TaxWorks -- Tax Planner

TaxWorks is a new addition to the tax planning review, although the company’s TaxPlanner application has been available for several years as an add-on to the company’s tax preparation software. The program is geared primarily toward accountants and tax preparers, but the company is also targeting other prospective estate and tax planning professionals, such as attorneys. The program supports creation and comparison of up to five tax scenarios, and reflects phase-in tax code changes. The current version of the program supports federal 1040 planning, along with state income tax planning using a customizable worksheet. The system costs $195.

PROGRAM
USE/DATA ENTRY – 4 Stars
TaxPlanner’s primary screen
opens to a subwindow that provides
pull-down and icon menus across
the top of the window, with the
work area below. This work area
provides columns for up to five
planning years, with financial data
below. To the left, a column with
text-based titles provides the row
subjects of the spreadsheet-style
screen. These listings include a
summary of the basic components
of a 1040, including Filing Status,
Ordinary Income, Schedule D, Adjustments,
AGI, Exemptions and others, allowing
users to quickly see items that
are affected by changing variables.

Most data entry is performed by
selecting the year, then clicking
on the text row header, which brings
up a worksheet window that allows
detailed entry of items within that
category. For instance, clicking
on Ordinary Income brings up a worksheet
that allows entry of salaries/wages,
interest and dividends, state and
local tax refunds, and other income.
Some of these entries, such as interest
and dividends and passive loss adjustments,
provide a further detailed data-entry
worksheet. TaxPlanner then calculates
the total of these entries and transfers
the sum to the appropriate field
in the primary planner window. All
affected fields, including taxable
income and tax due/refund, are automatically
adjusted to reflect any changes
made. The system allows copying
of column (year) data to expedite
planning, and program icons provide
quick access to the state worksheet,
the data bridge, and accessing general
firm and client information.

In general, movement within TaxPlanner
is intuitive, with the ability to
use a mouse, keyboard arrows or
the tab key as well as several “hot
keys,” and a simplified screen
that provide text links to more
detailed data-entry worksheets.
The program automatically opens
to a new planning project/client,
but existing clients can be opened
via the icon or pull-down menus.
The windows used by the system are
less than screen-sized and are not
resizable.

REPORTING
– 3.5 Stars
TaxPlanner is limited in its report
capabilities, but does offer a nicely
designed report that is suitable
for presenting to a client, providing
up to five years of planning in
a side-by-side format that makes
it very readable. On a positive
note, the system makes it easy to
print just a current screen, main
worksheet or all worksheets associated
with the client, and also offers
the ability to print to *.PDF. Unfortunately,
the report is not customizable,
nor does the program offer any graphical
reporting tools.

IMPORT/EXPORT CAPABILITIES
– 4 Stars
TaxWorks TaxPlanner can draw current-year
client information from the TaxWorks
tax preparation program using a
bridge. The program does not import,
export or interface with any outside
programs.

HELP,
TRAINING & SUPPORT – 3 Stars
TaxPlanner includes a useful help
utility that is task-focused, providing
useful assistance to new and infrequent
users. The program provides limited
right-click menu functions, such
as cutting and pasting data entries,
but there are no tutorials or direct
links to the company’s customer
support web site or online help.
The company does not have organized
training programs and offers almost
no online assistance, not even FAQs
– just support telephone numbers.
Toll-free telephone support is included
with the software.

RELATIVE VALUE – 4.5 Stars
The TaxWorks TaxPlanner provides
a good basic planning system in
a package that is very easy to use.
It handles most computations quite
well, but is limited in many of
its functions, including the lack
of customizable reports or graphical
client presentation tools. That
said, professionals looking to experiment
with tax planning or who have limited
need to offer planning services
would be most likely to benefit
from the program. With direct integration
with the company’s tax preparation
software and costing only $195,
every professional already using
TaxWorks should also get TaxPlanner;
it provides solid basic planning
capabilities.

2004 OVERALL RATING: 4

For the products in this review section, we looked at five key areas that users and vendors stated were of primary concern:

Program Use/Data Entry
As with any software, the ease with which the program’s functions can be operated and the amount of time it takes to grow accustomed to a tax planning program affect its value in a professional setting. This section looks at general navigation and data entry, as well as more specific functions such as calculations, the number of plans/scenarios the program supports, comparisons offered and additional productivity tools such as diagnostics and checklists.

Reporting
Reporting is one of the key components of a tax planning program, allowing professionals to provide clients with a comprehensive, yet comprehendible, assessment of how financial activities may affect future tax liabilities. This component assesses a program’s ability to provide summary and detailed reports as well as client-deliverables such as graphs, *.PDFs and client letters. The customizability of these reports and communications also adds value to a program by enabling a user to brand and personalize client contact.

Import/Export Capabilities
As a starting point, almost all data needed for the base year of a plan has already been entered into a tax preparation program ‘ there’s no need to enter it twice, especially with complex clients. Thus, the ability of a program to pull client financial data from at least its sibling tax preparation program, if not competing programs, is essential. Further integration with outside programs such as Excel and Word further aid in the usefulness of the tax planning application.

Help, Training & Support
While not needing technical support is always preferred, its availability is important. This section looks at how the program provides assistance to users through built-in help utilities, tutorials, online support centers and general functionality, in addition to optional training programs offered by the vendor.

Relative Value
This is the ‘Bang for your Buck’ section ‘ the reviewer’s subjective opinion of how closely the software’s value to a practitioner matches its cost. Because every practice is different, this section generally identifies what kind or size of firm would benefit the most from it, in recognition that large and small firms often see things very differently when it comes to their IT expenses.

Overall Rating
Finally, the overall rating gives an overview of how a product scored in each of the identified categories, and is the average of those scores rounded to the nearest half-star.