The 3 Best Tax Software Products for Procrastinators ......and... DJI Tax Assistant

Ben Taylor for Time writes: You’ve either come to exactly the right place, or you have no business here. If you’re an overachiever, move along. If you plan your wardrobe over 48 hours in advance, if you buy Christmas presents in October, if you invested in an IRA at 14, scroll along to the next article. You had your tax returns filed in January while the rest of us were watching True Detective. You’re not welcome here.

Here’s what we found:This guide is for the do-laters and procrastinators. We set out to find the best tax software available, particularly if you—like us—haven’t touched your still-sealed W-2 in 46 days. We tested multiple products, looked at ratings from experts like CNET and PC Mag, assessed reliability, noted guarantees, and most of all, compared productivity and helpfulness features across products in order to pick the three options best suited for Joe-April-14th tax filer.  <snip>  The article continues @ Time, Click Here to Read.

The top 3 winners were in order:

#1: TurboTax 

#2: H&R Block

 #3: TaxACT

But Ben Taylor had a Bonus  "honorable mention" that we were not familiar with, DJI Tax Assistant:  Ben Taylor writes:  For the conspiracy theorists, privacy paranoiacs, and future Edward Snowdens, consider DJI Tax Assistant, a made-for-Excel tool that lets you do all your taxes in a simple, offline spreadsheet—the sort of place inaccessible to online hackers and identity thieves. Yes, all your info is eventually headed to Uncle Sam anyway, but you can tinker, adjust, and tamper to your wallet’s content before you finally print and address your filing. In theory, no one will know what sort of shenanigans came and went while you filled out your return — not even the NSA. [end]

DJI Tax Assistant for Excel - 2013 Tax Year (Version 5.2a)

• Registration Fee - Personal Version: $15.95*
• Registration Fee - Professional Version: $29.95*
• Download Tax Assistant for Excel - 2013 Tax Year
• Register Tax Assistant for Excel
• Tax Assistant for Excel Support
• Screen Shots
• Download Tax Assistant for Excel for Previous Tax Years

* - The Personal Version is for personal use for preparing up to 5 federal income tax returns. The Professional version is for use by tax professionals, active traders or other tax preparers who are preparing multiple tax returns beyond what would be required for personal use.

Tax Assistant for Excel is a custom application written for Microsoft Excel and requires Microsoft Excel 2007/2010/2013. It simplifies your Federal Income Tax preparation by providing Excel workbooks with IRS approved substitutes of Form 1040 and Form 1040A with Schedules A, B, C, C-EZ, D, E, SE, Forms 6251 (AMT), 4952, 6781, 8829 and 8949. There are also a number of worksheets related to deductions and Schedule D including the Social Security Benefits, Qualified Dividends and Capital Gain Tax, and Child Tax Credit worksheets.

Your sources of income, deductions, capital gain transactions as well as partnership and S corporation income are entered on separate worksheets. The data from these worksheets is then automatically entered into the correct forms. Tax Assistant for Excel helps you determine whether to itemize deductions, automatically calculates your tax and provides a computerized record of your tax filing. The program also provides an automated Schedule D and Form 8949 preparation that is especially helpful for active traders and other taxpayers with a large number of trades to report. The program allows you to easily enter or copy and paste your trades into the Capital Gains sheet and print out a Schedule D attachment as a substitute for preparing multiple Form 8949's, although the program will prepare up to 100 Form 8949's.

In addition to the more common income reporting, you can report income from up to five different businesses, rents, royalties, estates and trusts, as well as income from partnerships and S corporations.

The trial version will remain fully functional for 7 days and the expiration can be removed with the registration passkey provided upon registering the program. Entering the registration passkey will also revive the program after the 7 day trial period has expired.

The forms provided in Tax Assistant for Excel are accurate reproductions of the actual forms and are approved by the IRS. While the program will help you with your tax preparation, it does require that you follow some IRS instructions in order to accurately complete your tax return. If you do not feel comfortable with this approach, you should purchase an interview based tax preparation software package or hire a professional to prepare your tax return. Even if you use other tax preparation software or a tax professional, Tax Assistant for Excel can provide IRS approved electronic copies of your tax return in the common Microsoft Excel file format for long term storage. It can also provide an easy way to estimate your taxes based on different scenarios.

Tax Help -We act on your behalf and provide the help needed to resolve your IRS tax problems.www.guardiantaxresolutions.com.

Liberty Tax Service Reports Fiscal 2014 Third Quarter Results / Reports Increase of 7.7% in U.S. Tax Customers Served Through February 28

JTH Holding, Inc. TAX +0.30% (the "Company"), the parent company of Liberty Tax Service, today reported net income for the third fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2014 of $4.1 million, or $0.28 per diluted share, compared to $1.7 million, or $0.12 per share, in the prior year period. The Company also reported that U.S. customers served during the calendar year through February 28, 2014 increased 7.7% and systemwide revenue increased 13.3% from the same period in the prior year.

"We are pleased with the increases we are seeing this year and they are in-line with our expectations. We have continued to take market share even though we had fewer offices," said John Hewitt, CEO. "As we said in February, we were fortunate to be able to focus on our high performers, and the results so far this season speak for themselves. Our best performing franchisees embody our mission statement of 'Set the standard, improve each day and have some fun!' We are glad to be partners with them and look forward to helping them continue to expand their business and ours."

Revenues Revenues for the three months ended January 31, 2014 increased 8.3% to $40.7 million compared to $37.6 million in the prior year period. Revenues for the nine months ended January 31, 2014 increased 3.5% to $56.1 million compared to $54.2 million in the prior year period. The increase in revenue during both periods was primarily due to an increase in royalties and advertising fees, financial products and tax preparation fees. These revenue increases were mostly driven by higher volumes of returns and an increase in average net fees. In addition, much of the increase in tax preparation fees resulted from an increase in the number of online returns processed by the Company in part due to an acquisition of certain assets of an online tax preparation provider in early January 2014. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in franchise fees because the Company was unable to sell franchises during a portion of the second quarter of fiscal 2014 and a decrease in area developer fees due to the repurchase of several areas from area developers during fiscal 2014.

Operating Expenses Operating expenses for the three months ended January 31, 2014 increased 4.1% to $35.5 million compared to $34.1 million in the prior year period. Operating expenses for the nine months ended January 31, 2014 increased 5.1% to $73.8 million compared to $70.2 million in the prior year period. The increase in both periods was primarily due to an increase in general and administrative expenses, area developer expense and depreciation, amortization and impairment charges.

The increase in general and administrative expense was related to one-time restatement costs and an increase in bad debt expense related to the higher number of office closures. The increase in area developer expense was directly related to the increase in royalties. The increase in depreciation, amortization and impairment charges was primarily due to additional amortization expense related to acquired customer lists and area developer rights, along with placing the Company's NextGen software into service in fiscal 2014 and thus beginning to depreciate it. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in advertising expense in anticipation of the later start to the tax season and shifting more of those costs into the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014.

Balance Sheet The Company had a cash balance of $3.7 million at January 31, 2014. The Company has drawn $104.6 million on its revolving credit facility as of January 31, 2014 compared to $108.1 million as of January 31, 2013, to provide cash used in operating activities and operating loans to franchisees. As of February 28, 2014, the Company had a balance of $9.7 million on its revolving credit facility compared to $61.0 million as of February 28, 2013.

Operational Results During the calendar year through February 28, 2014, the Company has processed 1,250,000 returns in offices and online, an increase of 7.7% when compared to the same period last year. The number of returns processed in offices increased 6.1% to 1,148,000 and the number of returns processed online increased 29.1% to 102,000 compared to the same period last year partly due to the acquisition of certain assets of an online tax preparation provider.

Third Quarter Conference Call At 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday, March 13, 2014, the Company will host a conference call to discuss its results from the third quarter of fiscal 2014. To listen to the call, dial 855-611-0856 (domestic) or 518-444-5569 (international), conference ID code 41557018, approximately 10 minutes prior to the start time of the call. The call will also be webcast in a listen-only format. The link to the webcast may be accessed on the Company's investor relations website at www.libertytax.com .

Why QuickBooks Online Isn’t Ready for Power Users & QuickBooks Online Might Surprise You

Eric Greenspan for Too Legit To Audit & SchoolOfBookkeeping.com writes: I’m NOT an accountant; I’m a business owner and entrepreneur. This means I know and use accounting software and have since the days of DOS. I use QuickBooks Online for my company 7DFour Marketing and schoolofbookkeeping.com uses Xero. We are doing this to learn them all and to keep fresh with the latest technology.

QBO is full of features and for the new users, startup or small business, it gets the job done. But power users, bookkeepers, accountants and CPAs, it’s just not ready.

QBO is supposed to be designed to be cloud friendly and app-enabled. The mobile app has no reports (yet), doesn’t allow you to add bills and is very different from the online interface. The lack of consistency is confusing and sucks time.

The online version of QBO is sluggish and relies on the connection and the limits of HTML. The button that moves so smoothly through Intuit’s Quicken or the desktop version of QuickBooks is useless. Much of the design is dependent on the click of a mouse, which is far less efficient than the keyboard when hammering at multiple line items.

My biggest issue with QBO are in the settings. They are clunky and far from sexy. The interface is borrowed from a desktop app and is missing certain key WYSIWIG components. When adding your logo to an invoice, it doesn’t show it unless you preview the invoice. Every site I’ve ever used has this figured out so I’m not sure why Intuit fails here.

Also, beware, they update the app without notice and things change. Such is the nature of cloud computing and in their defense, we do the same at schoolofbookkeeping.com.

In short, QBO is likely to win the race but competitors like Freshbooks, Xero and Wave have an opportunity here and they know it.

Please take a moment to add your comment about what you like, dislike and any other opinions about QBO. We will build a list and send it to Intuit. Together, we can help them help us.

_______________________

Eric Greenspan for Too Legit To Audit and SchoolOfBookkeeping.com writes: After writing a post about QuickBooks Online and claiming it “was not ready for power users,” I got several calls from people I know at Intuit. First, let me say that my intention was to get their attention and help them make a better product. I’ve always sought building a “mind blowing customer experience” and I want the same for my partners. I am a huge fan of QB and I really want to see QBO successful. Turns out, so do they.

I spoke with a senior manager of app development first. He is charged with developing mobile apps for QBO. In short, he listened, carefully. I told him I wanted a dashboard, you know, a snapshot of my company on my iPhone. It’s a small screen, so simple and basics are all I seek. Cash in, cash out, balances, bills due, invoices past due, etc. I also asked for reports. I explained that I’m a business owner, not an accountant. I use QBO due to its simplicity and accessibility. While I have billed a client from my iPhone, what I want to view on this device is information as it relates to my company. The stuff you want to read while sitting in your favorite chair or waiting at the airport. His response was sincere and I expect my comments will be addressed, soon.

The next call was with one of Intuit’s loyalty brand managers. She was a little disappointed to read my original post and I don’t blame her. I was harsh, to the point and straight. But she wasn’t mad at me. She loves her product and her company. She wanted to fix it. We spent an hour and forty minutes talking and I showed her my gripes. She acknowledged each and sent them soaring up the flagpole to those in charge.

Then, she gave me a demo and an explanation of some features I had missed. I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a ton of power under that hood and it just takes a little getting used to the differences and nuances. My experience prior had been with QuickBooks desktop, probably like you.

While the items I requested are important, what I learned yesterday was helpful and actually eliminated many of my concerns. Even better, new features and enhancements happen very regularly so I expect many great things to come.

When I joined Spotify, after being a long time Rhapsody user, I hated the app. Today, less than a year later, it’s light years ahead. Same with my iPhone’s iOS. While Microsoft Office went backwards with overdevelopment, my expectation after speaking with Intuit is that they have an impressive fresh thinking team. We, the users, have to open our minds and accept the change. While we shouldn’t be expected to accept mediocrity, we must realize that to have an online product that provides us anywhere access and greater functionality in many ways, we simply need to be patient as it evolves and more importantly, open our minds to rethinking how we do things. Technology evolves, so must we.

Is it ready for power users? I didn’t think so before but now, I think it just might be. Embrace the change as the cloud is only going to grow larger and faster and soon it will be the chosen platform for all software. In many cases, it already is.

I built an application service provider in 2000. We “pushed” apps over a Citrix network. Back then, the web wasn’t mature enough to tackle the task we needed so the Citrix model made sense and it worked, brilliantly.

At the same time we launched, so did Salesforce.com. It wasn’t a great solution at first, but today, it dominates in the CRM world.

QBO launched after the tools and infrastructure was mature. It gets the job done and with a little bit of training, you might just fall in love with it. schoolofbookkeeping.com is currently building it’s next few courses using QuickBooks Online as a platform. Our intention is to help Intuit and QBO become the platform of choice for bookkeepers, accountants and business owners worldwide.

Some deductions attract more IRS scrutiny than others

Debbie Carlson for the Chicago Tribune writes: The odds of being singled out by the Internal Revenue Service are very low, but certain types of deductions, even very common ones, can raise red flags with tax collectors and possibly trigger an audit.

To minimize the chance of getting an audit request from the IRS, tax experts say take care with certain deductions and keep good paperwork to back up claims.

Joy Taylor, assistant editor for The Kiplinger Tax Letter, said 0.96 percent of individual tax returns last year were audited, the first time in seven years that the overall individual audit rate slipped under 1 percent.

The IRS has fewer resources, lower budgets and less personnel than before, she said, which is why there were fewer overall audits.

However, that doesn’t mean the IRS has become any less zealous about audits. Instead, Taylor said, “They’re more hyperfocused, doing what will get them the most bang for the buck.”

One of the biggest red flags the IRS looks for is outsized charitable donations relative to income.

Taylor and Leif Novie, principal at Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra LLC, both said the IRS charts average deductions based on a person’s income, so if charitable donations appear excessive, it may raise eyebrows.

The IRS may ask for proof of such donations; Taylor and Novie said charities will give receipts for contributions. Noncash donations of more than $5,000 without an appraisal of the item’s value will invite closer examination.

Novie said one of the most common deductions for self-employed individuals that can trigger an audit is for a home office.

“Lots of individuals are under the misconception that they can deduct their home office even if they have another office to work in. The rule is you can only deduct a home office if you don’t have another office available to you,” he said.

It has to be an area that’s devoted exclusively and regularly to business, Taylor said. “If you have an office in the home, but it’s also used as a rec room, that won’t count.”

An offshoot of the home-based business deduction is one for a work vehicle, she said. Trying to claim that an auto’s use is all business is risky.

“Many people might own two vehicles and write one off 100 percent for business use. But you may be also dropping the kids off at school in the same car, taking them to practice, running personal errands in that car. There’s a lot of fudging (by people) with business vehicles,” she said.

Many business owners will deduct losses, but Novie and Brittney Saks, U.S. personal financial services leader at PwC, said showing losses year after year may pique the agency’s interest.

“If you have a business, you have more ability to offset your income with expenses, so there’s more subjectiveness in there,” Saks said. “In particular (the IRS wants) to make sure it’s a real business and not a hobby. … It doesn’t mean it’s not a business. Over time, if you’re going to have losses over three to five years, the burden of showing it’s a business and not a hobby may shift to the taxpayer.”

Make certain that income and deductions match, Novie said. He gave the example of a client who wanted to deduct interest expenses from a Form 1099 that belonged to her husband, who filed a separate return.

“The fact that she wanted to declare an interest expense without a corresponding 1099 is going to raise a red flag. Just in that vein ... people who get a 1099 on interest or dividends or capital gains, and they fail to match what’s on their tax return with that 1099, that’s the most obvious red flag there is,” he said.

Gene Sulzberger, senior vice president at EFG Capital Advisors, said that for affluent individuals, the IRS has turned a laserlike focus on foreign accounts. In the past, holders of overseas investment and bank accounts could just claim that not disclosing the accounts was an oversight, but that’s no longer the case.

“Before you could say, ‘Oops, I have not been reporting that foreign income; I better fix that now.’ No longer. It’s gotten to the point now where the IRS has been demanding this (information) for some time. If you haven’t been doing it, consult a tax attorney and your accountant right away. Some of the penalties include losing a good portion of that account, and it could be jail time depending on the level of culpability in not informing the U.S. government,” Sulzberger said.

Finally, Saks said, people worry simple mistakes like computational errors or transposing numbers will trigger an audit, but that’s unlikely. The IRS will notify the taxpayer, since the agency has data matched up on a computer, but she said those typos are easily fixed.

Another simple mistake that will lead to IRS questions, but not necessarily an audit, is failure to file all necessary documents, Saks said. Some investment firms that issue more complex tax forms may send them late, so taxpayers with complicated investments may need to wait before finishing their taxes.

That could result in the need to file for an extension.

Saks said taxpayers who forget these extra forms will get a notice from the IRS to amend their taxes, and doing that might just take care of the problem.

But any time taxes need to be amended, she said, “The IRS is giving your return a second look. By doing that, it may spark some interest, or lead them to say, ’Is there anything else we should look at in greater detail?’ It doesn’t necessarily mean you will owe any more money. It does take time, but it does emphasize the importance of having good records.”

Read more here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/03/13/3093928/some-deductions-attract-more-irs.html#storylink=cpy

Family Office Solution – QuickBooks/Advent Axys Integration / QuickBooks Integration with Portfolio Accounting Systems.

David Gemma for Unapen.com writes: 

Family Offices Struggling

We see a steady increase in the number of Family Offices struggling to accurately and efficiently manage family assets across multiple data sources. A wide range of systems are being utilized to store and share data in these offices, often with little to no integration beyond manual user entry. This not only wastes precious time but more importantly, increases the risk of data entry errors that can have a significant impact downstream.

Recently a Family Office out of New York approached Family Office Metrics with this exact problem in the hope that they could be directed to a firm capable of addressing their lack of integration between QuickBooks™ and the Advent AXYS® portfolio accounting system. Family Office Metrics quickly identified UNAPEN Inc. as an ideal candidate given their 20+ years of experience with data integration and the extensive industry expertise of their staff.

Don’t They Make Computers to Do That? 

UNAPEN worked with the client identifying their challenges, workflow and overall business needs to deliver a cost effective solution that would save time & money by automating data flow and improving data accuracy.

Using a very direct interface embedded within Excel, the Controller at the Family Office is able to:

• Enter a few parameters and execute a routine that extracts the pre-defined QuickBooks transactions in bulk fashion and prepares the data for import into AXYS.
• The information is staged and presented for her final review.
• Once approved, all transactions are then automatically processed and populated within AXYS.

Instead of posting and re-posting transactions and correcting typos over a several-day period, she can now process a month of transactions in 10-15 minutes.  This solution opens up a new block of time for the Controller to work on other important projects while providing the peace of mind that QuickBooks and AXYS are being synchronized accurately.

This synchronization process can be tailored to push data in either direction or bi-directionally between systems, and can be extended to other portfolio accounting systems like Advent Portfolio Exchange® (APX) and SchwabPT PortfolioCenter®.

For additional info, please see QuickBooks Integration with Portfolio Accounting Systems.

Connect with David on Google+

Advisers using cash-flow management software — even for wealthy clients / Software tracks inflows and outflows through the year, with one-time input

Joyce Hanson for Investment News writes: Advisers who have scoffed at the notion of using monthly cash-flow management for their clients may want to reconsider, now that improved software can help them track progress toward financial goals.

Sheryl Garrett, founder of the Garrett Planning Network, announced Wednesday that she has signed on with a web-based cash-flow management tool, Guide Financial, which is now available to the 300-plus advisory firms in her network.

Describing herself as “somebody who has zero tolerance for technological irritants,” Ms. Garrett said the new software is intuitive and gives advisers and clients the ability to share notes in conversational threads and receive alerts when a specific financial goal is reached.

Without cash-flow software, she said, advisers have to ask clients at every yearly review to go through the arduous task of gathering paperwork such as investment reports and bank statements.

“It's not rocket science, but cash-flow software provides advisers just-in-time information for clients that is assembled once, and then never has to be re-gathered in a painful way,” Ms. Garrett said.

Cash-flow software has been around for a while, with products such as Mvelopes from Finicity Corp., and Mint.com and Quicken from Intuit Inc. The difference now is the software's level of complexity along with its user-friendly interfaces, according to advisers interviewed.

For example, Susan John, president of advisory firm Financial Focus and former chairwoman of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, said she has used Quicken for years. Quicken software was relatively simple when she first started using it, but Intuit keeps making improvements to her ability to track everything from gifts and donations to health-care costs and monthly bills, including credit card payments.

Such month-to-month tracking is not just for those with modest budget needs, Ms. John said.

“Some of our wealthier clients appreciate it,” she said. “They drop off their credit card statements and bank books once a month and we track it for them. When it comes time to do taxes or gift reports, they've tracked everything throughout the year.”

Ms. Garrett said she considers Guide Financial to be a “light version” of the more powerful financial planning tools such as MoneyGuidePro or goalgamiPro, but that she initially uses Guide Financial to capture her clients' account and investment information before integrating it with the bigger financial planning platforms.

“If you can measure it, you can manage it,” she said.

Now instead of just dreaming about taking a big vacation or setting aside funds for philanthropic causes, her clients (including wealthy ones who typically overspend on unplanned consumption) can realize those dreams because they're measuring their goals, Mrs. Garrett said.

“Cash flow is dreadfully boring, and I wouldn't want to drag a client through it often, but it's extremely powerful information, so I do it once, using software,” she said.

TaxJar bottles up $600K from investors to sweeten sales tax management / Sales Tax Solution for Online Merchants Gets Angel Funding

Kia Kokalitcheva for VentureBeat writes: Sales taxes. Customers hate them, retailers hate them — or do they?  Maybe not anymore.   TaxJar, a San Diego-based provider of tax management software for online retailers, just picked up $600,000 in seed funding from several angel investors.

“We’re solving what is perhaps the biggest administrative and compliance burden for small businesses — the headaches of sales tax,” said Mark Faggiano, TaxJar’s chief executive and cofounder.

TaxJar’s opportunity lies in the high complexity of sales taxes that govern online sales. Here’s one complicated instance: Some states require sellers to collect taxes based on a customer’s address, forcing them to juggle tax calculations based on hundreds or thousands of jurisdictions. Whether a seller has a physical location, such as a fulfillment center, also affects their sales taxes.

Although services similar to TaxJar already exist, most of them are focused on large enterprise clients, leaving the door open for TaxJar to provide a product fit for smaller businesses. Its current customers range from small merchants selling less than $100,000 per year in one marketplace to bigger merchants selling tens of millions of dollars per year through multiple channels.

The company will use the funds for customer acquisition and to develop new features, namely a tax rate lookup service, sales tax return e-filing, and support for additional shopping carts and marketplaces.

However, TaxJar claims it has no plans to expand beyond the sales tax sector. “We see a ton of runway where we can help our merchants further simplify their sales tax challenges, like e-file, and also see ways to expand internationally,” Faggiano told VentureBeat via email.

Participants in this seed round include Facebook’s vice president of partnerships Dan Rose, H Barton Asset Management partner Harris Barton, Magento cofounder and chief operations officer Roy Rubin, as well as unnamed angel investors from eBay, Intuit, ShipWire, and other companies.

______________

Ina Steiner for EcommerceBytes.com writes: A company that provides sales tax automation for online merchants and marketplace sellers has received $600,000 in funding from angel investors. Among those participating in the seed round are Magento cofounder and COO Roy Rubin and Facebook Vice President of Partnerships Dan Rose, as well as executives from eBay, Intuit and ShipWire.

TaxJar said it would use the funds to "further develop the company's efforts in customer acquisition and product development."

TaxJar provides a cloud-based solution for online sellers who use Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, PayPal and BigCommerce. "The reaction TaxJar is getting to its services is exceeding what we expected at this stage," said Mark Faggiano, CEO and co-founder of TaxJar. "We're solving what is perhaps the biggest administrative and compliance burden for small businesses - the headaches of sales tax."

TaxJar said it will also use the funding to prioritize and implement a number of product features, all driven by customer feedback. The features are expected to include a tax rate lookup service, sales tax return e-filing, and new data sources that support additional online sellers.