Software review

[DonPriebe]

That would be wrong.

Correct - that is wrong. My nice green book says TaxWise but the splash screen says TRX.

But no TaxWise from TRX for 2010 - right?

[Lion]

Atx

TRX cannot offer ATX, so if a TRX salesman told you ATX is dead, he probably meant through TRX. I have no dog in this fight. I have complicated clients and use a high end product and not any of those mentioned in this thread.

[Chief]

Right

No Taxwise from TRX. They are pushing Taxworks.

[Peachie]

Now youu already know Harlan,

Then I guess there is a reason not to even consider TRX in my software search this year.
You see, it was a TRX man who told me that. He evidently lied.

if a salesman's mouth is moving, he's lying. Come on, you know this :-)).

Peachie

[Dusty2004]

I like Proseries

I like Pro Series.

I had a return where a couple got married. She lived Kansas, he lived in Mass and they move to NY once married. The program worked well. You have in the allocated amounts for each state and the part year residence dates but it calculated everything correctly.

Pro Series remembers the W2, 1099R, 1099Misc, etc payer information you have entered. If you type in an EIN it brings the name, address, zip info automatically. Also on the W2 if you check a box it will auto calc the Social Security wages, Medicare wages, Social Security taxes and Medicare taxes. If you entered in 401k information on the W2 it will correctly add to the appropriate boxes.

I like the planner feature. You can make multiple scenarios with this years information as the starting point. I use it regularly to run next year for planning estimated taxes and to plan this year for different amounts into Traditional IRAs. I also use it regularly to help a client modify the W4 to adjust their refunds.

I like the MFJ vs MFS form. When I enter information I designate it as being for the Taxpayer, Spouse or Joint. Then I can click a box and it determines if it more beneficial to MSJ or MFS. If it is better to file MFS I can go back to the home page and split the return. Of course, I always verify the information once split to make sure I don’t miss anything.

You can bill from inside Pro Series but I do not – I use an external program for that.

I like the Client Checklist. It makes a document that includes all the entries that a client had last year that they can use as a checklist for this year. I send them out early January. Some clients love them others barely open the letter.

I like the 2 year comparison feature. I look at that for each return to see if something looks out of normal for a return. It also has a Schedule C 2 year comparison that I use for the same purpose.

It carries over all of the necessary entries.

One drawback that I find is the state forms can take a little long to get sometimes. I do mostly PA returns and some of the forms are not ready until the first week of February. I cannot really comment about other states.

If you have any questions let me know and good luck on what ever you decide

Dusty

[Bonnie]

Particularly I am interested in hearing from anyone using TaxSlayer who in the past made the transition from Taxwise to the Slayer.

Well, I do use Tax Slayer but never used Taxwise. When I first began my home business, I started with Tax Slayer. It was very easy to learn after using Jackson Hewitt software for 13 years. I really liked the JH software, probably because I learned on it and was leary of learning something new, but once I did learn it, I like it much better. It was recommeded to me by a friend and the price was the lowest around so I decided to give it a try. I've been very happy for 4 years. Support people are awesome. They do convert all your data from other software if you change but of course that didn't apply to me since I started with them. The W-2 forms and 1099s do prefill with prior year info from your system or current year data already entered. This is very handy. All prior year personal info pulls forward. They also have a compatable bookkeeping program but I don't do bookkeeping so have never used it. They also have an off site data storage available for an extra fee, but so far I haven't used that feature either. This extra feature has a lot of perks that come along with the data storage, but again, I haven't used that yet. Let me know if there is something specific you are wanting to know about Tax Slayer that I have not answered.

[ChEAr$]

TRX update

if a salesman's mouth is moving, he's lying. Come on, you know this :-)).

Peachie

Always heard that about lawyers of course, and about used car salesmen.

So here's the update. You may recall last November, even though I had paid my money for TRX to furnish me with Taxwise, salesman called and said they would not do that, and that they were not furnishing Taxwise to any customer, and that I would have to settle for their own TRX pro software. So I stayed with Taxwise.

About 30 minutes ago I got a call and she identified herself calling from Taxwise. The call was expected because Taxwise decided this year to wait till after 4/15 to start calling us.
So I asked her to email me with a quote for the package I had last year and she said no need, it was still $ 299, same as last year. OH????? A bell went off in my head and
after talking a bit, she confessed she works for TRX and saw where I had received from them Taxwise software last year.

No need to go on and on here about the rest of the conversation, but my reserve of choice derogatory phrases did not have to be used.

So for those like Robert and Chief who actually did get Taxwise last year, that's good.
Question is, will you get the same for next year?

[GTS1101]

Switched from Taxwise to Pro Series

I used Taxwise for well over 10 years and in 2010 for the 2009 year I swtiched to Pro Series. I couldn't be happier. They have awesome customer support, efiles come back very quickly and the program is very fast and efficient. There are so many time savers in Pro Series compared to Taxwise. There is a lot less typing to do because Pro Series brings forward so much more information than Taxwise. You can do a lot more returns with Pro Series because of the time saved. It is a wonderful product and I am going to stay with Pro Series for many years to come.

GTS1101

[DMICPA]

I Like Pro Series

Tried several tax packages and have settled on Pro Series. It is capable of doing complex returns. One thing I particularily like is that I never call customer support because the program installs and runs flawlessly.

E-file is easy and fast. It brings forward prior year information. There are different ways to input data. There are different ways to bring up forms, either by form number or by form description. Many different printing capabilities. You can enter separate or joint, you can do your billing on it, print letters on it etc.

Been using it for years, no problems.

Is there any way to poll the forum to see what % of folks use what software?