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TAX / TECHNOLOGY

Price was far and away
products, on a 1–5 scale, with 5 being the high-
est — see the table “Overall Ratings”). Some
of the highest marks respondents gave were for
named as the most
Drake’s ease of updating and installation, how
well it handled updates, and ease of e-filing, all
4.8. Also scoring 4.8 was Lacerte’s ease of e-filing
frequent ‘dislike’ for four
and ProSeries’s ease of updating and installation.
The lowest average rating was for ATX’s integration
with accounting and other software (2.9), although
products.
integration tended to be rated lower across the
board than other such features the survey asked
about. Drake Tax users rated its integration with
other software also a relatively low 3.1.
Asked if they would recommend their software
to someone starting a tax practice, 97% of Drake feature was their number of forms and compre-
Tax users said yes. The lowest percentage of users hensiveness, at 54%. CCH Axcess Tax and CCH
answering yes to that question was 61.7% of users ProSystem fx stood out here, both with nearly 77%
of CCH Axcess Tax. CCH Axcess Tax scored of users liking their number of forms and compre-
lower than the other major products on ease of hensiveness, the highest percentages of “likes” for
the update/installation process, ability to transfer any feature of any of the products. CCH ProSystem
data with returns, ease of e-filing, and ease of fx was also a clear winner with 72.3% of users
use generally. liking its accuracy, against an average for all major
products of 50%. On the other hand, Drake Tax
LIKES AND DISLIKES users seldom chose number of forms and compre-
Respondents were able to choose up to three out hensiveness as a prized trait, at 25.3%.
of 11 attributes they most liked and disliked in Not shown in the tables are responses to a sepa-
their tax software and could write in others (see the rate but related question of whether the software
tables “Top Likes” and “Top Dislikes”). contained all necessary forms. The highest percent-
For all major products combined, the best-liked age answering yes were UltraTax CS users (91%),

Technical support

All products ATX CCH Axcess Tax CCH ProSystem fx Drake Tax Lacerte ProSeries UltraTax CS

Did you need technical support?* 76.5% 63.5% 79.0% 80.1% 83.9% 79.7% 61.4% 79.2%
How easy was it to get? 3.6 3.3 3.0 3.2 4.7 3.7 3.6 2.9
How good was it? 3.7 3.5 3.3 3.5 4.5 3.8 3.7 3.3
Received support by: †
Phone 91.0% 86.3% 84.4% 86.4% 91.8% 95.2% 95.0% 91.8%
Email 28.0% 31.5% 44.5% 39.2% 23.9% 17.6% 10.0% 34.2%
Live chat/IM 30.0% 32.9% 59.4% 39.2% 14.1% 20.7% 24.3% 35.2%
Other 3.3% 2.7% 5.5% 2.4% 1.6% 4.3% 5.0% 2.8%

* Percentage of each product’s users answering “yes.”
† Percentage of those users who received support; multiple answers permitted.
All other answers: Average rating on a 1–5 scale, with 5 being the best.

30 | Journal of Accountancy August 2022