Lacerte DMS possible new user

I would look under the DMS archives to see some of the problems people have had with DMS. If the database gets too large you may have to split it. The program integrates pretty well with Lacerte Tax. If you don't use Lacerte Tax then you could also look at some of the other DMS packages out there (e-filecabinet, filecabinet solution, etc). I would look at several different programs to see which one will work for you. I feel Filecabinet Solution is a more mature product than Lacerte DMS. I have used Lacerte DMS for over two years and it works well most of the time. Intuit is gradually improving the product. I have had problems e-mailing documents if Outlook is not open when I try to e-mail from DMS. Some people have had problems using the backup in DMS. The help screens are fairly basic and not very helpful. The program is not the same high level as Lacerte Tax-Intuit is selling it to Quickbooks users for $295. If you want to print the current page in a document there is no print current page button (you have to say you want to print page x of x). Sometimes the program has not been very stable when using annotations and some people have had problems integrating the program with Microsoft Office. Lacerte has not updated the program very many times during the year in the past, but this year they updated it more often. In the past the program has been unstable and crashed often but it is more stable now.

There doesn't seem to be a way to ask a question of the person who submits an "ANSWER." That is not an architecture that leads to discussions and needs to be examined by those who are responsible for these forums.

My question relates to his comment that the DMS file can too big. What is too big defined as? Is 10 Gb too big?

10 GB is what they are currently defining as too big. I'm starting another thread with some of the DMS breakup issues I've noticed which will hopefully help anyone else who tries this. If you are just starting Lacerte, 10 GB of our database (which is 60 GB) would be roughly 1200 clients with four years worth of returns. If you expect to grow beyond that, you should start planning now how to handle multiple databases (alpha or annual) to save yourself the headache we're experiencing. :)

There is no longer any limit to the size of the database. There was some instability in prior releases, but not in a couple of years. I just queried a friend of mine to inquire about size etc, as they have 29 preparers in a large office. They have been using DMS since inception and this is thier current status: They have 2 databases--- one for current clients and one for lost clients (archive)

--current database has 3,758 Clients and goes back to the start of DMS (TY03)---59.1 GB

--lost clients database has 1,121 Clients—4GB

Bill