Renewal Why The Hurry

[Christian]

Like others in our community I have received my annual renewal notice and I too have wondered what is the rush? In looking around I find that some other providers are coming out with product that is cost competitive with ATX and has features from the perspective of a small time tax guy like me that bear close scrutiny such as unlimited efiles as opposed to ATX's upper limit of 75 and then they tack on an additional fee which becomes not insubstantial to your total cost. Now that the pressure is subsiding I am going to take a close look before pulling the renewal switch this year.      

[Yardley CPA]

I was a long-time user of ATX, back to the days of Saber.  It was a product that I depended upon and served me well during the time I subscribed.  One of the drawbacks for me was I have a moderate number of clients who work in different states, necessitating the credits for taxes paid to other jurisdictions.  ATX used to charge a premium to have that calculation done automatically...I'm not sure if that is still the case or not?  I also had to pay an additional fee to use the ATX portal for my clients.  I transitioned to ProSeries Professional during the 2021 tax year.  The learning curve was minimal as both programs are form based.  I've been pleased with the performance of the program, which includes all necessary calculations for the taxes paid to other jurisdictions, populating the appropriate state returns as required.  The program also provides "free" use of their client portal and my clients seem to find it easy to navigate.  By no way is this post intended as a knock toward ATX, it served me well during my time using it.  I just wanted to provide an alternative in the event you are considering a change.   

[JimTaxes]

I too was with ATX during Saber, Max, Zillion Forms days.  I am not sure what year it was but there was a year that ATX software had a lot of issues.  ProSeries reached out to me with a discount offer ot switch.. I took them up on that offer and am very happy with ProSeries.  Intut may very well ofer you a discount if you switch. You can also try the software for free I believe. 

[mcb39]

Because I have a vendetta against Intuit, I will never willingly purchase one of their products.  I have never forgiven them for what they did to Parsons Tech; the program that I started with in 1992.  Also, I see some of my clients struggling with and being limited to use of Quickbooks; which, IMO, is overkill and over priced. So says the person who knows that she should never hold a grudge.  I have committed to Max for one more year and am moving on.  And, yes, it does do the calculations for the WI OS form.

[scottmcfly]

6 hours ago, JimTaxes said:

I too was with ATX during Saber, Max, Zillion Forms days.  I am not sure what year it was but there was a year that ATX software had a lot of issues.  ProSeries reached out to me with a discount offer ot switch.. I took them up on that offer and am very happy with ProSeries.  Intut may very well ofer you a discount if you switch. You can also try the software for free I believe. 

It was tax year 2012.  I remember it well and not fondly!

[Yardley CPA]

19 hours ago, mcb39 said:

Because I have a vendetta against Intuit, I will never willingly purchase one of their products.  I have never forgiven them for what they did to Parsons Tech; the program that I started with in 1992.  Also, I see some of my clients struggling with and being limited to use of Quickbooks; which, IMO, is overkill and over priced. So says the person who knows that she should never hold a grudge.  I have committed to Max for one more year and am moving on.  And, yes, it does do the calculations for the WI OS form.

I was also a Parsons client and remember how well their programs worked.  Fair enough to hold a vendetta if you choose to, but their ProSeries Professional product has worked well. 

 

[Corduroy Frog]

On 4/29/2024 at 10:44 AM, mcb39 said:

Because I have a vendetta against Intuit,

I won't purchase anything from Intuit - I do hear that their Pro Series is good, but their TurboTax product overtly tries to put us out of business.  Their advertisements really irk me - one of them shows a guy with a briefcase and the impact of the ad  is that if you buy their product, you will be just as good as a CPA.  For years they also advertised "free,  free,  free" which was a blatant lie, and I think they finally had to stop.

There are no telling how many people buy Turbotax to avoid paying for a real professional, and forego the service we can render to them.

 

[mcb39]

Back in the day, I worked for an Accountant who used Turbo Tax big floppy disks.  She had to pay extra for every single module.  Efiling was barely heard of.  We printed and printed and assembled and assembled.  

Once I started my own business and graduated (by force) to Sabre; I introduced her to the ATX products and she embraced the (Everything for the price of one).  She happily continued with Max until she retired.

We often question why people are willing to pay almost as much for Turbo Tax as we would charge them for a professional return.  Sometimes we end up cleaning up the messes that they create.  I have never gained a client by advertising.  276 returns for a small, in-home office isn't bad for "word of mouth" growth.  Integrity and personal interest will win out every time and I sleep very well at night.

[BrewOne]

 Amen; I hated cleaning up Turbotax returns with a passion.  And I inherited one client who only wanted me to review his work in Turbotax for a nominal fee--I did it once (the 1116 was a total mess) and when he came back next year I doubled the price.  Thankfully that was the last I saw of him.  But funny how proud he was of his work, I think he just wanted me to congratulate him.