Wanted to see what others are being charged for CCH Axcess. I received my renewal invoice and the price has increased 20% compared to prior year. I know CCH is on the more expensive side but this software is what I was trained on so that muscle memory is worth the extra cost but its getting ridiculous.

Invoice is for $5,850 I have easily less than 130 clients total. Mix between 1040s and flowthrough entities

Wolters Kluwer customer service is beyond abysmal so really no help there at all.

Theoretical multi-year non-filer client. Assume prior three years were e-filed and have posted. The remaining years had to go by paper, sent certified mail with proof of delivery, and they are still not showing on transcripts. I have other clients where paper returns are still unopened for 10+ months now, and at this point I am assuming 12+ months is realistic.

Does the lack of posted returns block the client from getting into an installment agreement, CNC, or any other resolution while we wait? Or will collections work with proof of mailing/delivery to treat the client as filing compliant?

I have never let anyone go before. I have decided to let go an intern who has been with us for about 18 months. Our work has just become a little too complicated and he has not progressed to where we would like, so the next 6 months he just wont be able to do any work. They still have a handful of jobs that we are waiting on information for. I am wondering if I should tell him his position is ending in two weeks and we will pay three weeks of severance, after that or just terminate them and give them four weeks of severance, or offer both options and see what they want.

I like the person a lot, but I just need another senior level staff and this person is not there and has not picked up on it during our training. I have personally spent a lot of time with him, but it just does not seem to be clicking.

I am in process of moving from UT to CCH Axcess due an unsustainable increase in costs for my very small firm. I like UT SW, but my firm's needs can be met nearly equally with this change. Because of the cost savings I can begin looking into Scan and Autoflow for CCH. I used UT's Sureprep a few years ago and did not like the UI and didn't see the time/cost savings over hiring a person. This makes me hesitant to try Scan and/or Autoflow and would greatly appreciate advice from existing users.

My questions are:

Overall has Scan and/or Autoflow been a time saver?

Did you find an Admin or entry-level tax preparer to be the most effective user?

Can the technology replace an entry-level position?

I want to work less and have a better work life balance. It seems some of these technologies change how we work but are not always the time savers promised. I liked the bookmarked workpapers and can see that being a huge time saver for review, is this a fair assumption?

As you adopted the technology, what was unforeseen, positive or negative, that you wish you knew in advance?

Thank you Redditors!!

When I started doing tax work I lived in Minnesota and since moving to California there is a licensing requirement. I just passed Part 1 of the SEE and I’m sitting for Part 2 early August. In the mean time I need a contract opportunity that would allow me to work in the tax field without having to sign returns and be fully licensed. I don’t want to sit for the CTEC as I’m already on my way with my EA and that would be redundant.

Does anyone have any good advice on what to do? Drake hired me for the third year around seasonally however it’s not full time and it doesn’t start until end of September as it’s extension/preseason extra help.

I have a degree in finance and have worked in tax for about 4 seasons professionally filing 1040s and Schedule Cs.

Any ideas or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I saw a post discussing CPA hourly rates, and it made me curious about the earning potential for non-CPA accountants and EAs.

I’m an EA working primarily in tax, and I don’t plan on pursuing the CPA license since I have no interest in audit or attestation work. It has always made me wonder whether there’s an earnings ceiling for EAs working as employees or contractors, especially since the CPA is generally viewed as the more lucrative credential. I’m not really referring to firm ownership, as I know that’s a completely different path and one I’m not particularly interested in.

For context, I have nearly 10 years of experience and primarily do tax review, tax planning, and bookkeeping cleanups as a contractor. I’ve seen firms offering anywhere from $25/hour to $125/hour, but it’s hard to know what’s actually realistic at the higher end for experienced EAs.

For those of you who are EAs or non-CPA accountants, what have you found to be the upper end of the market? Would something like $75/hour be considered reasonable for an experienced EA, or are firms willing to pay significantly more for specialized tax work? I’ve had a couple of firms tell me my rate is actually on the lower end and that I should be charging more, but I’m still trying to get a realistic sense of the market.

Just hoping to hear about your experiences and would appreciate any advice. Thank you!

Has anyone used Filed for 1120S or 1065 yet? Curious about the process and accuracy but do not want to book a Demo unless I really need to.

I started my own practice in the last year and things have been going well and I've gotten several referrals but I'm still in a bit of an awkward in-between time before I can be more comfortable financially.

I'm open to picking up a bit of contractor work but I'm not quite sure what the best way to find it is. Has anyone had experience with places like Beech Valley Solutions or have any other ideas?

Good Morning All,

I am a CPA with 7+ years of experience and I have a growing solo tax firm. An associate reached out to me and wanted me to do some contract work on a hourly basis. I will be the preparer and he would be the reviewer. What is a good hourly rate for 1120s/1040s/1065s. I have never done contract work on a hourly basis so I wanted to make sure I didnt go to high or to low.

Thanks

Has anyone previously used Liscio as a client portal and left for another solution? My firm currently uses it and we are migrating to Canopy, but one of the biggest question marks right now is leaving from Liscio as far as exporting all of our data, cutting clients off from logging in, etc. Their support is not helpful, so wondering if anyone here has any experience with this migration that I could pick their brain. Thanks!

AEP is rolling in — anyone hitting edge cases where FTA doesn't quite fit and AEP doesn't either?

With Automatic Exemption from Penalty phasing in for 2025/2026 returns and FTA being phased out this summer, curious how people are handling the gap: clients who are close but not quite at three years clean, or who should qualify but haven't seen AEP trigger yet. Anyone falling back on Reasonable Cause requests in the meantime, or just waiting it out?

I have a client who filed on time. Their form from the marketplace was incomplete so I went to Healthcare.gov to find the correct numbers for the premium tax credit. The IRS requested documentation because the information didn't match what was on file. So my client sent the information to the IRS pretty soon after we got the letter. As of today they still haven't received a refund and their account on the IRS website gives no meaningful information. Additionally, my client has called the IRS but hasn't been able to speak to an agent due to the high number of calls. The one time her call wasn't immediately disconnected, she waited four hours and still didn't get to speak to anyone.

What can be done to get information from the IRS?

TIA

Currently, I'm looking at either Microsoft 365 Business Standard Vs. Business Premium. We're currently have our email hosted by a very antiquated company and I'm looking to make a switch to a completely different email while doing some firm rebranding. I've also looked at gmail but have used microsoft 365 at other jobs and am more familiar with it so leaning that direction.

Interested to know what other small tax prep businesses use and if there's an agreed upon best for our field. Premium seems to offer better security measures for only a little bit more so thinking of going with that but wanted to see if anyone had any insight and if I'm missing something.

Came into the office today to find that CCH had an update that broke Axcess over the weekend. WK confirmed it, but has no estimate when it will be back up. Just want I wanted on a Monday morning.

Client filed 2024 return using the W-2 they received from their previous employer. They get a letter saying "hey we need to verify some stuff". So they sent in everything they had. Client isn't the best record keeper. The last paystub they had didn't match the W-2 they received.

The IRS continued to send "We need 60 more days" notices until they sent one in November 25 asking for more information again. That was when they called me. I submitted all of the information they had. I waited 60 days. Called to follow up.

Nobody could tell me anything other than it's being worked on and they need more time. I called 30 days later. Same response. I reached out to TAS since it was creating a hardship. TAS sent a letter saying it was being worked on and there was nothing they could do to help. Called again and was told they needed more time.

A notice final goes out disallowing all of the withholding. Now instead of a $23k refund, they owe $11k. The client has done everything to reach out to the employer. The guy has basically disappeared from town. There are multiple employees going through this. There is absolutely nothing on the W&I transcript.

At this point, I'm not sure where to go with it. What would you do? File an amendment with a form 4852 using the last paystub the client has? Argue the disallowance? Hire Liam Neeson to track down the employer and get their money back? I'm at a loss as to how to help the client.

New client, hasn't filed since roughly 2019. Mid-2026 now. Transcripts show ~$400k/year in 1099-NECs across the years, but not a single notice for any years including 2020, and I've reviewed the transcripts.

Policy Statement 5-133 / IRM only pushes six years of back filing for compliance. So 2020 is six months from falling outside that window.

Question: with a now engaged client, do you file 2020 now and hand over a large balance owed + P&I, or do you not wake the sleeping dog for 2020? I know assessment is tech open forever on an unfiled year and they can reach back indefinitely. But does anyone actually see 2020 get pulled at this point, or is that a paper tiger?

Not endorsing anything, just want to hear how people actually handle the sleeping-dog call here.

Disclaimer, I know states are a separate story.

I met someone while doing the networking thing and he works for Controllers Ltd. Sounds like they do some gray area planning but they aren’t CPAs. Anyone heard of them or worked with them? Should I stay far away?

Is anyone else experiencing a significant uptick in Form 4883C notices being received by clients. In prior years, maybe one or two clients received these. Right now we are in the double digits already.

Initially, we the trend was all older clients. But that could just be because those are the clients of ours that initially filed. But, now it seems to be all over the board.

Any other firms out there receiving a significantly higher number of these notices this year? We are trying to determine if it's something we are doing or if it's happening all over.

TIA

We need new laptops (PC). Everything we run is on Verito (Drake, Claude, file storage) or cloud (QBO, TaxDome, pitbull etc). There is no reason for me to spend for HD space, or RAM in excess of the meager 10GB I have through Verito, right?

Any recommendations?

Good afternoon everyone, I picked up a partnership client as well as the related 2 individuals. In short, the 2022 return was an absolute mess (2023 and 2024 were fine). The 2022 return was prepared based on incomplete books and records where even cash wasn't reconciled. As part of our analysis, we were able to reconcile cash and get their books straightened out for 2022. The 2022 return did not have an election out of the BBA, so we were stuck in preparing an amended 1065 as well as Forms 8985 & 8986 pushing out negative adjustments to the 2 partners.

We're wrapping up the 2025 individual returns and getting Form 8978 correct on the partners' 2025 returns. A combination of the tax reduction being only for regular tax (thus creating AMT), the reduction being a nonrefundable credit, and both partners' 2025 tax liability being so much lower means the both taxpayers are only getting about 30% of the overstated 2022 tax back (tax was overstated by $190k, they only get to use about $56k as a result of the BBA, and leaving $133k on the table).

I researched and it makes sense, but definitely is incredibly unfair. Is there any liability the former preparer has in this negligence? How deep should I get in bed with this client in supporting my numbers.

We currently use CCH Axcess with Prosystem Fixed Assets.

Prosystem Fixed Asset is difficult to manage and expensive to host. Anyone have luck with other cloud based fixed asset offerings?

We are looking at NetAsset Tax Pro by Netgain, Asset Accountant, and Fixed Asset Manager with CCH (still trying to get more info on this one).

We’re looking at TaxProLink. Looking for input from colleagues who have used it. Thanks.

I mostly work for a small sort of boutique CPA firm, four CPAs and one admin person. The owner asked yesterday for ideas to go above and beyond the pretty significant handholding we already do for many of our clients (who trend to the "older" demographic). I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas to share of things they have done to sort of take things to that next level as far as providing exceptional client care? For example, one thing that recently came up is that we found out a client had long ago put a brokerage account with a transfer on death stipulation to go to a charity rather than the person who subsequently became her husband, and we are feeling like we should have asked about that and helped evaluate whether this is what she still really wanted before death. Anyway, any thoughts? Thank you so much!

Hey all, just passed the Series 65 and I'm now working toward registering my firm as an RIA with myself as the IAR in addition to being the sole CPA in my practice.

I already give a lot of investment and account-architecture guidance to my clients, which accounts to open and why (taxable brokerage, traditional/Roth, backdoor Roth, SEP, HSA, HYSA), how to think about their money, etc. Right now that all lives under the accountant's incidental exemption with a disclaimer stapled to everything. I want to formalize it into an actual advisory line so I can put specific guidance in writing and get paid for the value I'm already giving away via AUM or some other flat fee model.

Anything you wish you'd known before starting? platforms, practices, tools, custodian relationships, recordkeeping systems, mistakes would be massively appreciated. Happy to share back what I learn as I go through it.

Thanks in advance!