ProConnect Tax - Not Ready For a Tax Firm

[arimallen]

Firm branding and bulk operations are nonexistent (except for "bulk" rollover to the next tax year - which doesn't rollover ALL clients).  If I ran a complex multi-National partnership with hundreds of partners involved in oil and gas development subject to the most obscure tax credits; I'd use ProConnect to run MY company tax return (and ProConnect would handle it without breaking a sweat).  But if you ran a firm producing multiple tax returns of a similar nature, get out your timesheet and start adding non-billable time.  ProConnect's "firm management" features are less than "meh".

Where's the firm branding for a tax return program marketed to tax firms?  There's not even a tax return "cover" for standard report binding systems.  No customizations to the  client letter.  The invoice is just a "dead" form (wouldn't it be nice if it connected to QBO?).  No templates to apply to multiple clients (setup for each new client is a time consuming one-up process).  We just ended another tax season, where was the bulk extension processing?  As a firm, being able to sort/analyze All client tax returns as a whole (based on forms, credits...) is impossible.  So, how do you reach out to clients affected by a change in depreciation rules?  Tax credits?  What about firm reporting during the midst of tax season?  Using the tax return "status" dashboard you can see where each tax return "sits", but what about analytics for how long returns take to move between statuses for bottleneck improvement?  And finally, a pet-peeve that affects every forward thinking, proactive firm; access to client organizers, Intuit Link, and checklists AFTER the tax season has started.  These features DO NOT REQUIRE access to approved IRS forms (that are usually delayed due to legislation).  Intuit, believe it or not many of your firm customers ACTUALLY plan ahead for tax season.  Why can't we develop organizers, checklists, and Intuit Link requests (without immediately sending them) for clients during our slower summer/fall months?  The information we use is based on the PRIOR tax returns not new forms or legislation.  Why do you force us to create client requests AFTER you have approved IRS forms during the busiest time of our year?  Some firms like to plan ahead.

We're an Intuit firm, and currently planning on going nowhere (after over 30 years), but Intuit really needs to evaluate where it's loyalties lie.  Are Intuit ProAdvisors and firms just external sales agents who sell Intuit products, making Intuit the worldwide leading small business services company, or does Intuit "...value us a customers"?  Lately, Intuit's support and features for ProAdvisors is just corporate "lip service".  Can you say Xero?

[sjrcpa]

Big sister Lacerte has a lot of these features. ProConnect Tax uses the same "engine", but as you noticed is far less robust. Of course Lacerte costs a lot more.