Lacerte Tax Planner is a DISASTER - is BNA better?

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#1
AlexCPA  
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The 2019 Lacerte Tax Planner is currently showing the following diagnostic:

This is a beta version of the 2019 Lacerte California Tax Planner program. Many of the calculations are not finalized or are unavailable. The 2018 version of the program should be used until the final version of 2019 Lacerte California Tax Planner is released.


So while the 2018 tax planner does not reflect the correct retirement plan contribution limits for tax year 2020, and given that the 2019 software is yet unfinished, you'd think that was bad enough. Well, I've come to discover that the Lacerte Tax Planner also does not pull in partnership Schedule K-1 information from Lacerte -- specifically the partner health insurance amount and the QBI information is not transferred. In other words, the Lacerte Tax Planner is completely useless unless I want to recalculate every single amount which negates the entire point of the software.

Is BNA Tax Planner a better product? How smooth is the integration with Lacerte? What is the total cost for BNA? I've seen a yearly fee of $1,150 -- is this accurate? Thanks in advance!
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#2
wel  
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It's been a couple of years since I've used BNA, but it is a very good tax planning product. I've never used it with Lacerte, only ProFx. As far as integration goes - IMO it wasn't very good.

If you do A LOT of complex tax planning, it's a good solution. If you don't, I don't think that you'll like it very much - as there is considerable "hassle factor" involved with using it. (Much like you described - recalculating every little thing, difficult to override immaterial amounts, etc.)
 

#3
sjrcpa  
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I think BNA's tax planner is much better than Lacerte's. When transferring files from Lacerte, you will have to tweak the state stuff. Mostly it does a good job with the federal. That price sounds about right. We have 4 or 5 users and pay around $1,400.
 

#4
JAD  
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BNA was absolutely horrible with the tax law changes. I mean really, really appalling. They treated CA as conforming to fed for a very, very long time. I called several times to try to call issues to their attention. No one seemed to care. I finally sent an email through their website detailing the mistakes and my frustration at their lack of response or care. (They kept saying, "we're waiting for guidance" as though CA law was in question). My email got routed to someone who seemed to be at a pretty high level.

So I spent a fair amount of time going through the technical issues with him: CA still allows the full property tax deduction and 2% misc itemized deductions. Both are added back in the CA AMT calc. The debt generating mortgage interest remains at the old level. There were other issues - I cannot remember now. I also pointed out that I am a one-person shop, and don't they have their own research department?

Issues remained unaddressed, calculations were wrong unless I carefully entered overrides. But I also used BNA for nonresident returns, and at that point, it was clear that I could not trust the software. It's not like CA is a small economy. If they weren't going to invest in their CA calculations, could I believe anything?

Then....I got the $900 bill for the annual renewal. The program was still wrong. I had spent a fair amount of time on this. So I cancelled my subscription. The I kept getting billed, with increasingly hostile letters, until I finally contacted the man mentioned above by email, told him that this was harassment, and leave me alone.

So after about 30 years of being devoted to BNA, I let it go.
 

#5
sjrcpa  
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Ooh. I rarely do CA so hadn't picked up on that.
 

#6
JAD  
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I would ***hope*** that by now the issues are fixed.
 

#7
AlexCPA  
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Thank you all for your feedback -- I appreciate it and will look into BNA as an alternative.
Even more of my antics may be found on YouTube:
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