alternative to drake?

[powell777]

if drake tax was no longer produce ( or stop for whatever reason) what professional tax software would you switch to/use?

[Lee B]

1 hour ago, powell777 said:

if drake tax was no longer produce ( or stop for whatever reason) what professional tax software would you switch to/use?

Why would you be worried about that?  Drake is owned by an international private equity powerhouse with billions of dollars available.

[Randall]

People wondered about ATX a few years back.  Owned by Walter Kluwers now and they have TaxWise too as a smaller package.  So I guess as long as they have the profitable business they'll keep it.

[Catherine]

I certainly would never go for a pricier package. I'm trying to retire.

[DBerg]

On 2/7/2024 at 12:57 PM, Lee B said:

Why would you be worried about that?  Drake is owned by an international private equity powerhouse with billions of dollars available.

The private equity firm can do what Wolters Kluwer did to ATX 2012. I think that is how many people found Drake and started using them.

[Lee B]

1 minute ago, DBerg said:

The private equity firm can do what Wolters Kluwer did to ATX 2012. I think that is how many people found Drake and started using them.

I have posted before that I expect that Drake's software will be totally rewritten with most of the work being outsourced to India.

However Cinven is very experienced and owns many different companies around the world

so we may not like the changes, but I don't expect them to mess this up.

[Abby Normal]

4 hours ago, DBerg said:

The private equity firm can do what Wolters Kluwer did to ATX 2012. I think that is how many people found Drake and started using them.

CCH owned ATX in 2012.

[Catherine]

I'm not going to borrow trouble. For now, it works and works well. Support, on the rare instances I need it, is still America-based and excellent. If it becomes untenable, at that point (or slightly before) I'll look around.

[jklcpa]

4 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

CCH owned ATX in 2012.

CCH was owned by Wolters Kluwer starting in 1996, so CCH may have been the one responsible for 2012 tax year programming overhaul mess, but the parent company of CCH at the time was WK.

[Randall]

14 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

CCH owned ATX in 2012.

But doesn't Walter Kluwer own CCH (which used to be Commerce Clearing House)?

 

[Randall]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:20 PM, Catherine said:

I certainly would never go for a pricier package. I'm trying to retire.

Me too.  I looked at Drake back in 2012 (when ATX was having problems).  ATX cleared it up and I stayed with them.  I'll try to stick it out with them the rest of the way.

[JJStephens]

I've been having more problems with Drake this year than any three previous years. Their previously legendary support was bad last year and this year is nothing short of horrible. I don't want to ... but might be forced to look elsewhere after this year. Since the Drake family sold out things have steadily declined. Sad.

[Lee B]

8 minutes ago, JJStephens said:

I've been having more problems with Drake this year than any three previous years. Their previously legendary support was bad last year and this year is nothing short of horrible. I don't want to ... but might be forced to look elsewhere after this year. Since the Drake family sold out things have steadily declined. Sad.

What kind of problems are you having?

I did have one software glitch where the program got hung up.

I had to use the Task Manger to close the program.

The program did restart with not problems.

 

[Lee B]

I do expect Drake to increase their renewal fees substantially this year.

My experience this year with Drake is about the same as last year and the year before.

I don't really have any new complaints.

At this moment if I had to leave Drake, I have no idea where I would go.

[JJStephens]

51 minutes ago, Lee B said:

What kind of problems are you having?

I've had numerous state part year return issues. I just split to MFS and half the data changed an the spouse return would not generate at all. It took their support person over an hour to find a backdoor solution. I was on the horn with a support person a couple days ago discussing an issue where the software would not handle a withdrawal of excess contributions to a qualified plan. The support person repeatedly told me that she 'thought she found something' and pointed me to the PMT screen to enter electronic funds withdrawals (e.g., the screen to set up a balance due withdrawal). That has been typical of the half dozen support calls I've made this year. I've had a couple support folks tell me that they're getting a lot more disgruntled calls because the software changes are not working as planned. I've been a loyal/avid Drake user for more than 10 years but if this continues I'm not sure I'll be back next year. Apparently, I'm not alone. Their Trustpilot rating is down to 3.1.

[jklcpa]

I also had trouble this week with a multi state return where I tried to split the returns and save the spouse's file. I saved it more than once and each time the program could not find the wife's split return. I finally rolled over last year's split return for the wife and entered all of her data separately again. I did not want to waste time with support.

I've had issues with the program repeatedly crashing after using the tax planner and trying to go back to the current year actual return. Program simply closes, but it may have to do with me not calculating in the planner before trying to go back to the actual current file.

I also had trouble with installation and communication with Drake's server. Every time I launched the program, MS Edge would open on top of it, and the Drake tech people couldn't explain why. Some helper file didn't install properly and also was an environmental issue with my computer and anti-virus or firewall, but it did not help for the basic support person to suggest I change my internet provider from Firefox to Chrome. I could NOT make her understand that my ISP was not the cause. Many calls later, I finally got to a person that could help.

[Lee B]

Several days ago when my program froze was just after I exited the Tax Planner.

Then I had to use the Task Manager to shut down the program.

[Jim Oh Bkkr]

The inability to find the spousal return when splitting MFS has bugged me for about 3 years.  The program has shut down every time I've used the planner this year.

[Lee B]

Here is the response from Drake's Support about the program freezing or crashing when exiting the Tax Planner;

 

"Good Afternoon, 

 

Thank you for contacting support!

 

Here are some troubleshooting tips you can try to fix a freezing computer:

 

1) Make sure you are connected to a strong internet connection. 

2) Switch from Wifi to a hard wired Cable. 

3) Restart the computer every night or every morning. 

4) Check for third party software that might be interferring. Anit-Virus programs are the most common. 

5) VPN and other such things can effect the program running as well. 

6) If these do not work, i would suggest local IT support to look at your network etc and see if a setting is affecting the program. 

 

I hope this helps!

Sincerely, "

[Catherine]

FWIW, I have had a couple of random shutdowns this season, and another couple of random times when the program seemed to freeze - but each time it eventually (probably not more than 30 seconds) responded just fine.

I've had to call support a couple of times this year, and each time I've gotten someone on the ball, very helpful, and was able to resolve the issue. One item (don't recall it) took two calls but it was a subtle thing. 

[Randall]

ATX shuts down every so often.  It actually gives you a warning to close the program.  I just close and reopen.  It's a hassle.  I just assume with all these programs, they just get overloaded at times.  Too many "if, then" statements criss-crossing themselves.

[Lee B]

I have been using Drake since the 2017 tax season and this year is the first time I have had the program freeze or crash.

[Lee B]

Multiple Drake Community posters are reporting that the Drake program is crashing whenever they upload Form 8879 to the Drake Portal.

One user reported that the problem went away after he reinstalled the program.

It looks like we may be seeing the effects of Drake cutting expenses to keep CINVEN (the new owner) happy.

[Catherine]

On 3/27/2024 at 12:43 PM, Lee B said:

I have been using Drake since the 2017 tax season and this year is the first time I have had the program freeze or crash.

I've been using Drake since the 2012 season, and it is not the first time I've seen crashes - but there are more this year than in previous years. Earlier years were once or twice a season, this year it has been less than once a week but maybe three times in a month. I have found that if it freezes, If I just let it alone it wakes up after an eternity - or, ten seconds or so. The times it has frozen or crashed I have never lost anything, so that's a good thing. 

My email program has far more troubles than Drake, and it has a lot less to do. And when email crashes, it takes a long time to re-load. 

[JJStephens]

Like Catherine, I switched to Drake back in 2012. My love for Drake cooled last year to 'like' and this year had cooled even more (NOT a fan of the new owners). Fortunately, I have not experienced the crashes/freezes others have. Nonetheless, I've had tons of issues that didn't exist a couple years ago. Three weeks ago I was ready to look at alternatives after several disastrous calls to support. Don't know what happened, but the software has been working a lot better for the past couple weeks and the last two support calls were handled by someone who knew their stuff. I'm relieved! I'm too old to switch to something else. Now, fingers crossed the improvements last.