Please, enough complaining

[frannie]

I posted this on "the other forum". I thought I should post it here also. I am ready for the onslaught of negative replies....so let 'er rip.

I was very happy with the program the way it was. No, I didn't vote or give any kind of feedback. So I do take some blame. We (ATXers) were asking for a lot of changes in the program. My favorite motto is "be careful of what you wish for". We wanted a low cost program with high cost capabilities. Another motto comes to mind "you get what you pay for". This program is, so far, OK on my Win XP Pro - 5 year old computer. I am a one person office and cannot afford a more expensive program. I prepare about 270 returns a year. For those of you who prepare many more returns and run on a network, I ask you, why in the heck won't you pay out the extra few hundred dollars to get a program that is more in line with your needs? I work a "real job" for $9.00 an hour because I need very good health insurance (stage IV metastatic melanoma) and I do taxes after I have worked from 5:30 am til 2:30 pm, all day Saturday and Sunday because I can't live on $9.00 an hour. And my clients wouldn't let me quit even if I could afford to.

So quit complaining about getting what you wished for and paid for.

[rfassett]

Frannie, you are fortunate that the program is working for you. Others running practices similar to yours are having all kinds of problems. Others on networks like myself are having all kinds of problems while my only problem seems to be slow printing. I am an adapter not a complainer, but there has to be a basis from which to adapt and not all the folks are getting even that. I have said right along that ATX will get it figured out and I still believe that. As to why I don't take my business elsewhere? I have been with ATX for a very long time and subscribe to most of their products. It fits my practice and I have not found the software wanting. In the for what it is worth department my practice does a substantial amount of write-up and payroll work and quite a few tax returns. I have a masters degree in taxation and think ATX does a great job. ATX has not changed. The software has changed. And when the dust settles, it will be a good, if not great, software package for my needs.

[DougO]

Frannie - "we wanted a low cost program" with any capabilities. I did not request any real changes except for in the client letter edit ability - and they solved that, now I can't edit even that. As rfassett says it seems that no one is having the exact same problem, from speed to opening to rollovers to shutdowns - we all want ATX to succeed and be there. But it seems pretty obvious to me that they were ill prepared to release this product when they did and they apparently did far too little beta testing and have no backup plan which could offer a solution for their many users. And doing this major shuffle and giving literally no advance notice to the user base is what causes many of us to "complain" about what is going on. For many this, as for you, is a vital part of their financial existence and therefore it is critical when we have spent money to expect that the product will perform at least in a limited fashion.

[Guest Taxed]

May I suggest you give Taxwise a try after this season. The data conversion is terrific and it runs much better on a network and standalone system. You will get Intelliconnect, All state and entity forms. So if at the end of the season you still don't like ATX new look and feel, try Taxwise, it still has that old look and feel (God knows for how long!).

[jainen]

>>quit complaining about getting what you wished for and paid for.<<

Thanks, Frannie. I appreciate your attitude.

I use Lacerte because someone else tells me to. But I used to open with a Roar, and I still love this forum where everyone is so smart and conscientious about applying tax law. That's why I'm confused that so many get tripped up by the process. ATX is low-end for professionals, so you have to be flexible about its limitations. This year was particularly difficult, but cheap annual updates are always a challenge. If it makes you guys feel better, Lacerte just issued an update for 2011!

[joanmcq]

I'm on the same level as Frannie & Ron. I'm not having extreme issues with the program, and didn't totally freak out even when I locked myself out. I posted here and on the other forum, got dressed and went to a party (while I still can). And voila, the answer was here in the morning.

Printing is not nearly as slow as that year when the program treated every page as a new print job (remember that?). Data input is not as slow as when my computer wasn't running enough memory and I didnt know it; several seconds to move between every input box, which is why I think a lot of the slowness problems being reported are system issues and not program issues (1 GB minimum of RAM which means it'll run, but slow as dirt, with a 1GB processor- recommended is twice that much).

Another issue is that we didn't have much time to play around with the program since it was sent out bare bones, and with a substanially revamped program, we needed time to get used to it. Last year we got a pretty much complete program by Thanksgiving- of course 2011 is the only year since I've been doing taxes on ATX that Congress didn't make last minute changes, and this year (2012) is the worst yet. So instead of ATX working to tweak the program from November until tax season opened with ample feedback from us, which would have been ok, they've been having to deal with the frikking forms and not having much feedback until we had a minimum of forms we could even try to work with. this can't be easy for them, and it's not easy for us.

So I'm going to watch my training video, just so I don't do something stupid again. And the letter is customizable, it's just done as a template, and not by editing within the letter as we are used to.

[taxxcpa]

Once when ATX would not handle carried forward passive losses carried forward to a year with passive gains, I tried several programs. The lowest-cost program that I tried was Tax Act and it handled the passive losses correctly, as did several more expensive programs.

If you are looking for a low-cost program, use Tax Act. If you can afford about $1350, Drake is a good choice.

If preparing taxes is necessary for you to maintain your standard of living, you need the best software you can find for the price compatible with the revenue it provides you.

In my case, I'm well past retirement age, but, as as the Retirement Millionaire Newsletter said in its Feb issue, "One of my keys to a successful retirement is "not to retire." So I prepare taxes, not only for the income, but for the psychological benefits of continuing to work at a slowed-down level.

[Jack from Ohio]

Tell me how you would change tax software with our office situation. I have posted this before....

2,900+ tax returns. 8 preparers. Used ATX since 2002,

Imagine the learning curve.

Imagine the conversion issues.

Imagine all the lost time in the process.

Now, is it worth changing programs for a few hundred dollars, or a couple of weeks of learning and redoing a few things?

At the firm, we will NOT be e-filing before Feb. 1. This relates to my prediction that the IRS e-file system will crash (overload) on Jan. 30 or 31. I watched it happen last year, and the year before.

Notice the lack of commercials begging people to e-file now? IRS is not ready to have everyone e-file. Just like all their programs, their reach far exceeds their grasp.