Drake seminar worth the time?

[Guest Taxed]

I would most likely use that for trade import. $5 per 50 transactions is not bad. I pay $9-10 per hour for data input so I may save there.

I will try to get a trial offer and see for myself, what it takes to use it.

[jklcpa]

I'd call and make sure that you get the kind of usage you want. I saw something about "trade tokens" on their site, so I'm not clear if a token can be used for any of the services, or if there are specific kinds of tokens depending on what you want to do.

[Guest Taxed]

Good point. I am going to their website now to see if I can download a demo and try it.

[Guest Taxed]

Ok. here is what I found out about Gruntworx trade imports:

1) Needs at least 2 tokens (so the min charge is $10 up to 50 trades)

2) The scanning of the 1099-B and population of the 8949 does NOT happen on the fly. A scanned document must be submitted via Gruntworks and then you have to wait a few hours (they can take upto 24 hours) for them to process and create an excel file. They will e-mail you when it is ready.

3) You must review the excel file for accuracy against the 1099-B. They do NOT guarantee 100% accuracy because of various 1099-B formats.

4) Once you are satisfied with the excel file you can then import it into 8949 using the import feature.

Thinking about how my practice works, I could use this feature for the handful of daytrader clients and charge them for my costs (+ a margin). I think my largest trade file this year was 800 trades.

But for the vast majority of clients with a 1099-b with a handfull of trades it will be the old fashioned way for now.

[Lee B]

You can sign for Drake Webinars or view a long list of online tutorials for free at www.DrakeETC.com.

[Guest Taxed]

Not all the webinar's are free. There is a small charge I think $19 to watch those that are not free.

BUT they do have excellent training videos on various subjects that are short, to the point!

[Lee B]

The Webinar that I signed up for about CWU on May 22nd and all the other May Webinars are free

unless you want CPE Hours, then there is a $19 fee for CPE.

[Catherine]

Ok. here is what I found out about Gruntworx trade imports:

1) Needs at least 2 tokens (so the min charge is $10 up to 50 trades)

2) The scanning of the 1099-B and population of the 8949 does NOT happen on the fly. A scanned document must be submitted via Gruntworks and then you have to wait a few hours (they can take upto 24 hours) for them to process and create an excel file. They will e-mail you when it is ready.

3) You must review the excel file for accuracy against the 1099-B. They do NOT guarantee 100% accuracy because of various 1099-B formats.

4) Once you are satisfied with the excel file you can then import it into 8949 using the import feature.

Thinking about how my practice works, I could use this feature for the handful of daytrader clients and charge them for my costs (+ a margin). I think my largest trade file this year was 800 trades.

But for the vast majority of clients with a 1099-b with a handfull of trades it will be the old fashioned way for now.

I have used Gruntworx with ATX for several years now. I love the indexed PDF I get -- I can go through all the documents in order. The scan for Sch D info has to be at a certain level of quality (300 dpi?) for them to really get the right numbers. I do check every line, and if I have used the right scan quality there are very few errors.

Every now and then there will be something weird -- usually traceable to a problem with the original scan. It's not perfect but it's worth it to me. Some of my clients have hundreds of stock trades -- even if I had to make corrections on 10% (which I don't) it is still a HUGE time-saver.

[Guest Taxed]

Catherine thank you for the feedback. How long do you have to wait after you submit the 1099-B scan to Gruntworx to get back the spreadsheet to do the 8949 import?

Does it pick up wash sale correctly?

Is it true that it takes a min of 2 tokens? Then 1 additional token per 50 trades.

I can certainly see the value for those day trader's 1099-B import.

[Mike D]

I attended a Drake software seminar in NY today and came away quite impressed. There were 85 people in attendance including user's of Ultratax, Protax, ATX, Tax Works, Tax Wise, LaCerte, etc.

The price for the complete Drake package before 05/31/13 is $1,095 which is not alot for what you get. All modules, all states, payroll, client writeup, document manager, tax organizer, tax planner, CPE, etc.

I am leaning towards purchasing Drake for 2013 as a long term solution, as I have had it with conversions, learning curves, etc.

Mike Dubin CPA

[Catherine]

Catherine thank you for the feedback. How long do you have to wait after you submit the 1099-B scan to Gruntworx to get back the spreadsheet to do the 8949 import?

Does it pick up wash sale correctly?

Is it true that it takes a min of 2 tokens? Then 1 additional token per 50 trades.

I can certainly see the value for those day trader's 1099-B import.

It depends on when you submit and how much needs processing. If you submit early in the day (or late at night), it seems to be quicker (fewer cases on the servers). Big cases (hundreds of trades rather than a couple dozen) take longer. A couple hours is the usual. In the thick of the season, a job submitted early afternoon might take as much as twelve hours (functionally, the next morning).

I have my assistant submit the files when they are scanned (when the papers first come in to my office), so the indexed pdf and the trades spreadsheet is ready for me when I get to that return.

I don't recall offhand about the tokens, as I buy whatever I used last year.... I think one token processes 10 trades. But that wouldn't be worth it!

YES, it catches wash sales. How it shows them is determined by how the original 1099-B shows them. Sometimes it is a second line with just the wash adjustment and everything else blank; sometimes it is an adjustment in a separate column of the same line. It also catches puts correctly (didn't have any calls this year so can't tell you about those).

[Guest Taxed]

Thank you Catherine for the feedback. Next season i will be giving it a try.