Intuit — Lacerte Tax

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From the April/May 2007 Review of Professional Tax Preparation Systems

As one of the leaders in the mid- to upper-end tax preparation market, Intuit’s Lacerte Tax system has not sat idly by, but rather has continued to evolve into one of the most fully featured programs on the market, offering support for every entity with year-end reporting requirements, as well as many productivity-enhancing professional tools and features like an integrated document management system, tax planner, tax analyzer, research and bank products. Lacerte includes unlimited state and federal e-filing for individual returns and federal e-filing for other entities, and can be used as either a stand-alone or networked system. The program is module-based, allowing users to select the entities and add-on features they want. The system costs about $7,000 for a package that supports all entities for a four-user office. Lacerte modules or even the whole system can also be used on a pay-per-return basis.

Learning Curve -- 4.5 Stars
The Lacerte system opens to a client selection screen that displays name, TIN, status and state, and includes the ability to filter by client status, preparer, e-file status and other options. While this serves as a method to access client returns, the Client Tracker provides much more summary information for monitoring return progress and activity. In addition to more than two dozen icons across the top, tabs are available that let the user quickly move between the primary views and functions of the Lacerte system, including the Client Tracker, Detail and Forms views, Diagnostics and Analysis. The Help Me panel across the bottom of the screen offers a plain language question search function, as well as answers to common questions, tech support updates and line-specific assistance. When working within returns, a panel on the left displays a linked menu of all forms that are included with the current return as well as related forms that may be necessary. A full list of available forms is located via a button on the toolbar. The program also maintains client contact information on-screen at all times.

Although Lacerte provides a form view of client returns, data cannot be entered onto the forms. Actual entry of client data is performed on interview sheets that are generally designed to follow the flow of a return or supporting schedule or worksheet, with a centralized menu that categorizes data-entry tasks by subjects such as Income, Deductions, Credits, Payments & Penalties, Taxes and other information. During data entry, the system is smart enough to know what fields are irrelevant based upon prior data entries (like skipping spouse data when filing status is single), and many common fields automatically build a selection list. These include city, state, employer, EIN and other fields with data that is likely to be common across multiple client returns, and the system remembers prior entries and allows the user to select an entry from the list or to put in new information.

Navigation through the system is generally intuitive, but some screens lack a “next” button or other step to move forward in the process. After only a few minutes of use, however, the other navigation functions and an easy shortcut to the main menu remedy the situation. New users may also be overwhelmed by the system’s many features and screens, so some form of training on the program will likely be necessary.

Use/Workflow & Productivity Tools -- 5 Stars
For TY 2006, the company debuted one of the most impressive new workflow tools to date: Source Doc Auto Entry, an add-on system that automatically scans and populates tax returns with data from client W-2s and 1099s. This is the wave of the near future, since it has the potential to dramatically reduce data-entry time for many firms and, as such, many other software vendors are busy adding similar features for next year. In addition to this remarkable new function, Lacerte includes many other general workflow devices that aid in the entire return cycle, from client interaction, through data entry, return preparation, review, diagnostics and analysis, as well as firm productivity functions to help assess how well individual preparers and groups are performing.
Within returns, diagnostics and analysis functions are one click away, allowing the professional to easily check for errors or even compare a client’s Schedule A or C to IRS norms, thereby identifying potential abnormalities that otherwise might be missed. Additionally, it is easy to access return summaries, a forms view, prior year returns, the system’s appointment scheduler, document management, tax planning and research functions.