Everybody giving up?

I was asked by Lacerte to give it until the next update.

Kathy wants me to work around. If I have to scan in, save and bring up to import. I am wasting time.
This because one of my scanners does not support their OCR software. I have requested a list of scanners they tested the program with. I have not received a reply from Kathy yet. All she does is give me the "Party Line" from the Lacerte script.

I will see what the Thursday update brings and then decide.

At least Kathy responded to you. She did not respond to either of my messages. And I AM using one of the approved scanners (the 5120C) and the approved DPI.

Vida Freeman

Hello all,

I do appreciate everyone's enthusiasm to learn the latest developments!

We are working hard on Lacerte CD4 which will be available to download this Thursday night. Here is a sampling of what you can expect to see:

1. Several improvements to the character recognition technology. Examples: improvements to several W2 fields including Box 1 and 2, Employer Federal ID, and Social Security number

2. Several improvements to the SSA-1099.
Examples: fixed issue with not importing into Lacerte Tax, fixed issue with withholding overriding all other withholdings, fixed ?unknown? issue in the new client wizard

3. A few performance improvements while scanning and recognizing documents

4. A few improvements to the mouse over tips on the Review screen

5. New button on the Review screen which will allow you to send a document to Lacerte for research

Dear MPHCPA - Regarding scanning outside of the program and then browsing for the document -- this is not an import. The only thing different, from a time perspective, is locating the file name on your computer. Like I said, you can scan in, say 10 clients' documents and save and browse as a single file - as long as the documents are sorted by client and the first document is a supported form. This should be a fast process for you. Please give this a try and let me know how long this takes you!

Dear Pippenfree - The character recognition will not have the same results if you are not using a supported format. Is the 1099-R the IRS format? If it is a unique format from a brokerage company, you will not see great results. We will be supporting brokerage formats in the future. Regarding your other challenges with W2's -- is the W2 a supported format? Is it from a payroll company or does it follow the IRS specification?

Thanks again for your feedback! I hope this new information helps!

Sincerely,

Kathy Kirkendall

I still have not gotten a response to my question:

What scanners did you test this software with? Since I have not received an answer I presume its the manufacturer that they have partnered with! Only one scanner company. That explains a lot. If I was in charge of the project, I would have tested it with the top 7-10 companies that produce scanners. I would also tell the accountants which models I tested with.

In regard to scanning outside the program. It takes longer than just scanning by itself. I have tried it. I can still imput a W-2 faster than your software can scan and OCR, especially if it is one that is from the prior years. I can imput a rolled over W-2 in 30-45 seconds! A new one takes approximately 2 minutes at most. The biggest slow down is your auto complete system.

The issue of not finding a W-2 that was rolled over from prior years and the scanned version adds that W-2 as a new one not has not been addressed.

What is a supported format? Why not tell us which companies W-2's and 10999's you feel are supported? This is just a dance that Lacerte is doing inorder to justify their inability to properly scan W-2's.

All I hear is the same old same old.

We were told yesterday that although we could import W-2's (which we can) we could not import 1099's (which we can't) and next year should be better. ????

Kathy,

Thank you for your response. Yes, the 1099-R is in the IRS format as best I can tell. It is a common 1099-R in California (State Teachers), and I believe that many of Lacerte's customers are in California. As for the 4-up W-2s I have had problems with, they are created in my office with CFS (Taxtools) software, but many of my customers come in with similar 4-up W-2s and it should be working with that format. The ADP W-2 I have tested it with had much better results, but even that didn't work well until I tried it with Copy C.

My customers won't really start coming in until February, so the documents I can test with are few. I did test with a SS 1099, but as far as I'm concerned that is about the least useful document to have it work with. How long does it take to enter the SS income? 1099-DIV would be MUCH more useful, but I do not expect good results with that.

Vida Freeman

Dear MPHCPA,

We have partnered with a company called Nuance in the development of Source Doc Auto-Entry. Through this partnership, over 100 scanners have been tested. We have talked with hundreds of customers over the last week and a small number have had scanner issues. The following scanners which are causing problems: Konica 43, Strobe XP470, Visioneer Patriot 470, Gestentner 725, Xerox documate 200 series, Canon CanoScan Lide 60, Canon DR 2050C, and Canon 3080C II. We are working with our partner to determine how to resolve these issues. In the meantime, I suggest using the "Browse Documents" button to pull up the files you scan outside of the product. There are workflow benefits to using this process in that you don't have to rely on someone else to manually key in data.

Regarding your question about the formats that we support, this is published in various places including our web page and the printed QuickStart guide. Our focus in on payroll company formats as well as the IRS format (which various providers follow), for the first release.

Thanks again for your feedback. I hope this response addressed your concerns.

Sincerely,
Kathy Kirkendall

Hello Vida,

The best way to check to see if this particular 1099-R follows the IRS format is to compare it to the 1099-R form on the IRS web page below:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf...

If it meets this requirement, would it be possible to e-mail me at kathy_kirkendall@intuit.com and I have a few follow up questions that we need in order to troubleshoot this properly.

I encourage you to try this out with the 1040 clients that come into your office over the next couple of weeks. I know it is hard since you don't have many documents right now. You will find that many of your W2's will be from payroll companies, QuickBooks, and the paper IRS format.

I appreciate the time you took providing your feedback.

Sincerely, Kathy Kirkendall

Thank your for your answer.

I am very familiar with Nuance as I use Omnipage 15 and Paperport Pro 11 and have no issues with either of these programs because my DR-2050C works with both of them. It works especially well with Omnipage 15 OCR.

Since I work by myself I do not rely on someone else manually keying in. If I scan them in and pull them up as you suggest, I still have to rely on your OCR engine. I just tried (again) your suggestion. I scanned into a pdf file and used browse. It still missed 35% of the form.

For someone like me, this program slows me down. Who do I contact about a refund?

Thank you

I just spent 30 minutes to get a fujitsu 4120c recognized. then I scanned 5 miscellaneous documents: paychex w-2, 4 up w-2, usbank 1099, american funds 1099, local bank 1099. none of the documents were recognized. process was also slower than manual entry.

I don't see an advantage. If the next release doesn't do a 360 on this product, I will be asking for a refund.

This is truly a BETA testing, hence Lacerte shouldn't be charging us for this product. Maybe it was released a year or two early.

Kathy

You keep using the "supported format" phrase over and over. I am willing to bet (double or nothing on my 2007 lacerte renewal) that CFS and AMS 1099-etc are using government specs to print their W-2's and 1099's.

I scanned in one of your "supported formats" and it missed 35% of the form. Even after I correct everything it still places the W-2 as a new one. It appears that your program does not check TIN's to see if this is a W2 that is already on the input screen.

Yep, giving up.

I actually feel Lacerte gave up on us!

This is really a product that is in Beta and we had to pay for the privilage of testing it and giving feed back to Lacerte.

If they give me the next years Source Doc for free, I would consider keeping this softeare and giving them feedback.

Kathy has been really quiet as of late.

I still think Lacerte did not test this in the real world of accountants. We are the test.

Hello everybody,

I'd like to let everyone know that we will be providing another update which will be available for web-download on Friday, Feb 9th. We have learned a lot about the 3 per page and 4 per page W2 formats. You will see improvements in the character recognition of these formats in the Feb 9th update.

We are also hoping to improve the recognition of the Paychex formats and you can expect to hear more on that topic soon.

Thanks for providing such great feedback. There are a lot of different formats out there and we are learning a lot and making improvements.

Sincerely,

Kathy Kirkendall
Lacerte Product Manager

Hi Kathy, I wrote the only post I have seen describing results using a 3080CII scanner. You say that this (and other) fairly high-end scanners are "causing problems", but there has been no user reporting any success with SDAE regardless of their scanner's make or model. I really hope this list of "problem scanners" isn't the prelude to refusing refunds.

I like telling others, who are not taxpayers, about this cool product, but in reality it is not ready for prime time.

Below was cut and pasted from Lacerte's Web-site. If they refuse you a refund, I would suggest writing to the AICPA, your state society, your state AG!

"Requires TWAIN-compliant and 300-dpi scanner and Lacerte tax software. Both sold separately. To determine if your current scanner is TWAIN compliant, go to your scanner manufacturer's web site and conduct a search for your model's specifications. Terms, conditions, pricing, features, service and support subject to change without notice.

Lacerte Source Doc Auto-Entry 30-Day Satisfaction Guarantee for TY 2006(US)

If you are not satisfied for any reason with the Lacerte Source Doc Auto-Entry product, contact Intuit Customer Service at 1-800-933-9999 by February 16, 2007, which is 30 days after the product is scheduled to be available, for a full refund of the licensee fee paid.

* Supported formats: W2 ? most common payroll company formats and IRS 2-up, 3-up, & 4-up (for same individual) laser printer format. Other forms ? all IRS formats and other provider formats which are similar to the IRS format. "

After spending 44+ minutes on hold w/Lacerte to ask what other types of scanners to use, the tech referred me here. I'm planning on getting a new scanner, Konica Minolta 4 in 1. I'm so glad I read these messages: apparently nobody is having good luck with the SDAE. Glad to know I'm not alone and its not just my old scanner. Juli

One thing I must say is that I actually got a call from Lacerte. They are concerned with the speed I am able to scan. They do actually read all these boards.

I feel that this program is about 1.5 years too early. I really do wonder what kind of accounting firms they tested this with. I explained to Lacerte that big companies hire clerks to scan and such. Therefore they do not care how long it takes (they also get the big fees). Here in the trenches we do things ourselves and as such every second counts. THey should have the people who are active in this board be testers for them.

The one thing I resent is that we have to Beta Test a program.