Tax Software Put to the Test
A review of the leading products. Tax accountants love to grumble about their tax software, telling war stories about how they survived software bugs, tardy arrivals of updates and state editions and occasional erroneous IRS code interpretations. As this in-depth survey of tax preparers shows, most CPAs really don't hate their tax software; in fact, they generally give their brands high marks. That's not to say they're unaware of their products' shortcomings. Unlike years past, they show more willingness to switch brands. (For more on the survey and the problems associated with brand switching, see the sidebar "The Business of Tax Software".) Our survey showed that 33% of those who switched brands last year made the move because they were either dissatisfied with their old brands or simply found ones they liked better; another 30% of the switchers gave other reasons, but many of those switched because their vendors either had gone out of business or had stopped supporting the products. THE HIGHEST RATING We also surveyed the products users are abandoning and embracing. ProSystem fx, the Windows program from CCH, is the brand likely to experience the least turnover--with only 0.8% of its users saying they planned to move to another brand (see exhibit 1). Likewise, it's the brand favored by most (24.5%) who planned a switch but didn't currently use ProSystem fx. The second most popular brand attracting new users was Lacerte for Windows (15.1%). [Exhibit 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] And although 13.8% of users of ProSystem fx for DOS planned to switch to another program next year, the DOS product gained the reviewers' highest overall approval rating (4.6 out of a possible 5) with its Windows version running a close second with 4.4. (For details of those ratings, see exhibit 2). In examining the data, we were initially surprised that a DOS product outscored a Windows version--albeit the gap was small. We concluded that the DOS users, although not large in number, are extremely loyal to their products and are very resistant to upgrading to Windows. [Exhibit 2 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The product with the lowest overall rating was Arthur Andersen's A*Plus*Tax--a brand that was discontinued after last tax season. Its Windows version received the third lowest rating (3.7), slightly ahead of GoSystem for Windows (3.6). All of the programs caused at least one problem last tax season that reviewers said was the software's fault (see exhibit 3). The brand that generated the most grumbling was A*Plus*Tax for Windows--33.3% of the users reported problems. Lacerte for Windows generated the least--17.1%. [Exhibit 3 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In addition, the reviewers reported that only three of the programs handled all the tax law changes correctly--two Windows programs, Lacerte and ProSeries, and UltraTax for DOS. The brands garnering the most reports of new law errors were A*Plus*Tax for DOS (15.8%) and Pencil Pushers for DOS (8.7%). Another measure of a program's friendliness and accuracy is the number of times a user needs to call technical support for assistance. A*Plus*Tax for Windows triggered the most calls (see exhibit 5). ProSeries for Windows generated the least. [EXHIBIT 5 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This year, the National Association of Tax Practitioners (NATP) conducted its own survey, assessing its members' level of satisfaction with the tax products they use. You'll note, as shown in exhibit 6, that the 17 products which received the highest number of responses in its survey are not exactly the same as in our survey. Yet, as shown in exhibit 8, page 31, there is an astonishing similarity in the overall satisfaction ratings between the products that are common to both surveys. [Exhibit 6 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SELECTING A BRAND Readers often use the material in articles like this as an aid in buying software--and surely the experiences and recommendations of professional colleagues can be an effective guide. …