2011 tax software survey.

• Author: Bonner, Paul

This year's tax preparation software survey by The Tax Adviser and the Journal of Accountancy yielded more than 10,000 responses from readers, showing what tax professionals like and dislike about the tax preparation software they used this tax season. As in years past, price and ease of use have a large influence on preparers' feelings about their software. For the first time this year, the survey also shows that having the responsibility for choosing the tax preparation software product affects the user's assessment of the product.

As in past years, three products led the pack in the number of respondents using them. Users of ProSystem fx Tax (CCH), Lacerte (Intuit), and UltraTax CS (Thomson Reuters) together accounted for nearly three-quarters of the responses; the remaining one-fourth were divided among, in decreasing order, ProSeries (Intuit), GoSystem Tax RS (Thomson Reuters), Drake (Drake Software), ATX (CCH Small Firm Services), Tax Works (RedGear Technologies), and seven other products that yielded fewer than 64 responses each and are not included in this analysis. Similar to last year, average overall ratings this year for the "big three" products were a virtual tie and in the same order as previously: UltraTax (4.5 on a scale of 1-5, with 5 the highest), followed by Lacerte (4.4) and ProSystem (4.3). (See Exhibit 1.) In the second tier of products by number of users, Drake once again generated the highest overall esteem (4.4), followed by ATX and ProSeries (both 4.2), TaxWorks (3.9), and GoSystem (3.4). The survey was conducted online in May 2011.

Exhibit 1: Overall ratings All ATX Drake GoSystem Lacerte products Tax RS Overall rating 4.3 4.2 4.4 3.4 4.4 How easy was the 4.4 4.6 4.8 4.1 4.5 update/installation process? How easy was it to 4.1 4.3 4.4 3.3 4.4 use? How well did your 4.2 4.4 4.7 3.5 4.3 software handle updates to forms? How well did your 4.2 4.1 4.4 3.5 4.3 software handle transfers of data within returns? How easy was 4.2 4.2 4.5 3.5 4.2 paperless electronic filing (including, for example, sending PDF attachments) with the tax software you used? How well did your 4.0 3.9 4.2 3.2 4.0 software handle multistate business returns? ProSeries ProSystem TaxWorks UltraTax fx CS Overall rating 4.2 4.3 3.9 4.5 How easy was the 4.6 4.0 4.1 4.5 update/installation process? How easy was it to 4.4 3.9 4.2 4.3 use? How well did your 4.4 4.0 3.9 4.5 software handle updates to forms? How well did your 4.4 4.0 4.0 4.4 software handle transfers of data within returns? How easy was 4.2 4.1 4.2 4.3 paperless electronic filing (including, for example, sending PDF attachments) with the tax software you used? How well did your 3.9 3.9 3.8 4.2 software handle multistate business returns? Average rating by each product's users on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being the best. Another possible indication of overall satisfaction might be inferred from the percentage of respondents saying they plan to use the same software next season. Ninety-four percent of users of Drake and UltraTax CS plan to stick with them, followed by ProSystem fx...