Table of Codes

[Doug]

I have had good luck with the driver. I was able to use the write function to reorganize our preparer #s to make a little more sense. And, we have used the driver to create a couple of interactive spreadsheets to track return status for all the modules in one location.

There are three things that would really help:

1. A table that gives a description for the data contained in each field. 

2. Improve the access speed. The access time is signficantly longer than when I was using the Microsoft Jet drivers last year.

3. Add a few more "custom fields". I'd like one I could use to put clients into groups and another one to help categorize clients for organizers.

[DatabaseRobert · Accepted solution]

"1. A table that gives a description for the data contained in each field."

You may be interested in the files, where you have Lacerte installed:
   "C:\Lacerte\18tax\MOD\usdbdef.?##"

(There is a file in each module's directory; use three-letter MODule [ind, par, sco, gif, whatever] in that path, and the letter in the extension varies by module [p, s, n, whatever]; last two digits of the extension are the tax year being done.)

I use these column headers (column letter, text):
COL  USAGE
  a   FILE
  b   Field
  c   Long Name
  d   Short Title
  e   Field Type
  f   Field Size
  p   Toggle Type
  q   Info Type

Bring that document into your spreadsheet, add the row of column headers, and you will find much made clear to you.

Robert

[JasonAtIntuit · Accepted solution]

Here's how you can access the field definitions:

1. Open your 18tax folder and find the 3-letter module folder for the tax type you're interested in, for example C:\Lacerte\18tax\IND:
   1. IND = Individual
   2. COR = Corporate
   3. PAR = Partnership
   4. etc
2. Find the usdbdef.?18 file where ? represents the module (I = Ind, C = Corp, etc)
3. Make a copy of the file somewhere and either just open it in a text editor, or what I like to do is rename it to .xls and open it in Excel
4. The columns are as follows:
   1. Table number
   2. Field number
   3. Description
   4. Short Desc
   5. Field Type (Number, Date, Character)
   6. Field Length
      16. Toggle Type
5. The first 2 columns put together form the field name in the database, where negative field numbers represent the "G" columns - here's some examples:
   • 1, -12 is C1_G12
   • 1, 0 is C1_0
   • 2, 3 is C2_3

There's some information in the GL Bridge SDK as well (starting on p26 for the toggle codes, and p31 for the field descriptions). For example if you look at the usdbdef.i18 file at line 488 it looks like:

1	87	Dependent Status	Dep. Status	N	1 ... 58

This is C1_87 and matches what you see on p32 of the GL Bridge SDK indicating a toggle of 58. P31 of the GL Bridge SDK shows the toggle 58 means this:

58  1=Not Applicable
    2=Taxpayer Could Be a Dependent
    3=Taxpayer Claimed as a Dependent

It's important to make a copy of the usdbdef file just in case you accidentally change something and overwrite it - the program uses this file internally.

[Doug]

Thank you! This is very helpful.

Doug.

[Doug]

Thank you!! This is very helpful.