Lacerte Organizers

[lgalvin]

I have stopped printing 2020 organizers due to the known printing issues.  I spoke to a rep yesterday and was told that there would be an update Tuesday to correct some of these issues.  She indicated that some of the fixes may not happen until the end of December.  Does anyone know when this is going to be resolved.  I send my organizers out by January 5 and would normally have them all printed an ready by now.  This really impacts our work flow.  

Thanks,

[IRonMaN]

Nobody here would have any more insight into the "when" question than what you were told by the Intuit employee.

[abctax55]

@IntuitAustin 

Any input on this issue....?

It truly is impacting work flow for a lot of us.  December (just like the IRS) is when us tax pro's try to retool/get ready for the upcoming filing season.  Once January hits, it starts the cycle of long days/long weeks so to add the organizer processing to January is burdensome.

[IntuitAustin]

Thanks for tagging me, I'm looking into this now.

[mmm1]

We're running into the same issues where our end-of-year work flow is getting seriously impacted by the organizer problems, so I really hope that fixes are coming out soon and not the end of December. Trying to do everything for organizers after the new year has already started would be a nightmare, plus our clients expect to see organizers during a certain timeframe, and it doesn't look good if we can't meet their expectations because the software is broken! 

[abctax55]

@IntuitAustin 

Thanks... and some concrete info would be helpful.

Plus, I'm curious exactly *how* and *why* something so basic, something that hasn't changed substantially over the past few years, gets broken in the first place.  Borders and bitmap capability isn't something tax law changes should impact, nor should the basic formatting of "prior year" amounts go on the right.  

[lgalvin]

My feelings exactly - it is such a routine programming update.

[deacondave85]

I just spent 1.75 hours on the phone with Lacerte support. They indicated that the problem is caused by either using borders or inserting gif files into the letters. We don't do either. They indicated that they consider the problem to be on my end even though I can still print 2019 organizers from the 2018 software. I asked them to check the community posts since this appears to be a wide-spread problem from what I see. They at least "escalated" this to a "level 3" and promised to call me back. Heavy sigh!

[lgalvin]

I spoke to someone on Monday - for quite a while.  She acknowledged the issues per the December 1 Critical Alert we received.  Yes it has to do with borders, bitmaps, appointments but also indicates some font issues in letter, incorrect amounts for IRA values, spacing off with underlined text and columns shifting to the left.  The agent told me that there would be an update on Tuesday (12/8) that would correct most of these issues with the exception of the bitmaps (which we don't use - you can find it in the utility tool in Organizers).  She indicated that all the issues would be resolved by month end - I did express my displeasure with that.  However, there was no update and since she was quite vague about what was being fixed I don't want to print hundreds of organizers only to have a problem with some random issue.  Between Quickbooks and Lacerte the lack of interest in serving customers from Intuit is quite astounding.

[NorCalEA]

We reported this issue to Lacerte in mid November.   Almost a month ago, and no fix yet.  We need to print our organizers, they are mailed to clients first of the year!

[NorCalEA]

Whoops, 12/8 is behind us and there was no update!

[IRonMaN]

The troops are getting restless back in the armory and the war (tax season) hasn't even started yet.  It looks like it could be another loooooooooong tax season.  

[deacondave85]

POSSIBLE WORK-AROUND! Our organizers, engagement letters, etc. print perfectly to PDF files. It is an extra step but you can print them to PDF files and then print the PDF files for mailing.

[lgalvin]

Still no updates - the PDF idea is a good one, but for us that won't work.

[abctax55]

Today's update has (supposedly) solved many of the issues:

Solved: Organizer issues under investigation - Intuit Accountants Community

[deacondave85]

POSSIBLE SOLUTION! Our office is set up so that each person has a local printer. We print the organizers to our copier which is a shared network printer. If we change the default workstation printer to the same printer we are printing the organizers to (the shared copier), we do not get the "client has no data" error.