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.