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In college we "learned" a version of a word processing program, a spreadsheet type program and a database type program. This was before MS offered any such programs that I'm aware of. All three programs came on a single 5.25". My first version of Lotus 123 I bought used - it was something like 25 3.5" floppies. That computer class was 1 semester and 1/2 mainframe and 1/2 PC oriented. I could do all the PC stuff, my fraternity brother handled the mainframe program. You didn't even have to submit a program - you submitted a printout of the program on green bar paper. Weird times.

HELP!! I CANT GET MY PROGRAM OPEN INITIALIZATION ERROR ISSUE CONNECTING THIS WORKSTATION TO THE CONFIGURED DATABASE PLEASE ENSURE THE SERVER IS RUNNING AND THE SERVICE IS STARTED

Ohio is very specific. Driver's License information. No other option other than a person not having a driver's license. Ohio can cross check the database for identity verification.

Yes I did at just over 3 and half hours. It was bitter sweet because the Rep I got was amazing. He was patient. He apologized twice for the other Rep disconnecting me. And best of all he was knowledgeable. He remoted in on my PC and was able to assist me. What happened was at the beginning of January ATX sent me a link to download the PaperlessPlus software but it still had the 2015 version. So that's why my activation code would not work. The two versions look almost identical. He was also able to clean up some networking issues and transfer my database over. I thanked him a million times. It was worth the wait. I am glad I didn't hang up.. I was tempted a few times.

Johnny: I Presume that you did have the clients in your file before the update, correct? Usually, it is just the link to the actual database that gets scrambled. Close 2016, open 2015, and then reopen 2016. Sometimes, that might help. if not, you have call customer support. Rich

I have ATX 2012 - 2016. They all have always been working fine in the past. I have windows 10 and recently just added a separate admin profile and a user profile on the computer. After doing so I came across the database server error. When I try to open ATX 2016 or 2015, the server progress box comes up saying database server error. "Could not open transactional storage: C:/ProgramData/CCH Small Firm Services\ATX 2016 Server\DataStore\Data" This keeps coming up and I've tried everything and it doesn't seem to work. Like I mentioned before, everything was working before I decided to add a admin and a user profile on the computer. I just don't see how that would effect it. I tried opening them as admin and it still doesn't work. Any suggestions?

I just installed 08-11 for some non-filers and it appears that the data location is in the program folder (e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\ATX2008). I see a Database folder and a Backup folder. I need to be sure because my offsite backup software needs to know which folders I want backed up, and I'd rather not backup up the entire programs folder. I would also like to backup program settings, customized master forms and customized letters. I believe the customized forms and letters are under Masters, under either Latest, Modified or Revisions, so I selected all three folders to be backed up, but I don't see a settings file anywhere. Thanks in advance!

After changing my router from verizon fios, i now try to load ATX 2015 and get error message could not open transactional storage with the status of some processes. Has anyone else had this issue.

Then you're probably going to pay handsomely for truly customizable software or else customize something yourself from Excel or a database software. For economical + customizable, you're going to have to demo a few (or maybe, many) to see what might meet your needs. Obviously, something that allows you to add custom fields. Call your current software provider to see if they have something for you to demo. Take a look at Catherine's worksheet. By the way, all the "calendar" programs I've seen DO include payroll, sales, that sneaky NY LLC fee I sometimes miss, etc., so you'd need fields to add client-specific needs, such as financial statements, info needed, staff, etc. When my sister worked at Northrup Grumman as government liaison with all the paperwork she had to deal with and government as well as company deadlines, she used a Windows calendar to track. She set it to alert her of upcoming events. Her computer would Ding, and then talk to her, such as, You need to get information from Jane Doe in XYZ dept. by Friday, and send her an email, and leave a text on her screen. I was sitting in her office one day when her computer spoke to us telling Jan she had to buy me a birthday present by tomorrow if she was going to get it in the mail to me by Friday to get it from IL to CT by my birthday! Since I was in town, she'd already given me my gift (Cub's tickets) but had forgotten to mark that activity done. Maybe you have a staffer who's good at research, demo-ing, customizing, etc., or three staffers.

I am getting the database server error problem today for the first time for both 2014 and 2015. 2013 works fine. any suggestions? of course sept. 15th is coming and I need to restore access.

how the IRS would ever allow those that are "registered" to practice before the IRS without ongoing CPE This is what is all about. I argued with IRS tax preparer office saying back then when I got IL registered CPA your office accepted my credentials as valid to be recognized and enrolled & listed me under IRS tax preparer database and what has changed overnight that you wont now. I spoke to IL dept of financial & professional regulation they are suggesting since law changed from 2012 wherein all subsequent CPA's are licensed CPA and no more registered CPA's and then I am grandfathered and would not be subject to 3 year 120 CPE requirements as the case may be for licensed CPA's.

I meant to post here on the forum about another scam too. About 10 days ago, I received a call on my office line from someone claiming to be from Medicare and needing to update my husband's personal information in the Medicare database. Yeah, right! The caller had a foreign accent and with lots of background noise, and is obviously a similar scam to others that try to fool the recipient into sharing personal data. I did a quick google search and found that this is targeting those on Medicare, Social Security, and that might have supplemental insurance, and it may be phrased as needing to update the information presented on any one of those cards.

I filed an extension for a fiscal year estate today and it was accepted within a couple of hours. The last one I tried to do the same thing for had that database mismatch. So it was the IRS, not me. Not too often we can say that.

Ran into the exact same thing for an estate I was trying to put on extension. I am using a fiscal year and filed the first 1041 with whatever year-end date. The extension for the second fiscal year kept rejecting because year end did not match IRS database, even though it exactly followed the prior year end. Thanks for sharing this tidbit. Now I know it's not me doing something stupid.

A May 31st fiscal year C corp had their 7004 rejected today with the error code indicating that the year end did not match the IRS database. The IRS rep on the practitioner priority line told me that an entity code is missing from the client's file and that IRS systems now think this is a calendar year taxpayer. Last year's return on extension e-filed without a hitch in Feb 2016, and when asked what changed since then, she then added that IRS is updating systems that might stop the e-files of some older companies that are missing these sorts of "codes" and that she's had more calls recently for this situation. Similar situations are occurring with S corps and the IRS system thinking those companies should be reporting as C corps. The bottom line is that even the paper-filed 7004 will be in limbo until the database is corrected, that the 1120 itself will also reject, and it is probably also holding up the processing of an 1120X for an NOL carryback. Rep told me that this might be fixed sooner, but the advice is to wait at least 30 days or more, and that the entity division might or might not send out paperwork requiring signatures. I have this work almost done and now will be holding the return for e-filing until this is straightened out. No way we want to paper file this. With 2 calls to the client, getting the POA, the call to IRS, and the trip to the post office, I wasted a lot of time on this today for something that should have taken a couple of minutes. /rant Anyone else run into anything like this recently?

This is old news. Note the sentence, " Those that complete courses would be included in a database that will be available to taxpayers for the 2015 tax season," and the cite to June (2015), The issue in the Loving case was that the IRS overstepped its bounds and did not have legal authority to impose regulation. The agency had the program up and running--exams created, CPE providers accredited, registration and payment system in place. After the court said they were not authorized to do so, all that set-up time and money went down the drain. The Taxpayer Advocate and others have since urged Congress to pass a law authorizing the IRS to regulate paid tax preparers. Only a law will give them the authority they need. I've been following the issue of regulation for a couple of decades. Bills have been passed in one house of Congress or another but the legislative sessions ended and the bills went no where; I believe one was actually passed by both houses but the then-president vetoed it. (The late 1990s?) The irony in this history is that both parties agree that regulation is needed. (If you are a regular reader of the weekly news feeds that list the actions IRS takes against unscrupulous preparers, you know the scope of the problem.) In today's extremely partisan world, where tea party members are doing whatever they can to get back at the IRS for targeting conservative nonprofit groups, no one is willing to give the IRS the money to do its mandated job moreless any more authority to do anything--even something as popular as regulating paid tax prep. I'm not denying that there wasn't a lapse in leadership (Lois Lerner), coupled with reports of frivolous spending that broke about the same time. The repeated IRS budget cuts are direct punishment for these sins. If Congress does grant IRS regulation authority they likely won't give them any money to do it so it will be moot. We'll just continue to endure 2-hour wait times on the phone and spend time cleaning up the messes created by fraudulent or stupid preparers.

I've never had that happen and there are hardly any (I found 2) posts about it on Drake's forum. One reason that may happen is if someone is processing with more than one computer. Sometimes it is resolved simply by processing the acks again within the program, and sometimes it requires Drake to rehang the ack or rebuild the EF database. That can happen with any of the tax software, and it has certainly happened with ATX. I don't see that as any big deal, and the difference with Drake is that if the user does have a problem, they answer the phone and will almost always be able to solve the problem quickly. If they can't find the solution quickly, they WILL further research it and make a follow-up call back to their customer.

I installed Win 10 when it first came out last summer. I don't use ATX, I use TaxWise. Win 10 did break TaxWise, but it was a known problem - as I recall the installation process didn't bring over the latest version of NetFramework. Running the setup program for any year of TaxWise fixed it for all years. All of my printers (two Brothers and an hp) worked as usual (except perhaps duplex printing on the hp inkjet, which I never use because it's too slow.) I miss the old version of FreeCell. Alpha 5 (my database), Reflect (my backup), Intellect (my mail, calendar and contact manager) and Adobe Acrobat X all worked without incident. Going from Win 7 to Win 10 was much less painful than going from Win XP to Win 7.

I did get Microsoft support to uninstall it and set it back to my NEWLY purchased Windows 7. Now ATX 2013-2015 have Database server errors. The payroll side is still OK. ATX 2012 is OK. My other programs seem to work, so far. I am calling ATX support and hope that they have had to deal with this problem previously. The Microsoft tech didn't even ask any questions, she probably has to uninstall it all day.

it is not an efile problem. It is an IRS database issue. I will be seriously interested if you get any help, satisfaction or the problem remedied with your phone call. I stopped trying to fix these after my 3rd totally failed attempt. You can't get them to fix the dinosaur computer issue inside their system. Good Luck.

This is not a FAFSA problem. It is a college rules/IRS database problem. When colleges started demanding either transcripts or FAFSA with imported IRS information, this nightmare scenario was put into play. Blame the small percentage (well maybe not small) that would give the college a different tax return than what was actually filed. I do not know of any way to resolve this problem with the IRS. Also, I am certain that the college financial aid department does not have anyone that actually understands what the issue is. "We must have the IRS information imported to the FASFA" is all they are taught and even then, they have no clue as to what or why they say that. Rant over!!

Sorry about the downtime. A MySQL database table crashed, and had to be repaired. Should be all good now.

There was a college here whose files were hacked, and I seem to have every frikkin' student in my database. I have never in my life seen so much ID theft. Adults and dependents alike. Then, it flips to a paper return, federal and state. What time sucking flat tires this causes! I feel like I'm being robbed every time I have to print and process another paper return. Rant over. Thanks. And now, back to your regularly scheduled program. cheers

You won't need most of Schedule HC. Tell it taxpayer, full-year coverage. TIN of the insurance company is either available online or from me; I've accumulated a database of a LOT of them over the years! Subscriber number is on her insurance card. You don't need the 1095-B for this. If she was covered all year, ALL the rest of the schedule should be completely ignored. Call my office if you want a walk-through. 781-899-2200

The only similarity is the look of the input screens. The entire engine and database functions are all radically different in all aspects.