BNA Tax Management — BNA Tax and Accounting Center

EASE-OF-USE/SEARCH ROUTINE — 5 Stars
The new Tax and Accounting Center has an exceptional interface design that takes
advantage of new browser technologies and provides a great online hub for research
activities. Users can set up a fully customized Home page, while the system
maintains tabs for accessing the various taxation and practice areas, such as
Federal, State, International and Accounting. “From the Editors”
provides alerts by practice area, notifying users of tax legislation, court
rulings and other events. The screen also provides access to the Daily Tax Report,
lists of Favorite Documents and Recently Visited Docs, Favorite Collections,
assistance tools and other resources.

The new interface design also extends to the system’s search features,
which are always available from the top of every screen, along with advanced
search functions that let users specify which collections to search, date ranges,
and also the ability to look for results in citation, heading and author fields.
An online search cheat-sheet provides hints for terminology that can improve
search results. Search queries can be saved or edited, or users can search even
further within the results, with the items displayed in a split screen. The
Tax and Accounting Center also maintains a Search History log.

Returned hits are presented by category and library collection and are sortable
by relevance. They include links that bring up the full document with the search
terms highlighted for quick reference. Documents provide built-in links to related
code sections or other areas, as well as linked bibliographical references.
From document pages, users can view contents or chapter outlines, elect to save
the document or return to the results list. A print-friendly version of any
document is accessible via an icon in the top text menu, which also provides
options for exporting to Microsoft Word-compatible RTF format.

Since BNA’s research system is online, the change from the previous
system to the redesigned one was automatic for users through the end of May
2008, but the company also had the foresight to keep access to the old system
available for users, allowing them to transition at their own pace.

CONTENT — 5 Stars
BNA’s Tax and Accounting Center offers access to the complete array of
BNA tax and accounting libraries, including tax and accounting analysis, practice
tools and federal, state and local primary source materials. BNA offers one
of the most comprehensive libraries of tax and accounting regulations and insight,
with Tax Practice Library and available portfolios libraries including U.S.
Income Portfolios, as well as the Accounting Policy & Practice Series. Other
topical libraries include Compensation Planning, Business Operations Abroad,
Estates Gifts & Trusts, Foreign Income, IRS Practice Adviser, Real Estate,
Sales & Use Tax, State Tax, Tax Exempt Organizations, and Transfer Pricing.

BNA’s Daily Tax Report provides additional breaking news content on
pending and proposed legislation, tax rulings, court decisions and state and
local issues, with users accessing this optional news source either through
the Tax and Accounting Center or by having the content automatically e-mailed
to them. BNA also offers weekly federal and state reports. A variety of practice
tools are included with the Tax and Accounting Center, including client letter
templates, sample tax plans and forms.

CUSTOMIZATION — 4.5 Stars
In addition to the customizable Home page, BNA’s newly redesigned Tax
and Accounting Center provides numerous query options and search saving. It
also offers users the ability to receive e-mail highlight alerts. Users can
select practice areas and set specific documents as favorites for easy access.
The program’s output capabilities provide batch printing options.

INTEGRATION/OUTPUT — 3.5 Stars
BNA’s Tax and Accounting Center is accessed through the user’s browser,
which enables quick use of the system while working in tax or accounting systems,
but it does not directly integrate with such programs for attaching notes or
documents to client files. However, users can easily cut and paste search results
and documents, and the system allows saving of findings in Word-compatible format.

SUPPORT & UPDATES — 5 Stars
The Tax and Accounting Center provides intuitive navigation and search functions,
and provides a useful Help utility that offers fully indexed access to program
information and tips. BNA also includes toll-free user support with program
pricing, as well as a free instructor-led training session that qualifies for
CPE credit. All program and content updates are automatically implemented by
BNA.

2008 Overall Rating: 4.5 Stars