is anyone experiencing major glitches in the program where data is changed from year to year after being efiled? This is a system-wide problem, not just an individual client. We have lost all our dependents in 2008 & 2009, then our California 2009 depreciation flipped out, possibly over the summer.
Just now my partnership return for 2010 just had partner information start disappearing. anyone else have this? I am checking my computer now for viruses- but I do that daily. Very strange.
sorry--it's late & I hit send too soon..Anyway, when we lost our dependents for 2008 & 2009, we were told it was due to our antivirus program, yet it's just a normal one that many own. The strange thing--our data was fine during tax season, but then went away sometime during the summer with no warning. Since we couldn't pinpoint the day we lost it, we had to resort to an earlier backup & lost some of our other data. (we back up daily)
There are cases where if a tax return is efiled early in the season, a later correction to a calculation or a form will show a different result. For that reason, I would recommend that the electronic information in a prior year tax program should _NOT_ be relied on as a faithful historical reproduction of what was filed. Not just the Lacerte tax software, but any brand. You should make either a paper or an PDF copy of the return as it is filed to serve that purpose.
It is also a good idea to double check a tax return that is being efiled. In the moments before transmitting, at least compare the tax summary amounts - both federal and state - to what is in the system to make sure nothing is different. I don't feel like that is warranted because of any particular software that is being used but a good general quality control practice. Blindly e-filing and assuming that nothing has or could change over the day(s) it takes to get the 8879 back is risky.
Other than that - Yes, I've had three instances this year with Lacerte. A bank routing number for direct deposit was changed after the 2009 efile was completed, a taxpayer's SSN was blanked out, and a spouse's SSN was blanked out.
Each carried through the pro-forma and was caught during preparation or review of the 2010 return either by a diagnostic or a sharp-eyed human.
Scott
Scott:
I agree with everything you've suggested. We use Lacerte DMS to keep a pdf copy of the return as it was the day it was e-filed (or paper copy sent to client). We're so concerned about protecting the DMS copy that we don't even let anyone except our e-file administrator have access to DMS. She then prints from DMS to a pdf copy in the clients 2010 folder. The other 20 preparers can look at that anytime they want. I prefer looking at this pdf copy because DMS bookmarks it and you can go directly to the form you want to look at.
The one thing we do that no one else has suggested is to lock the return as soon as it is e-filed. That way future program updates cannot change the file, nor can someone inadvertently make a change to the data. The Client Log (F4 Status) tells when the file has been changed, but not where changes were made. But, once the return is locked, nothing can be changed.
Thanks for the addition - locking after e-filing does seem like a good idea.
Scott
In general, we lock our returns, but we will be more diligent in the future. However, I don't think it's appropriate that a Lacerte update should change the information in our tax returns to be wrong. I can see if a preparer accidentally changed one return, if not locked, but this is a full-scale problem with numerous clients.
