Does anybody have anything good to say about this product?

It has potiental. Just not ready for the big leagues yet.

If you have a rather new practice or you have a lot of new clients who have not been set up in the program AND those clients happen to have one or more SUPPORTED W-2s, then I can see the program being useful as it will set up the client for you and pull in the W-2 information. But if you have an established practice and the clients and the W-2 information (including the stuff that is necessary for e-filing such as employer address and identification numbers) are already proformaed, then it is more of a hinderance as there is so much that is not picked up correctly, at least so far. I had high hopes for the software, but have been very disappointed.

Vida Freeman, EA

An additional note:

I have asked Kathy to respond to my question as to whether this program is RAM or CPU intensive. She has not seen fit to reply.

I would also like to know if this program is optomized for Duo core?

Kathy has been pretty quiet of late in this forum. I think the last time she posted was January 23. She has sent me some e-mails regarding the problems I have had with 4-up W-2s as I have told her how they are not picking up state information even after the update.

Vida Freeman, EA

Hello all,

I've been responding to a few of these questions via email. I'm sorry I didn't respond to the question about whether or not the program is RAM or CPU intensive.

The answer is that both are extremely important. We have seen increases in speed when people increase either of these. Our recommendation is a 2.0GHz processor and 1GB of RAM.

I'd also 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

Kathy:

Thanks for the info.

The program runs slow. I have a 1 gig memory and a 2.8 Pentium Processor and it takes at least 1-2 minutes to scan and ocr. I maintain my machine ona weekly basis meaning defrag, getting rid of Internet Temp files and such.

in reagard to your 3rd and 4th paragraph, it certainly appears that this program was not tested properly. If this was tested by "real' accoountants in the field, then you would not be having these problems with Paychex, and other various forms of W-2's.

I really resent Lacerte charging me for testing a beta product. You should consider asking everyone that has posted on this board to be beta testers for next years programs.

Great idea!!! Terrible product???? I also had great hopes for this product but even after the update I cant get the product to recognize any 1099 Interest Income or Dividend Income Forms I scanned. Also doing a poor job transferring W-2 data. All the info is in the computer from the scan but terrible transfer. I'm giving it till the next upgrade on 2/9 and if it doesn't work by then I'm out of here. I've lost a lot of time trying to get this product to work.

I have to echo Bruketta's post on the SDAE program. I am willing to wait for the next release but it is taking far too much time.
My last attempt was to scan using the DMS program and import with SDAE. The documents are all very clear in DMS but the import falls flat on its face. Two of the W-2s were generated using the Social Security Business Services Online program. If SDAE cannot recognize the formatting from truly government forms, then what hope is there for other forms.
Good luck to the rest of you but I think I am through after 2/9.

It seems that Lacerte has adopted the "Microsoft Business Model" (greatly hyping a new product full of problems)! Who had the bright idea to charge $500 for loyal Lacerte customers to what seems to be a "pre-beta test" of a new product that is, in my experience, less than 30% effective? While the concept is great, the execution is totally unacceptable, I'm spending more time reviewing the scanned data that it takes to enter it manually (plus the time it takes my staff to scan the documents)! Based on my experience, this program has so many problems it should be recalled and the faithful users should be reimbursed for their time. Added to that I was advised that I had to have an appointment and could not receive Tech Support for almost four days (Thursday afternoon, February 1, 2007 to Monday, February 5, 2007 @ 11:00 AM)! This is NOT the Lacerte Service I have experienced in the past 20 years that I have been a customer.

With great frustration, I'm giving up - I've spent way too much time attempting to get this "not ready for pre-prime time" product.

Dean Saul

I feel like we have been sold something still in the developmental stages, clearly not ready to do
what has been reported it can do. We are asking for a refund!

I am at wits end also trying to get this to work properly. It definitely is not a time saver - can input the data faster than this. I am seeing at best maybe a 20% accuracy rate on the OCR software. Most 1099's and W-2's don't meet "Lacertes" specs for their OCR software. I too will be asking for the company's money back. This has been a huge dissapointment. . .at this point, dissapointed with many things in Lacerte - along with the 999 daily updates in the tax software period as well - users hate it all the updates!

We know Lacerte brought this program out a bit too early! That being said, I have had several conversations with Kathy and product engineers.
They are really concered about our "issues".

I have been told that the release on 2/9 shoud address our concerns about the3 /4 up W-2's. I explained to Lacerte that having these problems in Jan and Feb are not thrilling.

A few things one can try to speed up the scanning is delete all the Temp Internet Files and do a cold reboot. This has helped me. It took scan times down to about 1 minute.

Funny that another Intuit product doesn't scan into ADSE correctly. They surely had access to that in their testing! Those pesky little boxes for retirement plan scan correctly, it goes to input screen preview incorrectly, I change it while in preview & it changes to something different when it is actually in Lacerte 1040 program.

I will be asking for a refund of this mess if the 2/9 update doesn't vastly improve.

I think you have to map those boxes.

This program has great potential but is not ready for prime time.

I, too, will likely be asking for a refund if the program is not greatly improved in the 2/9 update. As I said in a previous post, the only real potential advantage I can see at present is if you are setting up a new client--and then only with a SUPPORTED W-2.

I seldom have new clients in February (unless they already came in and met me at the end of the year last year, in which case I have already proformaed their last year's information) because I am busy with my current clients. But I did have the chance to try it yesterday with a W-2 for the son of one of my clients. Of course it was another 4-up W-2, so it didn't pull in the state information, but it did recognize most of the other information. However, it imported the W-2 to the PARENT'S return, as it found the SSN there (the son is a dependent)!! It didn't even give me the option of setting up a new client. So I had to set up the client anyway, and not just with the name and SSN but the address, too. It would not pull that in from the W-2.

Vida Freeman, EA

Just tried the new update.
On one Paychex W-2, I had to scan in twice. The first time it did not recognize it.

Sacan speed a bit better (try to elimminate all temp internet files).

Accuracy was a bit up, but have not done 4Up yet.

Still not ready for prime time.

Most established practices would have many new W-2's to set up. Not just from new clients, but also from existing clients who changed jobs. Also I'm not giving up because this product will only get better as time goes on. So I stick to my suggestion, thats working for me, that is: only scan W-2, and only W-2's that are not already proformed.

As I have said before, I can see the use of the program for setting up new clients if they happen to have a SUPPORTED W-2 (especially if it is ADP). However, the ones I have tried to do so far (since I usually do not take new clients in February) have been dependent sons or daughters of current clients. And it does not work!! The program wants to bring in the information to the parents' return (which of course would never be correct) and gives no option of creating a new client for the dependent! I have sent Kathy an e-mail regarding this and told her that the program should only be searching for the SSN under the "taxpayer" or "spouse" fields, not the dependent fields. This change might even improve the speed of the program. Even 1099 information (which of course the program doesn't really work on yet) would only be included on the parents' return in the very specialized case of a dependent child under 18 with only UN-earned income (if the decision is made to not file a separate return for the child), and then it would need to go on Form 8814, something which I can't see happening in the near future.

As for current clients changing jobs, yes, that does happen though most of my clients are well established in their careers and the W-2 info is already set up.

Vida Freeman, EA

I'm out.

Just called to get my money back. Lacerate used to be a good company - I can't believe they would try to sell us this crap.

The big leagues is the only place it could possibly make sense, you can enter a lot of W-2s (particularly if proforma'd) for $650 of time. Maybe when/if support for multiple forms, and layouts of forms are included it might become useful.

Until then, glad I checked the SDAE forum, because the software doesn't look remotely ready even just to run for the 30-day trial yet.