Fixed Assets in Ultra Tax

I recently switched from Lacerte to Ultra Tax & I purchased a bundle that came with Fixed Assets; I haven't even opened that yet as I am still trying to navigate my way around Ultra Tax, but I'm wondering what exactly is the fixed assets module?
Although I do like a lot of features in Ultra Tax that Lacerte did not have, I do not care for the depreciation setup so far. I am wondering if the fixed asset module makes that any easier? I really do not like the depreciation reports that print in Ultra tax, do they come out looking more like Lacerte's depreciation schedule if you use the fixed asset program? What does it do that can't be done in the actual tax program?

The depreciation functionality takes a little while to get used to, there are a lot of menus to explore, and don't ever hesitate to use the right-mouse-click (no, not clicking the correct mouse, but clicking the rightmost button on the mouse). You might find that the Fixed Asset Module indeed does not really bring you much extra benefit, it has extra features but you may well find you don't use them. I'd start with the online help for more info.

What do you want the reports to show? While not intuitively obvious, you can customize the columns on the depreciation screen display, and possibly take some easy screen snapshots, to get reports more to your liking. With Acrobat or similar software, you can probably even get it into Excel if you really need to.

[edit: I haven't had access to Fixed Asset Module for several years, but when I did, I vaguely recall that it did have much more powerful reporting capabilities. The CS Thomson Reuters community forum is also a good place to toss out a question like this.]

Thanks for the feedback. I do have some training scheduled but in the meantime I am working on extensions that were converted from Lacerte, and I also just started entering some returns for clients that I already filed in Lacerte, just to get more practice & get used to it. I like almost everything but the depreciation. My problem is I can't see things like prior bonus depreciation, that's my main problem. Like I had one asset that was converted but it wasn't figuring the depreciation correctly, I finally realized it was because there was prior bonus depreciation and Ultra tax was calculating depreciation on the cost, not the basis after the bonus depreciation. But it did it correctly on other assets, so I was stumped, I couldn't find where you can just enter prior bonus depreciation. Finally I realized it was because it was Go Zone residential property, bonus depreciation was only allowed in the GOZone on residential real property. So I marked the box for GoZone real property and it did it correctly. I just wish there were a place for me to just enter prior bonus. I guess I want a report that will show me prior bonus, prior 179, prior regular depreciation, all on one page so I can just compare those totals to what I had in Lacerte.

Converting and managing the fixed assets has been BY FAR the most time-consuming part of the conversion process we've experienced in moving from ProSeries to the CS Suite last year. You will definitely want to use Fixed Asset CS to do this as the FA management functionality in UT is fairly limited. Reporting is much more robust in Fixed Asset and I've been able to pretty easily create custom reports that show what I want. As you've discovered, you have to really pay attention to prior bonus - we've found the software automatically assumes bonus depreciation was taken in many cases when it wasn't. The state depreciation also frequently didn't convert properly, so that's another one to watch - and those difference are sometimes due to incorrect prior depreciation coming over in the conversion (179 assets in particular) and also the bonus depreciation settings. I'd recommend the Tax Asset Detail report in Fixed Asset to review the prior cost and depreciation to Lacerte and then run a state report as well.

I don't know if you're in a state or have clients in a state that does the personal property tax assessments but that's its own special type of hell to set up and manage. And if you haven't yet discovered the "Reassign Assets" command under the "Edit" menu, that thing has been a girl's best friend. The ability to cut and paste assets has also been awesome as we've had a couple clients that changed entity types last year. Also, Ctrl-I when looking at an asset will pull up the deprecation calculations, if you haven't yet discovered that shortcut.

Tax Asset Detail Report provides breakdown of 179, bonus and depreciation taken over the life of an asset when you check the box in Print Reports > Reports > (Select Tax Asset Report) > Options > Asset Detail. There is an option for "Print Bonus Amt column instead of Salvage Value column"

Setup > Options > "Bonus Depreciation Elections" provides a menu in which you check off by year the elections that were made for the client, if any. I have found that UT is very good at calculating prior depreciation including bonus.

Setup > Options > Asset List tab lets you customize the columns that appear in the summary screen.

The Fixed Asset program interface looks much like the UT side, but there are more options. I believe that the menus are easier to navigate than in UT as well.

"the software automatically assumes bonus depreciation was taken in many cases when it wasn't"
How would the software know an election was made to opt out unless you tell it? And of course, you can always overrided the total prior depreciation with any number you want. Don't forget to right-click to see the prior depreciation calculations and the current depreciation calculation.

And here's one other tip I use all the time. By default, when you are in a certain input module (Sched C, Sched E, etc) you usually do most of your data entry in the first few tabs on the left, while the asset tab is usually the rightmost. Instead of scrolling all the way over to the rightmost tab, <Shift>-<F12> will jump you directly from the first to the last tab (which in this context is the "Previous" tab).

Wow thanks for all the tips! Makbo that last tip about the asset tab being on the rightmost side, that is a pain to go all the way to the other side, but I found another way to change that, I just changed the order of the screens so that the asset tab is right after the schedule c, e, and f. I did a training webinar on setting up Ultra tax and they gave that tip, I think it was in setup, 1040, data entry, I'd have to look at my notes but I think that's how I did it.

One more question, I want to use the fixed as assets as you all said that it has more functionality in it, but I don't even see how to use it. In file cabinet everything is set up automatically, but when I open fixed assets there is nothing there. How do I set it up to where I can get to the client information?

Kathy, go into fixed assets. Click on "file", click on "new client", and then set up the info.

So the depreciation schedule from Ultra Tax doesn't automatically carry over to fixed assets?

So the depreciation schedule from Ultra Tax doesn't automatically carry over to fixed assets?

No actually it should automatically create a file in Fixed Assets when there is a UT client that has fixed assets. Ours have always just been there so I'd recommend calling support on that one. Try the Fixed Asset CS folks first - the phone queue is 243

Speaking of - I have a little post-it note on my monitor that has the extensions for the support queues I use most often. Easier than pulling them up all the time.

"the software automatically assumes bonus depreciation was taken in many cases when it wasn't"
How would the software know an election was made to opt out unless you tell it?

Our prior software never made that assumption, even if you have to opt-out rather than opt-in. Whether that was a global setting behind the scenes that I was never aware of or just the way the software defaulted, until we converted to UT, I never had to undo prior year bonus depreciation the software calculated on its own.

Make sure the data file locations are configured correctly between UT and Fixed Asset manager -- yes, the same data is shared between both programs, so it should show up automatically. Re: bonus depreciation - well by default the software either has to include it or not include it. It seems the default should follow the tax law. There is an option for each client to specify which years and asset classes to elect out of, although I don't think it is a global option.

Kathyt, all CS applications must have the "data locations" setup after the first install. For fixed assets, you must go to Setup > System Configuration > Data Locations tab. When you do this, UT and Fixed Assets will talk back and forth.

Posting this in case anyone else has this problem, my data path was correct but still no clients were showing up, I called support and they told me to go to help>repair>rebuild client list and then all of my clients popped up. Very excited to start checking out this module. Thanks for all of your help!

Ok, very excited now that I can see a depreciation schedule with all the info I need on it. The tax asset detail report is exactly what I need to compare the old depreciation schedule in Lacerte to. For some people this might not be a big deal, but I live in the GoZone from hurricane Katrina, our bonus depreciation was different than the rest of the country for a while, so Ultra tax has been making a lot of assumptions, this will make it very easy for me to check and see which assets need to be corrected. Thank you all so much!! I still don't understand why they made it a separate module but I sure am glad in came in my bundle for my conversion year!

It does seem weird, coming from Lacerte, that fixed assets is a separate module that you have to pay for. I switched from UT to Lacerte in 1999 as I changed firms. At that time, I was shocked and surprised that Lacerte would give you all of this depreciation functionality and not charge extra for it. I guess it's all perspective.

I believe it was a separate product from the 80's. I think before UltraTax was created. And when they developed UltraTax, they figured they did not have to build in much depreciation functionality because that already existed in their other product that people were already paying for.

Remember, anything you do in Asset Manager module is going to be processed by the main UT module when the return is filed, so I don't think there is any additional *tax* functionality available with Asset Mgr that isn't the main program. But Asset manager probably provides more powerful and/or user-friendly tools to slice and dice it the tax data, and to look at other, related data that may not end up in the current year filing version of the return. Anyway, glad you folks think it's worth the cost, but I would like to emphasize for those with smaller practices, that it's quite possible to cover most if not all tax prep needs in the main program, without spending the extra bucks.