A call from ATX sales today

[jklcpa]

ATX sales is reaching out to those that requested refunds and are trying to get us back by offering the 2012 program for free. He did apologize for the program and the problems it had early on, but he tried to tell me that the problems are fixed, no slowness, no crashing. He wanted me to reinstate my account, download the updates, and try to do some returns so I could see how much better it is working. He wanted me to rejoin the ATX fold.

He would not acknowledge that it's even possible that the errors with 2012 would affect next year's work, whether the preparer continued on with ATX or converted to another software provider.

He told me that because I'd only processed the one return, that I had no idea whether I would have had other problems or not. That's simply not true. I did have several other easy returns that ALL had problems that I chose not to finish with the ATX program. When time is money, I chose to move to the other software and complete the returns there, and to get up to speed before the larger and more complex returns started coming in. Why on earth would I want to recreate a return over again with software that might continue to have ongoing problems? I did have corrupted files, crashing, inability to reopen a return I'd worked on, inability to save a return before closing, lost data. It was my choice to discontinue using software that wasn't working well for me. This rep just didn't want to accept that. He wanted to know if I had hard documentation of my problems. Maybe this was part of the point of the call, ya think? I don't, I simply deleted those returns and I've moved on.

When I expressed concern that if I did renew I wouldn't be eligible for any refund of the product's cost, he said that wasn't true and that I could get my money back. He said that isn't their policy. Here is the last sentence of the very first section of the CCH refund policy: "To prevent abuse of the refund policy, a refund of tax preparation software may only be requested once in customer’s CCH SFS account history (as of April 1, 2010)." That seems pretty clear to me.

He also said that it wasn't necessary for me to return the materials, and that just isn't true that I needed to do that. From the very last sentence of that same refund policy: "C. Return of Materials: Final approval of the refund request will require the return of all tangible materials that had previously been sent to customer. Customer will be responsible for all shipping fees associated with the return of such materials."

After 5 weeks, multiple calls to the CCH A/R dept and a few emails to Kimmie, I finally received my refund today. Why would I ever want to do business with a company such as this again? Why would I want to do business with a company or a sales rep that thinks it's OK to call during our busiest final few days before the deadline?

[Mainetaxguy]

They have no idea about the day and the life of an accountant. It reminds me of what ATX did a few years ago - close down the original ATX board a couple weeks before the end of tax season.

They never learn. Again, they need to get rid of the CCH clone, Mr. Marx, bring an outsider in who can crack some heads, and bring common sense back to ATX.

They never learn. They need to fire the bad computer programmers and hire better ones. To do that, they need to fire half the sales and customer service staff (who are useless at this point), and bring on some talented people.

They never learn. Or better yet, they need to sell ATX to a company that really gives a damn, and cares about the little guy.

[joelgilb]

Just received an (canned) e-mail from my assigned sales rep. He is actually a pretty nice guy, so I feel for him. Still I don't intend towaste the time responding.

"Dear Valued ATX Client,

We will have wrapped up another tax season, in a couple of weeks. I am sure that some of you will take some much needed time away to relax after the conclusion of this tax season. When time permits, I would like to request a favor of you.

This year has been quite different than any other. This year ATX tackled the task of attempting to technologically advance our operating platform from a DOS operating platform to a more Windows compatible version. This change was a necessity, that had been put off for as long as was feasibly possible. In addition to this change, ATX made a good faith effort to improve the program with a few “wish list” features, that our users had always desired to have. While, we realize that for many of our users these changes were an improvement, we also cannot ignore the fact that we had many other users that experienced their share of issues this year.

I, as your assigned account manager, want to hear directly from you about your experience this year. I want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly. By hearing from you, I will do my best to insure that you are satisfied with our response.

ATX has always maintained a reputation of providing a quality product at a reasonable price, and we intend for this to remain our standard going forward. Furthermore; ATX is allocating enormous resources to insure that the ATX program will progress and not regress from what you have grown to expect it to be.

Please accept my request for your feedback. It will be appreciated.

Thank you,

Brandon G. Sims

Account Management Specialist

CCH Small Firms Services,

a Wolters Kluwer business

225 Chastain Meadows Ct. NW

Kennesaw, Ga 30144

(O) 800-495-4626 ex. 1233

(F) 800-834-4859

[email protected]"

[JohnH]

Brandon was my sales rep as well.

I agree, he's a very nice guy - he meets all my standard for a good sales rep..

But the sales rep in me wouldn't want to be in his seat during the next few months.

[Mainetaxguy]

I will say this much - it will take a lot of courage and guts for Brandon and other ATX sales reps to start calling us after tax season about early renewal discounts. All the ATX sales reps should be given hazard pay for what will be coming soon...but then again, we are talking about CCH, and they don't appear to take their ATX customers...or their employees...very seriously.

[lukeb]

I have been a customer of ATX going back to the Klienrock days when they were in Maryland.

Since CCH purchased ATX the customer service has reached such an abysmal level that I don't intend to use their product anymore.

The straw that broke the camels back was my faxing them a 5 page (less cover sheet) detailed problem we have been experiencing with 4797 and disposals where the disposal won't drop off the 4797 no matter what you do. And that means going to the extreme of deleting the assets!

We sent the fax on 3/29 and through today (4/10/13), not one word. I just called, and there is a thirty minute wait for a CSR. Five days before the 15th, and a 30 minute wait. Either they have one CSR for the who company or there are so many problems they are still overwhelmed. Neither a indication of a healthy company or one that values their customers.

ATX has become a pathetic excuse for tax software. Obviously CCH doesn't care about its customers. The program has become a hurry up and wait for execution. Based on their atrocious service and failure to properly vet their softwarte well before tax season, ATX just can't be trusted anymore. Its only common sense to move on to someone else that is more responsible.

Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice - shame on me. They won't get another crack at my pocketbook. I'm jumping ship.

[Izzet]

LukeB... Did you possibly do a Bulk Disposition of the asset? If so... even though the asset itself has been deleted, the bulk disposition is still in the system within Fixed Assets. You would have to delete the bulk disposition itself to get rid of that.

If that is not the case I do not know... I had a similar problem earlier in season.

[lukeb]

LukeB... Did you possibly do a Bulk Disposition of the asset? If so... even though the asset itself has been deleted, the bulk disposition is still in the system within Fixed Assets. You would have to delete the bulk disposition itself to get rid of that.

If that is not the case I do not know... I had a similar problem earlier in season.

Thanks - it was a bulk disp. I cleared out ALL of the bulk disposition information - the data on the 4797 is still there. Deleted the asssets - 4797 still has the figures on it - and that's after deleting everything and restarting the program. There isn't one piece of data left regarding the disposition left, and when I restart the program and add the 4797, the figures still come up. I have also tried to delete in the detail and input tabs also. Nol help whatsoever.

[Maribeth]

Don't know if this would help, but I tried a bulk disposition at the start of the year. It did not work right. I discovered that I could not combine Sec 179 and regular depreciation assets together. They had to be two separate bulk dispositions. It wasn't an ATX problem; it was an IRS requirement.

[cheering]

ATX just sucks.