Is anyone else having major time wasting issues with the programs? Slow to open, slow to print, hangs for a few minutes out of nowhere, closes. Very unhappy this year.

[abctax55 · Accepted solution]

It's not *just* ProSeries, altho you guys have had it a LOT worse than us Lacertians.  The Lacerte program is incredibly slow over the network & virtually unusable if more than one person is in the software.  Yet, I paid big bucks for the network version....hmmmmm. 

If I use it "stand alone" it is still very slow.  I'm used to keypunching using batch/heads-down entry and the program can't keep up with my keystrokes.

I had an offer for a "tier 2 tech" to log in & check on things - but I'm too terrified of what might go wrong to allow THAT right now.

[garman22]

I hear you there. I have a friend who uses UltraTax and they also are very buggy from what he says. Could it be industry wide? Maybe. I would imagine software companies are behind a massive 8-ball this year. I just hope they address their issues at end of the season and stop focusing on things we dont need or these extra functions. Its great for them but doesnt do us any good.

[dianejhart]

I agree and thanks for the feedback!

[IRonMaN]

I hate to admit it, but I really haven't had any significant issues.  Printing time has been an issue for a few years, so it isn't anything new.  While a return prints, I use that time to take a quick gander here to see if there are any new disasters hitting with an update and maybe answer a question or two.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

Ive had the "program closes when printing issue" off and on for months now.  Once it happens once, it continues to happen until I reboot my computer, then Im back in business until it happens again.

After a ProSeries update I cant print at all (it doesn't crash though) until I reboot my computer, then its fine again.

My home system, that hasn't had any issues, has suddenly become very slow to Print Preview, I don't have a printer at home right now, so Im not sure if it would crash upon printing or not.

[Marc-TaxMan]

My standalone is slower than ever before.  reboot helps a bit.  my assumption is PS is a resource hog, bigger every year.

[garman22]

I've been fairly lucky myself. Its hard to grasp how one is affected but your neighbor is not. I've been printing directly to PDF and then printing from my PDF reader. I'd never go back to printing from within PS. For me it is MUCH faster. And other than the Illinois snafu.......I've been fairly bug free. PS has had their issues these last two years....I think they are focusing too much on crap I could care less about (CPA help, TT, new forum etc..). You'd make your clients much happier with a stable product than all these extras.

[dianejhart]

I agree. Many issue's this year that are not being addressed about the program. If they are I don't feel we are being advised timely on fixes. I am very disappointed this year even more so than prior years.

[Terry53029]

Hope I don't jinx myself, but the only issue I've had was a few more form errors than in past, which were fixed. I use PSPro run windows 10 pro on old computers Dell OptiPlex 780 series

[The-Tax-Lady]

I'm still running with Windows 7 on an Optiplex 755 and dreading the upgrade next year to a 64bit. I have the same issues every year with Ohio School Districts but that's about it.

[wiredgirl]

It is ridiculous.  The only upside is I have plenty of time to go get a cup of coffee while I wait for it to open.  But who has continual time to wait for everything.  So much time wasted that I don't have!

[jholmantechpoint]

We run into people with these problems all the time but regardless of the tax software there are ways to improve speed. as you mentioned with ultratax its speed  can often be improved by 50 percent. Other tax programs like lacerte have ways to increase speed also. check out https://www.techpointtechnologycloud.com/ and we can demo your software and your data on a system that shows haw fast it can run.

[The_AntiTax_Man]

I think Intuit is trying to make improvements in PS, but it seems to be a cobbled-up mess at times.  Yes, if it were easy everyone would do it themselves. 

My biggest issue with them is that when they break something that was working they are not good at communicating with the users.  Do they know it's broken?  Are they working on a fix?  Oh, that's been fixed now?  Just give the users a heads-up. 

[Kbconsul]

I support a number of CPAs in an office and Intuit's ProSeries is the bane of my existence. ProSeries users suffer from some of the slowest load times of any software. Thank goodness I bill by the hour.  Here's what I've done to try to overcome the lack of speed:

Converted all workstations to SSD drives

Converted the server to enterprise level write priority SSD drives

Put all on a gigabit network

Insist on my clients close all Intuit products at the end of their day (I just had to reinstall PS 19 on one workstation because Homebase was corrupted and it was taking a full 90 seconds to work on a return AFTER it came up. This client had a history of leaving PS open, and Homebase seems to corrupt fatally when force closed by a reboot, or server update.

These things won't Proseries as fast as say, ANY other program, but seems to make it bearable.

I used to write code (40 years ago) and I abandoned my code base (with plenty of warning to my client base) pre-2000 rather than reengineer. I'd already moved into system design and network support.

Intuit is in the same development trap that OS makers find themselves in. They're running on a code base and networking scheme that has elements that are decades old, and a conversion to a 21st century database back end and modern networking is a huge proposition. It seems other tax vendors are in the same boat. So, rather than reengineer, they patch holes and only incorporate technology that won't break their legacy product. There may be a few vendors that excel in speed as well a capability, but their pricing is magnitudes above the run of the pack.

The Microsoft ecosystem doesn't have that loyal following that's willing to dump all their software and hardware for their loyalty to the platform, like Apple users will. Apple, on the other hand, will change their processing platform and leave virtually all their developers to write new software nearly from the ground up. And require their users to purchase all new sets of software. That's also why all the premier databases for small business run on the Microsoft platform, and virtually all accounting programs of any substance.

[Ephesians3-14]

I'm not experiencing any problems although the software has terminated 10-15 times over the past 2 weeks for no reason. Buggy.

[BobFla]

I have had many problems, like clients disappearing  from home base.  I just hope I don't need to prove extensions.

Today when filing a return it said i needed to update and the updater is still running almost 2 hours later!

Bob