, but if a church member gets into a wierd audit situation, it's nice to be able to provide the source documentation for their contribution records. It has noithing to do with rules & regulations, but everything to do with good stewardship & a high degress of financial accountability on the part of the church.

>>> Well, just got off the phone with ATX and now they are going to have a meeting tomorrow <<< Classic sign of a company getting so big that the bureacuracy takes over. Rather than immediately getting to work resolving the issue, the solution to all problems is to "have a meeting tomorrow".

We should encourage people to use "Fast Reply" whenever possible. Most of the time that's sufficient and from the user's point of view it's a little faster. And it would be helpful to only use "Quote" when absolutely essential, because quoting an entire previous post takes up a lot of real estate on the screen, which will become more important in the next 12-15 weeks. In most cases it's easy to figure out who is being addressed unless the reply is several posts down the line and the discussion has strayed.

Nicole: Thanks for that explanation. I think I'm beginning to understand, although maybe I'm underrating MAX. I do prepare 1120, 1120S, 941, W-2, etc in Zillion forms. I find that there is some linking in Zillion forms - for example when I prepare W-2 forms it will automatically calculate the 940 & W-3. But if I understand you correctly, I guess I could get more linking of ancillary forms when preparing corp returns if I used TTO with MAX - is that correct?. This quesiton came up again with me when I noticed some people asking questions about W-2 forms, because with Zillion Forms I was preparing W-2 forms & related reports back in the last week of December.

I've posted this question before but am still puzzled by the answers I received, so thought I'd post again on this string concerning 1040 Office. I was considering Total Tax Office, but after comparing features it seemed to me that Total Kleinrock Office (with Zillion Forms) coupled with 1040 Office was the better deal. That's what I bought the past two years, although I'm still on the fence about what to do this year. Total cost is a couple of hundred dollars less and I'm still not sure what I may be missing by buying this combo rather than Total Tax Office. Can anybody enlighten me?

I'm still relying on the HP Laserjet 1100. I keep two in service and one or two in reserve at all times. They are cheap to operate and can usually be purchased on ebay for about $30-$40 plus $20 or so in freight.

I signed up for CPASecure based on your recomendation. I've been using Xdrive for several years, which works pretty good, but some receint developments have me concerned about its long-term viability so I've been looking for an alternative. I'll try to post additional comments about CPASecure on this forum once I've kicked the tires a little.

Mel: Try this for starters: http://www.epill.com/multiplus.html

I love a forum with sharp wit & to-the-point humor.

This won't work with all clients, but for those clients who use email, it's great to get them oriented toward using it when they have questions to ask you. I get their email addresses when gathering their tax info, and then find a reason to email a question to them before finishing the return. I also email the annual letter to them. The purpose of all this is to get my email address in their inbox (and hopefully into their address book) so it wll be there when they have a question for me. If you can migrate half or more of your routine questioners over to email, think about how much that frees you up. I find that answering their emails on weekends or late in the evening is handy for me as it doesn't cut into the "Golden Hours", plus it further encourages them to send questions via email since they are likley to get a faster answer than by calling my phone. Even if the answer is "I'll need to look that up when I get back in the office", at least they know you're thinking of their question & it reassures them. OK I'm done. Think I'll take a nap now.

As an interim fix, it seems that once you get them into an Excel file you should then be able to make them print any way you want. Printing any type of label in Excel is a breeze once you've done it once or twice.

I don't use the organizer and have never printed it out, but in reading your post I wonder if it could be printed in a 2-up format to reduce paper usage. That may not be practical in this case, but I find that many things that I print are just as readable and usable in 2-up fotmat, even for my 59-year-old eyes.

--> Caribou City Manager Steven Buck says he is disappointed about the lack of communication from the company. (WAGM-TV) <--- Join the crowd, Mr. Buck

I decided to resurrect this string as my thoughts are turning to the subject just before tax season and I'm thinking there may be others in the same situation. Just wondering if anyone has a recommendation for a particular brand of portable backup drive that they recommend. I'm thinking that it would be easier to learn from the experience of others than to reinvent the wheel. So what brands & features are most important for someone who wants to basically back up as much of the hard drive as possible as rapidly as possible, using two portable backup drives that are alternated daily? Currently I'm looking at the Maxtor One-Touch Mini, 100GB drive on sale at Office Max for $99 each and would really like to know if anyone has experience with it (good or bad) to pass on.

I think the answer is "YES" in part. He can deduct the cost of each business card that he handed out.