ATX 2012 & customizing

[Joel]

I have been exploring the 2012 ATX program in order to familarize myself with the changes. Since I charge by the form I decided to customize the billing form to preset the check marks on the form that I want on all of my return billings. After getting nowhere in the program I called to ATX support. An excellent tech unsuccessfully walked through the program with me and she finally concluded that this feature will be implemented in a big update dure to be released soon. Rather than keep me on hold she said she would research the release date and report back to me via e-mail.

This is her reply:

Good Afternoon.

I did more research on the customizing issue. ATX has changes their rules on customizing master forms, due to many tax agency requests, ATX 2012 does not allow users to unprotect forms and edit them in any way. I will submit a report to our developers and request the customizing of the billing invoice, once I receive an response I will get back to you. If you do have to call back before I get back to you, please refer to incident number 2077311.

Thank you and have a great day.

While I do not customized other forms in past years, I find this to be a most critical customizing as it effects all returns and would be time consuming to hand enter the check marks on each invoice.

Just a heads up and to keep this a issue.

[Jack from Ohio]

I am at the ATX 2012 Seminar. The person here said the same thing, but asked to talk to me abou what functionality in this regard may be made available. Keep tuned in....

[michaelmars]

i customize the invoices too, to put in a warning re: late fees and interest.

[Pacun]

Jack,

I customize the name field on 1040 when depedent's name is long and Humberto Ramirez-Hernandez is trancated on the print out and I don't want the tax payer to be calling because I didn't type the whole name.

I have noticed that other software companies automatically change the font to a smaller size and the print out is complete. Can you ask for that?

[Jack from Ohio]

No such ability exists. Print them out the depenent information page....

BTW, the seminar was Saturday.

[Pacun]

Thank you Jack.

[Joel]

I had a followup call to support yesterday because I received a confusing message on my answereing machine stating that if we wanted to customize a form we would need to submit a request to CCH.

The tech that I reached yesterday was very helpful and after many trials and changes within the program and my computer, he concluded that the program, while appearing to function normally, had an error in installation.

After uninstalling the program and several hidden files, I was able to reinstall the program. The functionality of the billing customization is now working and all seems to be normal. He did state that changes to the formulas within the program cannot be changed by us.