Professional Tax Preparation Software

Not a surprise that everytime you add a new owner (Thompson - Reuters

- Creative Solutions) the price goes up.

But in my opinion, UltraTax service/maintenance is outstanding, and you might be willing to pay more for that alone.

I use ProSeries and have looked at Drake several times. ProSeries support sometimes leaves something to be desired. I have tried several times to get them to fix the MAGI calculation on Form 8582-AMT. I just get ignored. A lot of nice worksheets though and the input resembles the forms. Drake is less complete in its overall calculations. For example, last time I looked they made no attempt to calculate AMT PAL carryovers. On the other hand, Drake has more forms than ProSeries. I do not like their input screens for several reasons. They are not form based and they still seem to DOS like.

You may also want to look at Tax Works. I haven't used it but evaluated it several times. They are owned by H&R Bloch.

Drew Edmundson, CPA Cary, NC

(snipped for brevity.....

Okay, my turn. Since 1996 when I stopped writing my own software I started using Taxwise out of Rome, GA and am still with them, despite having used ATX for entity returns, and periodically reviewing other software. But I kept coming back to TAxwise for it's "transparency", for lack of a better word. What you sees is what you gets! It's form driven versus input screens and the links are flawless.

Like ATX, it, too, is owned by CCH.

ChEAr$, Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

Drew,

Thank you for your comments, I'll watch out for those areas while I am evaluating.

I took a quick look at Tax Works website. They seem as or more expensive than ProSeries. I can't say much for their website. Very uninformative and confusing. Not particularly sure I want to support Block either.

Thanks again.

Charlie

Harlan,

Thank you for your comments. The Executive Accounting package seems their best value although they don't specify their efile fees. I'll look at them more thoroughly.

Curious- why don't you use them for entity returns also?

Charlie

Art,

Thanks for your comments. I agree that support is important and that Creative's support is very good. That doesn't mean that somebody else's support is not good also, and there is a limit on what I'm willing to pay.

I don't know about ProSeries support yet. Based on Drew's comments I will certainly check it out during my eval. As a QB ProAdvisor, I have been very pleased with their QB support though.

Charlie

Ah, but i do these days. It was back before they and Taxwise had been acquired by CCH.

ChEAr$, Harlan

snip

For just the 1040 and 1 state the pricing is probably close. For all entities and all states, buying early from Tax Works is a big savings. Tax Works all systems for new customer is $2,395 (includes networking and stand alone depreciation software). ProSeries is $4,449 (power tax) plus networking $475 and depreciation $229 for a total of $5,153. Both exclude sales/use tax.

I am also not fond of Tax Works form help. Essentially it is just a document replicating the IRS form instructions. In ProSeries you get software input screen help and IRS instructions, by line number, versus just the whole document to scroll through in Tax Works. Tax Works help is not much better than IRS PDF form instructions.

Drew Edmundson, CPA Cary, NC

ProSeries $5,153???? What are you buying. - Power Tax Lite - Networked - Fixed Assets - Research Lib. ..... about $3,500. Support is good - actually I'd rate very good. Though after using them for almost 20 years I'd say I place maybe 1 call a year.

Power Tax Lite give you everything. You need to chose your Carefully though. Me I get FED everything and MI 1040, MI MBT & MI 1041 & VA 540 - lots of clients in VA. You have access to all other on a PPR basis usually Under $10 for a state individual and about $15 for a business.

Mark

I replied to Mark's e-mail because I got it first. This reply is a bit different. The $5,153 includes all entities (706, 709, 990, 1040,

My problems with support generally are either network or Homebase related. Support forces me to go through their checklist, even though I have already tried all those things, before I get sent on up the line. Less than half the time does the senior person actually resolve the problem. I either figure it out on my own, an outside consultant figures it out, or I just live with it.

The 2008 software causes random errors on our HP 4350dtn. We have traced it to QuickBooks 2009 and ProSeries 2008. I just have to turn off the printer, shred the partial print out, turn the printer back on, and then print again. Very frustrating. I did no call support on this issue since it is random. I knew they would blame it all on HP. The printer tech says when he sees these two errors it is almost always a particular piece of software. The other option is hardware but since he replaced all the parts that could cause it and the problem continued he had us write down the applications we were printing from when it happened. All errors were from the two Intuit programs.

Drew Edmundson, CPA Cary, NC