ATX 2012 Needs to Be Fixed as It will affect us in 2013 as Well

[joelgilb]

Just came to the realization that ATX 2012 problems could affect us again in 2013.

If ATX fixes the crashing and speed issues in 2013, but does not fix these same issues for 2012, those of us (myself for one) that keep the prior years return open for reference will have to deal with the CRASHING & SLOW SPEED ISSUES AGAIN, on both the server and workstations. For me this includes load times on the server of 3-6 minutes and on the workstations of as much as 10 to 15 minutes! And crashes, who knows how often.

Personally I have transferred the remaining of my clients to Drake, as this years software is so bad on my network that it is virtually unusable. I do, however, have a few completed returns in ATX 2012 that I will need to deal with later.

I for one intend to transfer those completed returns to Drake after the season is over. I suggest that anyone that switched software mid-season should do the same after our busy season is over.

[ILLMAS]

I look at 2012 as a beta, and we were are the test dummy's, after the tax season and everyone stops complaining they are going to get their act together and fix it, 2013 should have all the issues resolved. Crossing fingers.

[Randall]

I think if ATX survives, they will have to fix 2012 by the end of 2012 filing season. My plan is to plow thru to 4/15, not renew ATX early, look at other programs, make my decision in the fall.

[RitaB]

When I got my new computer, we were unable to restore returns from the old computer. I have not tried it again now that I have returns on the new computer. I'm afraid to try it. I have my doubts about rollover and / or conversion, too.

[jklcpa]

If ATX isn't completely fixed and the user wants to look at the 2012 return in an electronic format next year while working on 2013, I'd suggest printing 2012 to pdf and looking at that instead of opening the return in ATX. It won't be as convenient as being able to look at the actual input, but it would be quicker than waiting with the slowness of this year's program. It's bad enough for you all that are living through this now, so why torture yourself with it again next year?

[Randall]

jklcpa, that's what I'm thinking. I always print a pdf copy for me anyway. When questions come up, I can quickly look at the return without going into the program.

[Mainetaxguy]

Randall, I feel the same way. I'm definitely not going to renew early this year. I have a feeling that ATXs' competitors are aware of the mess created by ATX, and they are more than willing to offer us discounts or special deals to lock us in. It will be interesting to see what ATX has to offer after tax season beyond the regular early renewal discount.

Maybe they can offer us a pound of flesh from Jeff or the programmers who screwed up the software...on the other hand, what am I going to do with a pound of flesh?

Answer - give it to the IRS. They are already skinning our hides!

[Randall]

I recall getting offers in the past after April 15 for free software. Not sure if those were demos or the full version. I will check some out and try to do extension returns on two or more programs to compare. I'll see how ATX works this out between 4/15 and 10/15. I've not had the big problems many have had with crashes, rollovers, lost returns. But the program seems slower than previous years, the print manager is really cumbersome and slow and some other quirks have been more than annoying.

[joelgilb]

Definitely renewing early this year, just not renewing ATX!

Switched to Drake this season and going with Drake again for the 2013 season. Support is better than ATX ever was since I started with the 12-13 years ago. A tech person actually answers the phone, usually by the 3rd ring!.

Software is faster than any previous years ATX.

OK, I'll lost the thousands of forms in ATX, but there are other and better options here.

[joneslaw]

I have been getting solicitations left and right from my old provider, ProSeries. I am seriously thinking about going back. This year with ATX has made my life a living hell and the customer (non)service has been ridiculous. The fact that you get a recorded message pointing you to the website and then hanging up on you was bad enough, then when you do get through after two hours on hold, they tell you they are working on it. Really? Even if they give me next year's program for free, I'm not sure if I want a free headache.

[joanmcq]

Proseries is having a bunch of issues too, and at this point I don't think you can get through on their customer support lines either. Look at their message board.

[Cathy]

I for one am tired of excuses from ATX since the early 90's when I had to give up the old DOS program, AMTAX. Each year users have crafted the software from a very basic, bottom of the line tax software program to get the features it had last year...and each year users have had to point out the most evident flaws and program errors at the beginning of each and every tax season since I've been on board. My not wanting to have to go through a conversion to another software program seems so petty to me now!

I also have not forgotten those who jumped ship several years ago who were given HUGE discounts to come back to ATX while those of us who stuck it out paid full price for our software for being loyal customers! How stupid am I for staying with ATX all of these years! Oh, that's right, it has a very respected company behind it now....CCH....I guess names don't mean much any more!

[Mainetaxguy]

Cathy,

A loyal ATX customer is like a slave in an S&M film --

The more you try to please your master (CCH), the more he beats you (the customer).

Loyalty is a sign of weakness to CCH. When you leave CCH and go elsewhere, you show strength and courage. CCH respects strength and courage, and will reward you with large discounts.

Loyal customers are treated like slaves.

Returning customers are treated like heroes.

Leave CCH and then return - only then will you be treated differently.

[Randall]

Cathy, I've stayed with ATX too. I don't think we're stupid. We made decisions and we'll all make out decisions in the coming year. Some will stay with ATX, some won't. I don't know what I'll decide yet.

[Jack from Ohio]

Cathy,

A loyal ATX customer is like a slave in an S&M film --

The more you try to please your master (CCH), the more he beats you (the customer).

Loyalty is a sign of weakness to CCH. When you leave CCH and go elsewhere, you show strength and courage. CCH respects strength and courage, and will reward you with large discounts.

Loyal customers are treated like slaves.

Returning customers are treated like heroes.

Leave CCH and then return - only then will you be treated differently.

Did that once. Has made NO difference!! No special pricing for the year I returned, NOTHING SPECIAL. CCH has no clue about proper customer service or customer loyalty appreciation. I am waiting for the "renew early" solicitations...

[joanmcq]

You should have attended the user conference. Wow. Wined & dined and great CPE too. I'm staying with ATX too. I test drove Drake a few years ago and had issues with it, especially with the CA module. Proseries has its own problems....when a state comes out and says "don't use Intuit products" that's pretty bad. The memory issues are supposed to be addressed in the latest update, but for now I'm just closing the program when the drain gets too high. Reopening the program is fast.

[Jack from Ohio]

I can promise you that no one using a domain server will buy ATX for next year. No one using a non-domain server (peer to peer) will buy ATX again either. The program is slow, it has major issues when trying to e-file. Takes 2 hours to get efile acks. Nothing the tech people suggest does any good. We are exploring all options for 2013 tax season. I doubt that ATX will survive the tsunami, especially with all the self made holes in the ship!!

[Lee B]

The crucial issue for me is whether ATX steps up and spends the money to do a major rewrite (new platform) and keeps

the same features that we're all used to. If they try to stonewall their way thru with the same platform then I'm gone.

I would even pay a modest amount more for a rewritten program as long as I could test drive it for free in say December 2013.

I've demoed a lot of software during December and January and didn't really find anything else that I really like.

I guess my fallback plan would be to move to UltraTax

[joanmcq]

I can promise you that no one using a domain server will buy ATX for next year. No one using a non-domain server (peer to peer) will buy ATX again either. The program is slow, it has major issues when trying to e-file. Takes 2 hours to get efile acks. Nothing the tech people suggest does any good. We are exploring all options for 2013 tax season. I doubt that ATX will survive the tsunami, especially with all the self made holes in the ship!!

Remember so long ago when it took two days to get ACKs? What was it, two years ago?

[Mainetaxguy]

Cbslee, at this point, I just don't see ATX spending a lot of money to do a major rewrite of the program. The only way they may do that is that they lay off x-number of sales people and administrative staff, and hire better programmers. It's clear based on these posts that ATX was trying to push three years of improvements and one year in an effort to "save money" and looked where that got them. From CCH's point of view, we are the "little" guy that represents firms no larger than 4 people. CCH has many large clients that are willing to spend more money on software. It's clear base on CCH's mismanagement of ATX throughout the years, they simply are not committed to spending to big bucks necessary to get things properly done. From a business point of view, I can understand where they are coming from. Which begs the question '' why buy out ATX and Kleinrock in the first place if CCH was never committed to making the services better?"

[Lee B]

For a number of years I used a great little program called AccountWare to prepare Business Entity returns.

At the same time I was using a great little payroll program called ProTym.

They were both purchased by UltraTax and killed for the customer list.

I guess CCH decided to milk ATX as long as they could without reinvesting and ????

[Mainetaxguy]

cbslee, here's the real deal -

CCH OVERPAID for both ATX and Kleinrock several years ago. United Communications Group (UCG), based in Maryland, originally owned both ATX and Kleinrock. In an effort to force CCH's hand in buying out both divisions, UCG sent two employees to RIA in NYC to make it appear that RIA was in a bidding war with CCH to buy ATX and Kleinrock. However, RIA had NO interest in buying both divisions. It was only after CCH bought both ATX and Kleinrock that they realize they were conned. In short, CCH didn't do their due diligence before making the purchase (why am I not surprise here).

So...ever since then, both employees and customers had to pay the price - layoffs, turnover, bad software, etc because CCH overpaid when they did the buy-out.

And on top of that, CCH made a major blunder in splitting both ATX and Kleinrock apart - which created confusion and chaos for a couple years.

This is why things are a mess today and will continue to be a mess in the future. The more CCH tries to "save" money, the more they end up losing more money. It's a vicious cycle that never ends.

[joelgilb]

CCH really didn't want to buy and produce a tax software, it wanted to buy a User Base! Then CCH wanted to de-bundle the parts of the software to increase revenues in the use base, like they did with the FAM. This year they were attampting to start the move to a common program with TaxWise, and a Separate program for Payroll.

Do any of you think it was a coincidence that the Payroll software was a separate module? They did this to us when they corrupted the FAM in ATX, causing many of us to have to buy the stand alone FAM. Took CCH roughly 2 years to make that move, and I bet that is the same thing they intended for Payroll this year.

They also took out the QuickBooks import link ability. Another coincidence? NOT! CCH wants us to buy its crappy Write-up software, thus creating more revenues.

They only real problem they had was trying to figure out how to discontinue the software while keeping their new user base and getting us to buy everything else. And this time CCH screwed up big time!

CCH has never been dedicated to supporting ATX or its users. They have proved this time and time again!

Now Drake on the other hand, goes out of their way to support their User Base. They have grown this year with 1000's of new users from ATX, TaxWorks and possibly TRX, yet when calling Drake's tech support someone from support still answers the phone on the 2nd or 3rd ring!

And Drake in the long run is actually cheaper than ATX, leaving enough money to purchase a subscription to software like CFS Tax Tools, CFS's Online Forms (probably one of the others resold by CFS). Laser Librarian, SuperForms, or even Intuit's Forms Software. Totally replacing all ATX with software that consistently works better than years even before ATX 2012.

Although I am not familiar with all the other tax software companies, I am sure many of them are also viable options.

So why are we all fretting about ATX? Move On!

And, this is not the first time many of us have moved on. In my career (since 1979) I have used a number of options to prepare returns. It's just software, no biggie! If CCH doesn't want to provide what we want -

BYE BYE CCH! Simple!

[joelgilb]

and I forgot. Research Products?

CCH, vs kleinrock, vs others

Kleinrock's original owners now produce Parker Tax Publishing, at prices just as reasonable as the original Kleinrock.

http://www.parkertaxpublishing.com/

I use it and am very happy!

Again, BYE BYE CCH!

Now if I could just find a good and reasonably price FAM, I would be "In Like Flint"!

For those of you not old enough to remember In Like Flint - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061810/

[Jack from Ohio]

CCH really didn't want to buy and produce a tax software, it wanted to buy a User Base! Then CCH wanted to de-bundle the parts of the software to increase revenues in the use base, like they did with the FAM. This year they were attampting to start the move to a common program with TaxWise, and a Separate program for Payroll.

Do any of you think it was a coincidence that the Payroll software was a separate module? They did this to us when they corrupted the FAM in ATX, causing many of us to have to buy the stand alone FAM. Took CCH roughly 2 years to make that move, and I bet that is the same thing they intended for Payroll this year.

They also took out the QuickBooks import link ability. Another coincidence? NOT! CCH wants us to buy its crappy Write-up software, thus creating more revenues.

They only real problem they had was trying to figure out how to discontinue the software while keeping their new user base and getting us to buy everything else. And this time CCH screwed up big time!

CCH has never been dedicated to supporting ATX or its users. They have proved this time and time again!

Now Drake on the other hand, goes out of their way to support their User Base. They have grown this year with 1000's of new users from ATX, TaxWorks and possibly TRX, yet when calling Drake's tech support someone from support still answers the phone on the 2nd or 3rd ring!

And Drake in the long run is actually cheaper than ATX, leaving enough money to purchase a subscription to software like CFS Tax Tools, CFS's Online Forms (probably one of the others resold by CFS). Laser Librarian, SuperForms, or even Intuit's Forms Software. Totally replacing all ATX with software that consistently works better than years even before ATX 2012.

Although I am not familiar with all the other tax software companies, I am sure many of them are also viable options.

So why are we all fretting about ATX? Move On!

And, this is not the first time many of us have moved on. In my career (since 1979) I have used a number of options to prepare returns. It's just software, no biggie! If CCH doesn't want to provide what we want -

BYE BYE CCH! Simple!

Not so simple with 2,900 clients and 8 preparers. NOT SIMPLE!!