Electronic Rolodex

[Bjorn]

Aloha,

It seems we have great software to handle our tax returns, payroll, etc. What are other firms doing to keep the number of databases to a minimum and keep track of emails, voice mail, letters etc?

I'm on Ultratax for tax returns, Quickbooks for my own business and clients' payroll, Outlook for email and calendar, The financial planning work is tracked in a program called Advisors' Assistant.

The change of address is quite cumbersome.

Many of the software vendors talk integration, however it never seems to work as well as the sales team suggests. Of course, I've got an installed client base making everything a bit harder.

Should I just accept the fact there is nothing to handle tax returns, client communication, and finanical planning issues all in one package?

Please feel free to provide "best practice" for this situation

Mahalo,

Bjorn

[MAJ]

The sky looks blue..... But... integrated clouds may appear!

I am using Tax Works as sold by TRX. They introduced a Business Management software free with renewal this year. I convinced them to let me get it a copy before next year so I can grow into it.

If they truely integrate it into the Tax Software with ONE DB it'll be a blessing. You can do single or mass emails from the package as well as client reminders for estimated, etc. You can even send TEXT messages to the clients and other schedule reminders to one or both. I've been finding txt messaging to be helpful with clients for those that drop off and I have questions. The package keeps track of the emails & txts as well as has Twain scanning abilities so you can keep documents under your clients name as well. All in all it LOOKS promising - but time will tell once the final product is released later this year.
The big question I have is - Is this the hook to get you to purchase a more expensive product once you get used to using after the first year?

http://www.trxalliance.com