Best Software for Tax Professionals

Best Software for Tax ProfessionalsTax season means different things for different people. For the average American taxpayer, it means collecting all your W-2s and various simple forms before filing in the hopes of receiving a tax return. For businesses, taxes mean making sure your bookkeeping efforts throughout the year were accurate enough to avoid penalties from the IRS. For tax professionals who help everyone else correctly file their taxes, the time between mid-January and April 15 is the busiest time of year.After conducting a thorough review, we recommend Drake Tax as the best online tax software for professionals serving small businesses. If you want to look at our methodology to understand how we chose Drake Tax or see a comprehensive list of online tax software vendors, visit our best picks page.Why Drake Tax?Drake Tax is a thorough, accurate and easy-to-use software application for tax professionals and preparers who cater to small and mid-market clients. Where it really s hines is in its customizable reporting, which offers granular insights into every aspect of your practices operations. Beyond its tax preparation capabilities, Drake Tax includes a module that serves as a wholesale practice management system that gives you a centralized view of the health and efficiency of your business.Ease of UseLike any good piece of software today, Drake Taxs interface is simple to navigate and allows tax preparers to move from one item to the next. It doesnt matter if youre a member of an accounting firm, corporation or nonprofit, the tools you need are included and are easily accessible. It has all major tax forms, allows you to prepare gift and estate taxes, offers all state returns, and includes plus-rechnenal applications to manage clients and document transfers.A major useful feature of Drake Tax is its SecureFile Pro, which allows clients to electronically fill out the required paperwork and return it directly, streamlining the process and cutting out unn ecessary paper copies. We also like that state returns can be prepared directly in Drake Tax without needing to purchase add-ons or additional software.FeaturesAs a program designed for tax professionals, Drake Tax is packed with features to help you prepare taxes for your clients accurately and efficiently. The company offers demos, videos, a users manual, a quick reference guide and other resources on its website to help you take advantage of all its capabilities. Heres a sampling of its features.Comprehensive filing Drake Tax includes support for even the most complicated filers, though its primarily used by firms with small and mid-market clients. It comes with all 1040 forms, all federal packages and 48 state packages (plus the District of Columbia), including forms for partnerships, S-corps, C-corps, estates, trusts, tax-exempt organizations and more.SecureFile Pro This is Drake Taxs paperless tool that helps you obtain the source documents from your clients that youll use in the tax-preparation process. This streamlines things on both ends, allowing for seamless communication between you and your clients.Paperless options In addition to SecureFile Pro, Drake Tax has other tools to help you reduce the amount of paper needed to prepare and file client taxes, such as sharing information for revisions, and e-signing and e-filing documents.Data import You can easily import data from QuickBooks or Microsoft Excel, which simplifies the implementation process. If you like working in spreadsheets, importing them is straightforward and easy.Refund estimator Like our other best picks, Drake Tax provides a refund estimator that runs throughout the process, so you can identify issues affecting your clients refunds and keep clients apprised of your expectations throughout the process.Planning tools This softwares tax-planning features help you compare taxes from year to year. It also allows you to archive old information so you easily retrieve it for your clients, wh ether they need it for personal reasons or in the event of an audit. Its planning tools also include an amortization schedule.Review tools Mistakes and oversights happen, but Drake Tax has built-in recommendations to help you avoid them and prevent IRS rejection. Rejections are costly both in terms of productivity and reputation, so having software with this feature is reassuring.PricingDrake Tax has two main pricing plans for their services. For companies that have a large number of returns to file, there are unlimited tiers that have zero restrictions on the number of state and federal returns filed through the program. Smaller organizations can more cost effectively file their returns through the companys pay-per-return pricing structure.For Drake Taxs unlimited models, you pay $1,695 for the Power Bundle, which includes Drake Tax Unlimited and Drake Accounting. Or, for $100 less, you can get Drake Tax Unlimited (Drake Accounting is traktement separately for $395).Under the pay-p er-return plan, you pay an upfront cost of $395 that includes 15 returns. Each subsequent return costs $22. After 85 returns, the plan automatically converts itself to the unlimited package. If you want to include Drake Accounting with the pay-per-return plan, it costs $495.Customer ServiceAcross the web, customer testimonials regularly sing the praises of Drake Taxs customer service. After contacting the company, posing as a tax professional considering new software, we understand why thats the case. When we called customer service, the representative we spoke with was attentive and took the time to walk us through the companys tax program.Along with numerous online resources and help materials, Drake Tax maintains a regularly accessible technical support department. During tax season from December 3 through April 19 customer support is available Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. ET, and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET. During the off-season from April 20 through December 1 customer support is available Monday through Friday, from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET, and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST.LimitationsDrake Tax is not like most tax preparation software. While its layout is easy to navigate and intuitive, there are aspects that take some getting used to. Its so deep in its functions that unless youve worked with its previous iterations, you may need some time to get your bearings straight.If youre a small business with simpler tax needs, this software just isnt for you. Drake Tax is meant for accounting and tax preparation firms, and mid-market companies handling complex tax situations.Ready to choose online tax software? Heres a breakdown of the rest of our coverageBest zugnglich Tax Software for geschftliches miteinander 2019Choosing Online Tax Software for Business A Buyers GuideBest Overall Online Tax Software Intuit TurboTaxBest Tax Software for Very Small Businesses HR BlockBest Free Online Tax Software TaxActBest Enterprise Tax Softwa re ONESOURCE Andrew Martins Andrew Martins is an award-winning journalist with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Ramapo College of New Jersey. Before joining business.com and Business News Daily, he wrote for a regional publication and served as the managing editor for six weekly papers that spanned four counties. Currently, he is responsible for reviewing tax software and online fax services. He is a New Jersey native and a first-generation Portuguese American, and he has a penchant for the nerdy. 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The Career You Never Planned For May Lead to Your Dream Job Heres How

The Career You Never Planned For May Lead to Your Dream Job Heres How Like many women, Lisen petersberg did all that she could to prepare herself for success in the workforce. She went to college, got an MBA, forged strong connections and pursued a career in marketing.I checked all the boxes, Stromberg explained during a webinar hosted by Fairygodboss Co-founder and President Romy Newman. But after the birth of my first child, I went back into the work world and honestly welches astonished to find myself leid on the same trajectory as I had been on, she said.Her boss at the time had a stay-at-home spouse. He kept asking me, Dont you want to be home with your son? Stromberg recalled. Despite challenges and biases, she resolved to continue chasing the career path shed set out on. It welchesnt until she was on bedrest while pregnant with her second child that she was forced to karenz her career and reflect on what was going on both at work and at home.Post-maternity leave, Stromberg ap proached her boss in the hopes of agreeing on a new kind of schedule that would help her better manage her family and work priorities. Their response was, Be all in, or be gone, she said. So she quit her job with no safety net and made it her mission to find out how women were navigating their growing careers alongside growing families.Ultimately, Stromberg whos now Partner and COO of the 3% Movement, which works to change the ratio of women in leadership in advertising interviewed nearly 200 women and published Work Pause Thrive How to Pause for Parenthood Without Killing Your Career. The book reveals how how trailblazing women have disrupted the traditional career paradigm to achieve their personal and professional goals and how forward-thinking companies are capitalizing on their talents.Here are some of her key takeaways for career-minded women who are starting or thinking about starting families, and for mindful employers who want to offer their employees more untersttzun gsangebot.1. Pausing your career is leid career suicide.When Stromberg began studying womens career paths, she surveyed 1,500 women and found that while only 11 percent of respondents thought they would pause their career after having kids, 72 percent either completely left or shifted to some kind of part-time work, at least temporarily. Newman recalled that when she had her first kid, I think I spent about a year thinking to myself, If I step off the treadmill, I will never be able to get back on. If I dont work my butt off through these really hard years, I wont ever have the career I wanted to have. If theres one message I want to tell our audience, its Yes, its OK. Almost every woman is doing this in some form.2. Theres bedrngnis one right way to approach pausing your career.In her book, Stromberg refers to a few different models of successful career pausing, based on the experiences of women she interviewedThe Cruiser, referring to women who stayed at the same company but scale d back temporarily, and then re-engaged full time when the time was rightThe Boomeranger, referring to women who completely left the workforce and then managed to get back into their careers after a breakThe Pivoter, referring to women who completely left the workforce and then ended up changing careers when they re-entered the workforce3. You may not get the career your planned for, but you might get the career you never planned for.As Stromberg put it, careers are not predictable but getting thrown off your anticipated track can often be a blessing in disguise. For Newman, thats certainly the case had she not paused her corporate career in digital ad sales after having kids, shed likely never have co-founded Fairygodboss which has turned out to be her dream company.4. Millennials are changing what the traditional workplace narrative looks like and this means companies need to support both men and women as they become parents.In decades past, traditional gender roles and paths l argely dictated what workplace dynamics looked like and what was plausible for women and men. But as millennials become parents, those dynamics have begun shifting. Sixty-four million millennials will become parents within the next decade, explained Stromberg. The millennials are the best-educated generation weve ever had. If youre a workplace that isnt figuring out how to navigate parenting for your employees, youre going to be screwed.Stromberg added that her research has revealed that the majority of men 67 percent are planning to pause or scale back their careers. Its not just the women who are demanding better work-life integration its men, too. This is a new reality, Stromberg said. What I saw is our generation of women trailblaze this path for nonlinear careers, and thats the path we have to support, she added, emphasizing the importance of inclusive parental leave (that men feel comfortable taking)5. Its not only parents who need these kinds of supports at work.Career pau sing is not exclusive to parents. In her research, Stromberg spoke to many women who never paused their careers because they had kids, but they did when they had aging parents or needed to care for an ailing loved one. I even spoke to women and men who were athletes, who wanted to run a marathon, for example, and were looking for companies that would let them make time to do that, Stromberg shared.If retirement is not going to come until were 70, we want to be able to make time for ourselves, added Newman.Stromberg stressed that companies need to offer and trust their employees with time mastery a term she uses in place of flexibility.Companies should be thinking about how to offer that to as many employees as possible, she said. It has to be baked into the DNA of the culture. It has to be understood that when John goes home at 5, hes not actually not ambitious. Hes likely logging on to his computer again after his kids go to bed. If you trust John to get his work done, the whole t eam will function better.6. Return-to-work programs are on the rise. Use themFor women who find the prospect of returning to work daunting, Stromberg suggests looking into which companies offer return-to-work programs, which are specifically designed to ease the transition back to the workforce.Ultimately, Stromberg and Newman concluded, navigating your career alongside personal changes is all about our most precious resource time. Fortunately, companies like Fairygodboss help women investigate what kinds of companies will allow them the space to dictate their own time mastery, however that balance may shift throughout their careers.