I am starting my own tax return preparation service, and have gotten a demo version of ProSeries Basic. I like the program, but would like some more practice on preparing returns. What suggestions would the community have on how to get better acquainted with the program, as well as preparing returns.
You can get a demo disk of Lacerte, they have very sample tax file from individuals to business returns. Lacerte same owner with ProSeries will help you to install the software over the phone, it takes them another 15 minutes to advise you how to open a sample tax file, how to read the tax returns on the screen.
Try to prepare LaCerte sample returns by ProSeries, I believe ProSeries also has sample returns in their file. Just go from there, it's best to have a close friends who would help you to finish a few returns and you can go from there.
2008 tax season was my first "for money" season and my first use of Proseries Basic. To prepare for the season, I took all my Turbotax returns for Tax05 ran these through Proseries Basic 2006 and used the TurboTax as comparator. This gave me some practice and also check that all the calculation and features work. Beyond that I ran simulated scenarios from IRS training site ( VITA/TCE ). But at the end of the day, I spent a lot of extra time doing real client ones and learnt along the way ( extra time meant a lot less clients but was very educational). And used this community board to get answers. Good Luck -- you will do fine.
one way would be to set up a "dummy" client and practice in that senerio
