QuickBooks-Blog

FairTax Chronicle of the Day

FairTax Chronicle of the Day:

Between 2003 and 2012, the IRS cost U.S. taxpayers between $110.8 billion and $132.6 billion in faulty earned income tax credit (EITC) payments. Under the FairTax plan, no EITC, no IRS, no faulty payments.

Related articles

TIGTA: IRS Fails to Comply With Mandated Reduction in Improper Payments -- 25% EITC Fraud Costs $14 Billion/Year

More Florida Unemployment Insanity - DOL

We now have some more Florida Unemployment insanity. This time it involves the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). It says that a Florida Unemployment online application violates federal civil rights and nondiscrimination laws.

A Miami Workers Center complained that the Florida Unemployment Compensation (Reemployment Assistance) Program was inaccessible to people with disabilities and those with limited English skills. In August 2011, the state moved to end phone and paper applications. Its online application has a 45-question skill assessment of math, reading and other skills. A 56-page DOL finding said this violates federal law. (Imagine, 56 pages to say a 45 question test is unfair? We know all about Florida Unemployment insanity long ago.)

A state spokesperson said the DOL was aware of the legislative changes before their 2011 passage and raised no objection, but a different DOL division is now challenging the same laws, in response to questionable allegations of a special interest group. The DOL suggested exceptions to online filing for those with language barriers, sending notices to people to apply for retroactive benefits and providing special methods for persons with disabilities.

The state can negotiate voluntary compliance and a conciliation agreement. If it does not, the DOL can enter a final ruling that can disrupt federal funds for Florida. Now that would involve the ultmate in Florida unemployment insanity.

ATX Tax Software Wastes Time, Switched to Drake Software

I like ATX, but the CCH - ATX tax software wastes time on initial startup. It takes far too long, due to excessive prompts and updating, each time it starts. It also stops you from doing anything else, during this time, by repeatedly bringing you back to its glacial startup window.

ATX tax software startup especially wastes time for network users. Use a login already in use and it exits, instead of letting correct your mistake. It also often does not release user locks when users exit. We got a 12-step fix this, which requires everyone to exit, only after many calls to ATX support.

ATX tax software wasted much more time recently, when the 12 step fix did not work. It took a multi-level support call, plus ATX remote access. They found a user with a system clock set ahead. The strange thing is that there was an equal set-ahead the day before. However, there was a lock out as soon as the few hour difference caused one user to be in a different month. Now that is weird programming. It also was weird that this locked us out, without appropriate messages. However, it may relate to an something I learned from ATX support. ATX tax software must waste time on security because of an IRS contract. That means ATX cannot react very quickly or effectively in this area. It also means IRS may waste little time if it wants to access tax data for a CPA practice. That is especially sad, because one IRS tax notice calculated a different tax.

ATX tax software wastes more time with about six-inches of manuals, which no one seems to read. It wastes far more time with the MyATX support site. This site makes getting help extremely difficult. Despite having no confidential tax data, it has many time wasting security delays. Less than half of us now use the slow Internet Explorer 6+ browsers it requires. ATX tax software also wastes time because MyATX requires a customer number, user name and password. You can only reset a password with your user name and first job location. The worst way ATX tax software wastes time is by having MyATX lock you out, after you fail on three login attempts, even when ATX has no tech support.

MyATX also makes ATX tax software waste time by making you keep changing passwords over time. You cannot use prior passwords. You cannot even see any of the many password limiting rules until you violate some of them (one rule at a time).  I never saw rules like some of these elsewhere, in 50 years of heavy computer use.

MyATX even makes ATX tax software waste time by not having tech-support backed user-to-user forums. I finally got Intuit to provide such forums, which give users better answers faster. Intuit soon found this let it cut around one-seventh of staff. A major international award soon followed.

Instead, informed ATX users rely on the forums provided by the volunteer ATXcommunity site, with no help from CCH - ATX. Of course, the lack of a good, readily available ATX support site makes it much harder for users to get meaningful help, with or without serach engines. This vastly increases the number of expensive time-wasting support calls. There is no extra charge for unlimited calls and related remote support, so I would think that ATX would try harder to avoid them. I also would think ATX would minimize the agonizing time wasting switches between Level 1 and Level 3 support (I never heard any mention of Level 2). However, there is no option for time saving call backs or email support.

ATX tax software wastes lots of time by having many missing cross references for calculated fields. We often spend excessive time finding source fields, especially if we must call support. ATX software even wasted time by improperly rebuilding an e-file database after a server crash. The sad thing is that they had the missing information, but could not update our system or let us do so.

Separate inconsistent client databases are a big waste of CPA and staff time. They make many errors far more likely. One very sad way ATX tax software wastes time is by not letting add-on programs access its database. I do not want read-write access, which could corrupts data. However, there are endless ways we can be more efficient if we have read-only access. For example, we should be able to mail-merge ATX data to fill in the same IRS Form 2848 Power of Attorney for all clients. Instead, staff must tie up one of our few ATX licensed computers, to open 300+ separate client tax files. They then must open a 2848 form in each client file. Next, they must cut and paste 10+ separate items, from two Word files, into each 2848. They also must manually enter client data, for each new client, into our Outlook, billing, workflow and QuickBooks programs. 

Acttally, ATX lets you export much of its data to Excel. However, I made the mistake of repeatedly asking a top ATX exec about this, instead of asking tech support. As a result, I did not learn of this ATX capability for 18 months. Who knew?

ATX did not learn from Intuit and QuickBooks regarding add-ons. Intuit was once rather hostile to QuickBooks add-ons. However, there were 25,000 download the first day it made its interface program available. Nine years later, nine million web pages seem to have QuickBooks add-ons links. 

As a former ATX Advisory Council member, I am now anxiously awaiting the new ATX. It should have no recycled code, which is a big change, since many ATX problems relate to its spreadsheet origin. However, it also is like buying a new car during its first model year. Buyer beware!

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4/23/13: It has now been more than two years since I became very unhappy with ATX and switched to Drake Software (professional tax software). Drake Software is an amazing fast program. Drake Softare also has amazingly fast support (9 seconds, all year, no need for help from extra people), at an amazing $1,500 price for very fast speed, very easy instictive data entry, unlimited users, unlimited computers, unlimited support, unlimited e-file, networking and very good document management that you soon will use for all your files. Drake Software even has web links to $10 and $20 consumer program that pays you 80% commissions.

As a result, Drake Software has incredibly better user ratings compared to ATX (150+% as expensive), Intuit ProSeries / Proline (300% as expensive), Intuit Lacerte (500% as expensive), UltraTax (400% as expensive) and all other professional rax programs.

ATX Advisory Council; Switched to Drake Software.

I recently had a terrific time at an ATX Advisory Council meeting. The ATX Advisory got a very positive and receptive audience from many ATX executives. I am now surer than ever that the ATX tax program is and will be far better than Intuit's ProSeries, for far less money. I will have much more to say after I get back, as my wife is getting very insistent about my packing up.

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4/23/13: It has now been more than two years since I became very unhappy with ATX and switched to Drake Software. Drake Software (tax software) is an amzing program, from an amazing company, at an amazing price. Drake Software also has incredible user satisfaction ratings. 

 

Get TurboTax Data Back, Get QuickBooks Online Data Back, Contact Intuit

This excellent How to get TurboTax data back article and my post show you how to Get TurboTax Data Back, Get QuickBooks Online Data Back and even how to Contact Intuit.

Author Robert Mitchell found out that blogging about why he needed his TurboTax Online data back was how to Get TurboTax Data Back (repeated for search engines). Long time TurboTax VP Bob Meighan saw the Get TurboTax Data Back article and quickly got back the data. Bob said, "Personally I am strongly in favor of providing the data file when customers download the PDF. It's just a matter of convincing everyone else."

TurboTax Online should give you old source files for next year rollover of depreciation details, which are often in such files but not in tax returns. You also want this if you have original and amenddnext year rollovered returns, but the original is better for rollover. Besides, TurboTax desktop lets you do that. Not having  source files access in TurboTax Online shows that online and desktop products are offend very different.

Robert's article reminded me that Get TurboTax Data Back was really a primer on Get QuickBooks Online Data Back and Contact Intuit. You may really need to know how to Get QuickBooks Online Data Back if you or a client discontinues QuickBooks Online for a while and later need QuickBooks data detail for bank, Internal Revenue or other purposes.

You may not succeed right away in your Get TurboTax Data Back, Get QuickBooks Online Data Back or other Contact Intuit efforts, but it often helps. Intuit may not always succeed in keeping customers happy, but it help to have that as one of its major goals.

You do not need a popular blog to do this. All you need is one barely hidden insider secret for your Contact Intuit efforts. The first part of the Contact Intuit secret is this Intuit Executive Profiles page. It shows who is in charge of everything. Now for the really simple Intuit secret on Get TurboTax Data Back, Get QuickBooks Online Data Back and other Contact Intuit efforts:

Intuit email addresses!

The Intuit email addresses are generally simple:

FirstName_LastName@intuit.com

For example, the email address of TurboTax VP Bob Meighan (not on the Executive Profile list) is:

Bob_Meighan@intuit.com

It also helps to associate some Intuit executives with related products. For example, Dan Maurer, Consumer Group, includes TurboTax and Jill Ward, Accounting Professionals Division includes QuickBooks and its QuickBooks ProAdvisors. So good luck with your Get TurboTax Data Back, Get QuickBooks Online Data Back and other Contact Intuit efforts.

My Contact Intuit efforts began when I answered 7,000 mainly QuickBooks questions before Intuit had much of a web presence. The accelerated when I won two consecutive QuickBooks beta tests by wide margins. I needed Intuit help to answer some questions and to help those who did not get appropriate support from Intuit. That made me repeatedly email formet CEO Steve Bennet and many of his top assistants, including Brad_Smith@Intuit.com (now Intuit's CEO). This often resulted in very fast and helpful email exchanges, especially with Brad. For more on this see BestQuickBooksCPA.com

I actually succeeded so that that Brad personall assigned me my own Intuit liaison (John_Yarno@Intuit.com). Brad did in a long phone call, on learning that he was becoming Intuit CEO, two years after I told him I expected it. However, this resulted in a breakdown of the relationships I had with many Intuit friends, including Brad.