How has the tax season been thus far using Lacerte?

[BrentB9193]

We're a recent convert from Lacerte to UltraTax and I'm trying to gauge how Intuit has handled the IRS regs nightmare this year.  How has the Lacerte program handled the season thus far?  How about your support experience?

[George4Tacks · Accepted solution]

It has been flawless. Lacerte had all the new 119A and forms in place by Jan 15. How was it at UltraTax?

[sjrcpa]

:laughing:

[BrentB9193]

It has not been a smooth season.  Good to see you two are still fighting the good fight.

[rbynaker]

I hear they've almost figured out how to change 50% to 60%!

[IRonMaN]

I think they are up to 57% ----------------- progress.

[BrentB9193]

Just wanted to follow up now that we're passed the deadline and see how the season went for Lacerte?  Overall, how did it go?  Any issues on 4/15?

[George4Tacks]

State acknowledgements were slow. Some of us learned what ELA is. Just in case you had not figured out that my answer was from a "sarcastic" account, it was not flawless, but all things considered with the new tax law, it went fairly well. I also worked part time with a ProSytems Fx firm and hated it every time I looked at the screen.
So, once again @BrentB9193 "How was it at UltraTax?"

[BrentB9193]

Ah, gotcha.  No change from my original assessment at the time - it was not smooth.  Lots of bugs, there was an hour long authentication outage on 4/15.  For all tax software providers, some of this had to be expected given all the changes they had to incorporate, but we felt the number of issues we encountered was excessive.

How did ProSystems handle all the IRS changes?  We've used it in the past, its very complex.  Any bugs/issues on the ProSystem side?

[George4Tacks]

My main complaint with ProSystem is how do you find anything? Either you work off of the archaic input sheet view - 1099SSA is in M-1 - 8606 is in T-1 or you use a more intuit screen, somewhat like Lacerte, but 1095 A, B and C are in different screens. Right click and "jump to input" gives you many choices and when you pick one it gets you into the general vicinity of the input. I guess I am just too old to learn new ways. There were bugs at the beginning, but they seemed to resolve fairly quickly. The 15th seemed to go smooth with Lacerte & Prosystems, as far as my interaction was concerned.
38 years with Lacerte = Old Dog vs New Tricks.

[BrentB9193]

What is the networking feature?

[abctax55]

sorry I moved my response on you...
Networking allows multiple people to access the data base simultaneously.
And I pay thru the nose for that feature which did NOT work this year.

[IRonMaN]

I had to laugh when I just noticed that I had new messages from Thomson Reuters - kinda fits with this discussion.  The grass indeed isn't greener on the other side of the septic tank.

You have 7 new messages

William Fence

Community Lounge, CS Professional Suite Accounting

04/15/2019 at 10:24PM

Absolute Disgust with Ultra Tax -

As I sit back at 11:00 PM and thank God I made through another tax season, I can only wonder how much easier it could've have been if this software wasn't the most buggiest and problematic high end software I have ever come across. I've been far too busy to vent, but it's not in my nature not to say something. It's time to start looking at competitor accounting software. We go back a long time with this company and this ends the 2018 filing on a sour and frustrated note.

Laura Ball

Yes indeed, we made it through another tax season, albeit not without software issues. I have been using the TR Ultra Tax product since 2002 when I was previously employed with another firm. This was my first tax season on my own and when I was making the decision as to what software to buy/use, I naturally sided with UltraTax since I had been using it for so many years. Fortunately for me, I was aware of this Community forum and made a habit to read my emails from here every morning.

The users that I truly feel badly for are those who are old school enough that they completely and totally rely on the software to be correct and/or those who are new preparers who are not completely familiar as to where the income and/or deductions are actually supposed to appear on the tax return......especially those dealing with the TCJA. I hope that those types of users are aware of this forum and are diligent enough to check every day.........all day. I know this Community forum saved me from ALOT of duplicate work.

So while we are all a bit (well, more than just a bit) frustrated with TR and all the issues that have come about this year, we should also be thankful that this Community exists and that we know that we are all in this together and are willing to share the issues and problems that we each find as we do our jobs. So I would really like to say THANK YOU to all of you who took the time from their own busy day to post here and make everyone aware.......including TR.

Today at 08:00AM

Carol Amernick

Class Acton Suit...Perhaps that would make TR pay attention. We have used UT and the body of programs since 2000. We have been told absolutely incorrect information, treated with rudeness and told to go the Help and How To because support did not know what to do. Based on the dollar figure we all pay, this is insane. What other programs can we easily convert to? Has any one yet done the research? Please share!!!!

Today at 08:10AM

Teresa Burgess

I have to agree. We've been using UT since 2004 along with FA, CSA and FC. We quickly went away from CSA but have retained ES. We also use PCS. These programs used to be top of the line but it seems most of their resources are focused on newer products and I have the impression the Creative Solutions programs so many of us started with have become an afterthought. Support has declined and it seems development isn't quite on top of things. I seriously considered a change after last year but am planning to be a bit more diligent in looking for other software and pushing it through this year. I rarely comment in the Community but do follow it dialy and have found it to be a great tool. Thanks to all of you who do take the time to comment and offer support and solutions.

Today at 08:41AM

ALEX MILNE

I'm reading that several people are thinking about switching to another software...can anyone make recommendations??? Our firm and several others that I know of are also frustrated with UT and feel that we are entitled to some kind of refund.

Today at 09:06AM

Clay Miller

I could not agree more. We are done as well. From it calculating estimated payments when the client is getting a refund and never paid estimates in the past, to the updates and changing tax amounts, to forcing a balance due on a 4868, then sending it to a client, only to have them return it with the liability amount correct but payment amount was zero (I did not carefully examine it as it as the 15th). We had to override the actual form. I am sure it is some little button not checked, as there are literally thousands of those. The inefficiencies from the constant extra logins and clicks take a heavy toll on my sanity. The main problem, as I see it, is the program is input based and not form based. The architecture is old and outdated, thus creating frustrations and endless inefficiencies for the user. For the price we pay the software should not help us be efficient and look dumb! My only thought is if we leave, then how do we get access the program if we no longer have an account?

Today at 09:09AM

Brandon Farmand

If there's competitor software out there, that didn't have bugs or hiccups in the biggest change to tax law since 86, I'd love to see it.

Today at 10:21AM

Kathleen Sheahan

I agree with your comments, Laura, to a degree. I'm not sure what you mean by "completely and totally rely on the software to be correct." If a software isn't calculating properly, why would I use said software? I may as well pull out the paper and pencil and do returns by hand then. Perhaps you were talking about old-schoolers who think inputting numbers into a return is all they need to do without reviewing the results. I assure you, I'm not one of those. As I sat and reviewed results this year, I was disappointed that so many calculations in Ultra Tax were incorrect. It seemed like everything pertaining to new law had some kind of problem. That's just not what I was expecting from Ultra Tax. Of course, the folks in Washington DC were a major part of the problem, dragging their feet on final regs, but I expected TR to be at the ready to implement said final regs when the time came, and to implement them correctly.

The gravest problem was our inability to login after lunch on the 15th. Maybe you didn't experience that problem, but it caused a panic in my office.

I also LOVE Community, and I appreciate the posters alerting us to state-specific issues when it's a state I don't reside in. Many thanks!!

Today at 10:32AM

Kathleen Sheahan

Good point. I'm curious to know how ProSystems users fared this year... Were my expectations too high?

Today at 10:39AM

Lynn Wells

I haven't talked to anyone that uses another software, but our biggest challenge was the MFA problem after lunch on the 15th.

Today at 10:58AM

Michael Gamboa

My 2 cents...TR cost us upward of 90K dollars in IT costs, lost revenues and employee payroll for just sitting around.

Today at 11:22AM

kathleen moore

We used ProSystems and had our share of issues. It has been something different every year. It seems like the TCJA really created some issues across the board. We are moving to UltraTax CS this year.

Today at 11:30AM

   

[TAXOH]

Interesting reading.

[IRonMaN]

I saw the "class action suit" and had to smile.  I've seen that line posted here a few times over the years :smile:

[TAXOH]

I noticed that too.  

[abctax55]

Of the software that I'd even consider using (Lacerte, UT, PS) it sounds like Lacerte performed the best this year.

[BrentB9193]

Those seem to be the top three choices.  We used ProSystem years ago and moved on from it.  Used Lacerte for years but its inability to handle the larger, more complex returns, lack of an integrated suite, and a few other reasons ultimately forced us to move on to a product geared more towards larger firms.

[abctax55]

I've test driven UT.  I did like some of the bells/whistles compared to what Lacerte offers.  The issues listed above that UT had this filing season are a bit scary.
Maybe I should just downsize enough to fire all but one employee, and switch to Drake

[BrentB9193]

Yeah, Drake seems to always score well.  The market for mid to large sized firms is ripe for a company to come in and take over with well designed products.  What I've learned through the years is that all tax software providers seem to have mediocre solutions.

[abctax55]

Drake is very basic (or was when I test drove it...).
And I've heard they had many problems this filing season, including refusing to acknowledge out & out computational issues.  I don't have first hand knowledge of that claim.

[abctax55]

Overall, I thought Lacerte performed very, very well in terms of handling the new tax law.
I had (still have) major issues with the networking feature and general slowness when processing a return or switching between modules.

I developed a work-around to handle the networking issue (that took up way too much of my time and resulted in a lot of down time with 4 employees...).  If that can't be "fixed" I will have to consider different software.  

Altho is sounds like UltraTax wouldn't necessarily be *better*, just different.