Discussion:CCH Pro FX for a Sole Proprietor
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Discussion Forum Index --> Tax Questions --> CCH Pro FX for a Sole Proprietor
| 16 July 2008 | |
| Hi,
I would be going on my own this coming tax season and wanted to ask other sole proprietors if using CCH Pro Fx is a viable option for a start up. I have evaluated other popular software like ATX, Tax Act and Tax Wise but nothing comes close to CCH Pro Fx. I have good exposure to the software as I used to work in a regional firm and they used this software. Spoke with CCH, they say $27 PPR for Fed 1040 and $3.50 per e-file. It is only the price that makes me think twice but I still think it is the best. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks. | |
| 16 July 2008 | |
| Agham12,
I used CCH Prosystem Fx for 9 years with a firm I worked for. I never found it very user-friendly, but it was excellent and seemed to be able to handle whatever situation came up (if we could figure out where to enter info). When I went on my own in 2006 I started using ProSeries, which I find much more user friendly, and so far has not let me down. I have a small, part-time practice and I think I pay $17 per 1040 and $3 to efile, and $30 for corporate. I've done a lot of 990's as well, and both ProSeries and ProSystem fx handle them very well. I have not used ProSystem Fx since 2005. I think the most viable option is the one that works best for you. Once I tried ProSeries I never wanted to look at ProSystem Fx again, but that's just me. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| Agham12, there are many discussions in this forum about different tax software programs. If I read you correctly you already have a client base for 2008 filing year. CPAdavid says it all as far as Prosystem goes. You should evaluate the complexity of your returns before purchasing Prosystem. I have used Tax Wise for 4 years now and find it adequate for most of my needs. My one complaint is that it doesn't print some forms and schedules even though they have data filled in on the data sheet and so you have to go in and print individual pages as needed. If you are a paperless office then this wouldn't be a problem. Tax Wise will also save the returns in PDF format which I have starting doing this year. Most of the software companies will give you an evaluation copy of the 2007 tax program this time of year so you can try it out before you buy. Good luck! | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| I've been using CCH/Profx for 36 years. The basic program hasn't changed in all these years. It is not user friendly (except that the worksheet view is a vast improvement over the old interview pages). I don't know how CCH support compares with other companies, but I have been very happy with it.
CCH was always a stodgy company that had the attitude that it was the best and if you didn't like it, go someplace else & good luck. That all changed after Wolters Kluwer bought it. They have made tremendous strides. Their estate planning software is the best I've seen. It is absolutely superb. I like it better than Benchmark, which is also excellent. I use ATX at home, and it's like Profx lite. Perfectly fine for the easy stuff, but nowhere near as robust as Profx. If you do a lot of corporation multi-state stuff, consolidations and other complex returns, you really shouldn't consider anything else. Profx is still a mainframe based program with the clunkiness of mainframes, it's just that they use a windows interface to integrate with it. The weakness is that it is not flexible. The strength is that it is not flexible. If you're not doing tough stuff, then you'd be overpaying. Other companies like ProSeries, Drake, etc may work just fine for you. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| Just FYI. CCH bought Tax Wise last year to enter the "small guy" market. No big changes yet. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 17 July 2008 |
| CCH is actually cold calling tax professionals; one gentlemen called last week. Had I not already renewed Proseries, I am sure he would have discussed the various products, but he was polite and asked I keep them in mind if ever I decided to switch. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| "I've been using CCH/Profx for 36 years."
Really? That would mean you've been using Pro/fx since 1972. I was 12 in 1972, so I don't have first hand knowledge of how it was done then, but I'm thinking pencils, erasers, and calculators were the tools of the trade at that time and computer software was for mainframes in big business and science. Am I wrong? | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| Used to have legal size sheets that correspond to the current interview forms. That hasn't changed. Used to fill them out in pencil so you could make changes then send them out to a service bureau that would process them & deliver them back the day after they received them. Then you hoped you didn't make a mistake and have to re-submit for processing & a second processing charge.
That was all CCH. Profx came in around 1996, I think. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| Ahh! Thanks for the history lesson Marcilio. When I did my first internship with a CPA firm in Tampa in about 1994 or 95 we filled out input sheets and gave them to the office manager. Then she entered the data into the computer. The feedback we got from her when we put something on the wrong line was stern enough that we made sure not to err again! By the time I got an actual job with a CPA firm it was 1997 and they were using ProSystem Fx. No more input sheet! I was so happy. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| Prosystems is actually a descendant of a mainframe program developed by IFS/Dynatax/Unitax in 1987. When IFS filed bankruptcy in 1989, CCH-Computax purchased the ProSystems program and attempted to make it technically correct and operationally efficient. The ProSystems program has no relationship to the old CCH-Computax mainframe program from the 70’s and 80’s which was excellent.
ProSystems has been around for 20-years now, and I am not sure that they will ever be threat to Intuit. As noted in other posts, it is difficult to adapt a mainframe program into a PC environment. To further complicate matters, the basic ProSystems software was originally designed around data input sheets. As someone who has used both ProSystems and Lacerte, I find that Lacerte is an excellent product and would have no problems in recommending it to a new practitioner. | |
| 17 July 2008 | |
| I also remember input sheets and service burueas. I also remember when we could finally do the input in house rather than sending out the input sheets. And what a luxury when you could print your own returns. Sure has changed over the years. | |
Death&Taxes (talk|edits) said: | 17 July 2008 |
| In the early to mid-eighties, when new clients would give my tax lawyer boss a copy of their prior year that was sent out to service bureaus, he'd thumb through the reams of paper, with almost each line having a 'See Statement Attached' caption, and he'd say, 'do you think an IRS screener wants to go through all this paper to find the detail? If it is questionable, they will send it out for audit.' The Ex-IRS guy who did his audits concurred on this, saying as an IRS man he had no patience with these returns. At first I thought this was a sales pitch, but his schedule was filled for the next year when he finished tax season. Was he right? I have no idea; sometimes I wonder if he still does his returns by hand, using computers only to produce backup spreadsheets for multi-columned schedules like Sch E, or D. | |
RoyDaleOne (talk|edits) said: | 17 July 2008 |
| Marcilio:
"except that the worksheet view is a vast improvement over the old interview pages" I hated the interview (worksheets) pages they used in the early 1970s. The ones you "mailed off". <g> age does improve somethings. | |
| 18 July 2008 | |
| Back to the original question. You may want to consider a programme with a "WYSIWYG"-type interface instead, as these are much faster for the data-entry portion of your job. As you're going it on your own, can you afford to compete with another tax preparer who can do the same job in half the time? Using WYSIWYG programmes shaves off a minimum of an hour per client return. Using CCH ProSystem fx, it takes me three to five hours to do a return that I used to do in 1.25 hours in the old DOS programme "Pencil Pushers".
Another argument against CCH ProSystem fx is the cost - it's much more expensive than these other programmes, even when you consider the unlimited printing option for the 1040. Myself, I opted for CCH ProSystem fx in spite of the time and cost commitment due to it's high versatility in forms 5471, 2555, 1116, and other foreign income forms, since I use the added input enhancements on these forms every day. If your practice is more bog standard, it's not going to be worth paying the extra time and cost to have access to features you never or rarely use. | |
| 19 July 2008 | |
| I went out on my own a year ago. Thought I was going to use ATX since I'd used it before. When they closed the message board two weeks before the end of tax season, I knew I wouldn't use it without that board for support as a sole proprietor. Looked at every software out there and even reserved ProSeries Pro. But, Intuit was going to give me Lacerte for my more complex returns, pay per return. I didn't want to go up two learning curves and figured if I was going to end up moving to a top tier software anyway, I wanted to do it now and not have to convert in a couple of years. So, I went back to the drawing board and looked at Lacerte, ProSystem fx, Ultra Tax, etc. If you need a top tier program, you'll be happy with any of those. I chose PS fx because their tech support and tax support knocked my socks off. (I called with a question re installing the demo and got a techie who spent three hours on the phone with me proudly showing off his software, walking me through an example 1120-S, opening up each menu, etc.!) Good support was high on my list of priorities being on my own. They did not disappoint me. The phone support during tax season alone was well worth the price I paid. I renewed early. Love the multi-states and the ease of kiddie tax and K-1s from entity directly into the individual. E-file was a breeze. And, I made a lot of phone calls to find out how to do things (finally bought at end of year with no time for training or much practice) and was treated royally and with ready answers and an extra tip. This is my business; I'll spend the money on great software and be more frugal with folders or furnishings or.... Call for a demo disk. | |
| 20 July 2008 | |
| I'll second Lion - their customer technical support line is amazing. They even make changes to the programme when I find errors in the programme - and due to the unusual nature of the returns I do, half the time I'm the first/only person to have found that error. | |
| 21 July 2008 | |
| When I first started preparing returns on my own, about 3-4 years ago, don't do too many, but I have evaluated nearly every option of S/W products out there, and only a few I felt were adequate, regarding computations, diagnostics, and especially regarding state returns. The top 3 I found were Lacerte, ProFX and Proseries (lacking on some states) that I found. I use pro FX at F-T firm for bearly 7-8 years now, excellent program but very costly
Based on the costs you stated above, I also believe there is a licese fee of over $2k that is in addition to pay per return costs. Based on my search, granted it was 3-4 years ago, I found lacerte and proseries to be the best 2 options. Then Lacerte only had a $95 fee, which is now up to $300, but is much better than the $2k licensing fee by Pro FX. | |
