BulldogTom Posted June 2, 2008 Report Share Posted June 2, 2008 For those of you interested, I am in the middle of an in-depth evaluation of Taxslayer Pro. Before I get into that, I will share my experiences at the CCH Small Services booth at the Super Seminar in Reno last week. They did not bring the ProSystem fx booth, they only had Taxwise, ATX and the WebSite development teams selling at the show. I wanted to look at Taxwise (they have 42" monitors to dsplay on - someday when I get rich I am going to get one of those) so I asked the salesman. He seemed to be nice enough until I told him I was currently with ATX. Then it was as mechanical of a demo as I have seen. Truthfully, it sucked and I would not buy from that salesman, even though the quick look I had at the software did not leave a bad impression. But I felt treated like old gum stuck on his shoe that he wanted to scrape off and throw away. The ATX people were not real knowledgable about the software. I could have done a better demo, but in all fairness, I only saw one of them demo and it was not a real in depth question the person had. The website people were very agressive trying to sell lots of websites. Back to Taxslayer. Show price is $750 and the regular price is $995. Includes all income tax forms. PR is through a QB knockoff that they sell as an extra for $199. E-file and conversions are free. Salesman promised 3 week turnaround time on conversions. All states supported. I tried to download the business forms and have not been able to do so. I will call support and find out why, which will give me a reason to evaluate the support staff. They seem to be about where ATX was in about 2000. The entry screens come from a menu that takes some getting used to. I found that the software runs faster on my laptop than ATX (no suprise). I have done a couple of very simple returns to get used to the entry. It calculated the returns properly (w2, EIC, 8880 credit, HOH). It does a thourogh job of asking all the pertinent HOH and EIC questions for due diligence. I am not sure I like all the questions popping up on the screen, but it does remind me to look at those items. I liked the billing options. The client letter was OK. One potential fatal flaw is in the E-file screen. I got caught into a loop that I could not get out of when I chose a direct deposit. The software asked for a bank routing number, so I just typed in 1's. Error, invalid RTN. Since I did not have a good RTN number, I could not get out of that place in the return. I had to close the software to get out. If that happened to me during tax season, I would freak out and toss the software. I will check on that with support when I call them. Overall, I think I could make the software work, but my spouse doesn't like the entry method very much. It is more like the HRB software she used in her prior life. I am not sold on it yet, but it is not a throwaway by any stretch. It could be an option for a 1040 practice. I will post more about the business returns and support when I get back to the evaluations in a couple weeks. Tom Lodi, CA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kcjenkins Posted June 4, 2008 Report Share Posted June 4, 2008 Tom. odds are the ATX demo was being done by a TaxWise employee. That was who was doing the seminar I went to. It's weird that they do not seem to understand that they should have someone doing those who actually knows how to use the software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carolynm Posted June 4, 2008 Report Share Posted June 4, 2008 On the subject of taxslayer - I downloaded it to test out the other day and thought it was pretty interesting. One question I had was on navigating the K-1 input screen. I had to enter the # of the field to get to each different field, I couldn't just cursor to it with the down arrow - have you found the same thing? I thought that would drive me nuts having to enter the line # of each field before entering the figure - I'm so used to just pressing enter to get to the next line. I'm going to make a list of "questions" for support and see what that brings me. I am also considering Taxwise but through TRX not CCH. I was very happy with TRX efiling this year, and think that might be a good option, heck I only wish TRX would contract for ATX then I would be happy. I could call TRX for my support questions, and their efiling was so much smoother than ATX's. Carolyn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BulldogTom Posted June 4, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2008 I haven't gotten to the K-1 screen yet. We have been swamped with Vacation Bible School this week. 40 of the most darling k-6th graders at our church. What do you get when you put 40 kids and 150 beach balls in a church sanctuary? A lot of screams and fun. Teach them the story of Gideon and let them try to make enough noise to confuse the whole neigborhood. Then put a target on the senior pastor and add 500 water balloons. It gets better, give them 40 squirt guns also. Throw in a couple bilble lessons and some craft projects, and fall into bed at 9 PM so you can do it again the next day. Tom Lodi, CA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MN dhawk Posted June 4, 2008 Report Share Posted June 4, 2008 I saw that as a real slowdown for keying K1's. You have to enter the line number first and then the amount!! Reviewing other programs (Orrtax, Taxwise, Drake & Taxslayer for me) has made it clear why I like ATX best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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