Non-Lacerte custom organizer
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So, I don't really think Lacerte's email organizer is worth the money. I don't know how many of my clients would know what to do with it. From a marketing standpoint, it does nothing to promote my brand image. From a management standpoint, I don't know that allowing clients to enter their information will save any time because the staff will have to review the data. So what are my options?I see that I can import something into Lacerte using the Data Conductor, and I know that I can use Acrobat to design a form that brings back data to be dumped into an excel or text file. I know some mapping of accounts must occur. I don't know excatly how I'm going to pull this off.Any more ideas? Any body had the same thought before?
Answer
I've been using the E-Organizer for three years and disagree with your conclusion. There is a training piece that you should anticipate with your clients. But, once they become familiar with the product it's utilization rate should increase. It's not the most suitable product for every client but simply a tool in your arsenal.
As to branding, I'll send out hundred's of the E-Organizers to clients the 1st week in January in a few minutes. If the E-Organizer simply reminds them that it's "tax time" and I'm hear to serve them...great. It's worth the money.
From a process standpoint, of course you need to review the data. I'm happy not to be the "clerk-typist" for the client or the IRS.
The Data Conductor is weak in the E-Organizer with only a dozen or so participants. When you see the import feature of TurboTax with hundreds of participating firms you can only hope that Intuit would remedy this problem quickly for the tax professional and our clients.
The import & mapping feature has been discussed extensively in taxtalk and ltug (the Lacerte Users Group). If you join ltug at yahoo, as I recall, the members have already posted an Excel template to handle stock transactions.
I decided to simply attach the templates.
All the best...
