Maribeth Posted June 25, 2013 Report Share Posted June 25, 2013 Went to a Drake sale seminar yesterday. Liked what I saw. Decided it was time to change. Signed up with Drake. Was a hard decision to make but there is so much about Drake that I like. It is time to move on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted June 25, 2013 Report Share Posted June 25, 2013 Were you able to get the $1095 price? Someone said that if you signup at the seminar they will give you their best price? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maribeth Posted June 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2013 No, the price was $100 more. The June-July price. The salesman explained their pricing policy and I appreciate it so much more than the Comcast/Intuit model where they get you in with a very low price and then start upping the price every year and adding more fees on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcb39 Posted June 25, 2013 Report Share Posted June 25, 2013 Went to a Drake sale seminar yesterday. Liked what I saw. Decided it was time to change. Signed up with Drake. Was a hard decision to make but there is so much about Drake that I like. It is time to move on. Best of luck to you Maribeth and, please, stay in touch with this board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted June 25, 2013 Report Share Posted June 25, 2013 Welcome and join the Drake club. I would strongly recommending downloading the 2012 version, registering the Demo and running some of your actual returns to practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADGFINANCIAL Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 Maribeth, change is good. I made the change to Proseries in May. I've done 20 returns in the new program so far and it's easy to pick up the learning curve. It will be the same for you with Drake.Things are slow right now, so now is the time to learn the new program. The support is great. I was so use to the support at ATX that when I called Proseries and they actually answered the phone I was shocked. You are going to love the change.August @ ADG Financial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnH Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 Welcome and join the Drake club. I would strongly recommending downloading the 2012 version, registering the Demo and running some of your actual returns to practice. Good advice. I also found that preparing a return on one screen while running a relevant tutorial from Drake's web site on another screen was very helpful in getting up to speed. Dual monitors facilitate this, or just running the tutorial on a laptop or tablet will work equally well. (I mention this only because someone on another forum responded that they can't do this because they don't have dual monitors) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 Also the Drake support/Training site has also has practice returns if you want to try those. Now I want Drake to release the 2012 tax year conversion program pronto so that I can convert my live 2012 data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 In the mean time, do some of your own 'conversions' by entering some of your old 2012 clients as if you were just preparing a new return for 2012. It will let you see differences and give you good practice, and also give you a base of comparisons for when you do get the conversion program. You should then compare that client's 'converted' return to the one you did from scratch, to see if there were any problems or issues with the conversion. Why waste time on fake 'pratice' returns when you have your own files to produce useful practice returns that then have real 'comparative' value to you? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catherine Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 In the mean time, do some of your own 'conversions' by entering some of your old 2012 clients as if you were just preparing a new return for 2012. It will let you see differences and give you good practice, and also give you a base of comparisons for when you do get the conversion program. You should then compare that client's 'converted' return to the one you did from scratch, to see if there were any problems or issues with the conversion. Why waste time on fake 'pratice' returns when you have your own files to produce useful practice returns that then have real 'comparative' value to you? that's my plan -- to re-do a couple simple and then all my more complex returns on Drake, this summer, to learn the system. By then I'll be really prepared to beta-test ATX2013 and see how it compares. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WITAXLADY Posted June 26, 2013 Report Share Posted June 26, 2013 I tried Drake in march and couldn't make the transition on the fly and tried it again in May - we were prepared to go with it but there were just so many differences - the major being the calculations of the pages back and forth and the entries on the "pages" and not on the forms. So Proseries it is.. I didn't want to renew with ATX for 2012 as it was so slow in 2011 - many times I have said I would take the slow! Even now ATX continues to crash. I updated again to 18 and at least 2x a day, I have to shut down out of the program or totally reboot as "it is not responding" and cannot get anywhere! I just have so many extensions already on ATX I want to finish those first! What a mess and as I was discussing with my dentist this am - what chaos 2014 will be with Obamacare and 2012 is still a mess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted June 27, 2013 Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 For most of us who were so comfortable with a form based data entry, a screen based data entry like Drake takes an attitude change. I hated it in the begining. Also Drake let's you switch to form based entry if you prefer that, but it is not as efficient in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack from Ohio Posted June 27, 2013 Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 I tried Drake in march and couldn't make the transition on the fly and tried it again in May - we were prepared to go with it but there were just so many differences - the major being the calculations of the pages back and forth and the entries on the "pages" and not on the forms. So Proseries it is.. I didn't want to renew with ATX for 2012 as it was so slow in 2011 - many times I have said I would take the slow! Even now ATX continues to crash. I updated again to 18 and at least 2x a day, I have to shut down out of the program or totally reboot as "it is not responding" and cannot get anywhere! I just have so many extensions already on ATX I want to finish those first! What a mess and as I was discussing with my dentist this am - what chaos 2014 will be with Obamacare and 2012 is still a mess. I will take a shot and say that you are using a computer(s) with WIN XP? Long ago it was determined that ATX2012 was NOT friendly with XP. I updated to 12.18 on my domain server with 10 workstations, and my home standalone computer. I have none of those issues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WITAXLADY Posted June 27, 2013 Report Share Posted June 27, 2013 NO! I have al win 7 - even updated my last 2 as the xp were not very compatible for 11 last year and 12 - kept shutting the network down. I even got a new server - the old one was 2 years old. Just a nightmare - Support was great tho' - walked us thru - hours at a time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grmy2h Posted June 28, 2013 Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 Were you able to get the $1095 price? Someone said that if you signup at the seminar they will give you their best price? It was offered at $1095.00 at the June 19 seminar in Virginia, if you signed up that day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted June 28, 2013 Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 It was offered at $1095.00 at the June 19 seminar in Virginia, if you signed up that day. That is what my understanding was that if you signed up on the spot you got the best rates. But i guess different salespeople run their show differently! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taxxcpa Posted June 28, 2013 Report Share Posted June 28, 2013 Be sure to log in to the Drake Forum and read messages from other people who have switched from ATX. You may have to call Drake support to get a password to enable you to log in. Also read messages about the macros and messages about the client status manager. You will also probably want to read about e-filing 1099s, W-2s and 941s. Most of your questions can be answered if you post them on the forum, but first you could use the 'search' function to see if the question has already been asked and answered by others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted July 5, 2013 Report Share Posted July 5, 2013 I will take a shot and say that you are using a computer(s) with WIN XP? Long ago it was determined that ATX2012 was NOT friendly with XP. I updated to 12.18 on my domain server with 10 workstations, and my home standalone computer. I have none of those issues. With ATX, blanket statements don't hold true. We have domain server with 10 workstations. XP on 2 year old workstation (we had choose XP over 7 for workstation at time of ordering) is MUCH faster than our newer Windows 7 machines with equivalent hardware. XP has 4 GB installed (sees of course 3GB or so) and 8 GB on Windows 7 machines. All I7 processors. Switched network cables, etc to make sure it wasn't network related with the speed difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randall Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 Signed up for a Drake seminar here locally next week. I think these questions have been discussed but as a heads up, I am wondering about: Does Drake cover all Fed and State forms that ATX has? Does Drake cover payroll forms (W2s, 941, etc, State & Local)? Local returns, forms? I think I'll need to look at a separate package. Tax research? With ATX, I have the Intelliconnect (not that I'm crazy about it). I think I'll need a separate package for this too? Parker comes to mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Taxed Posted July 10, 2013 Report Share Posted July 10, 2013 I believe ATX was the industry leader in the diversity of tax forms. You will not find that with Drake. You can do live and after the fact payroll with Drake BUT you will need a special PIN from IRS to e-file 94X forms. Drake gives you guidance how to get it. Local returns are limited, Check with Drake for your juridiction. Drake offers Tax Books web library as an add on option at a discounted price. Last year was $89. 2013 price has not been announced yet. Download the Demo free, register it and run a few returns to see for yourself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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