[dlarryhancockca]

I have a client who has brought me three years' worth of T1s to be prepared at one time.

There is information missing from each year.

I have two ways in which to prepare these returns in order to ensure that information carries forward properly from year to year.

1) Prepare the first year. Wait for the outstanding information. Finish the first year. Carry forward to the second year. Prepare the second year. Determine if any further outstanding information is necessary. Get the outstanding information and finish the second year. Repeat for third year. This method is not efficient because it does not allow me to do as much work as I can at one sitting.

2) Prepare first second and third years at same time. Wait for the outstanding information. Finish the first year. Manually revise in the second year any carry forward information which might have changed. Finish the second year. Repeat for third year. This method is not reliable since I might not catch all necessary carry forward information.

I'd love to streamline that process.

Suggestion:

Would it be possible, when preparing a 2006 return to have it pull carryforward information from a 2005 return without changing the information for 2006 that has already been entered. This would allow for a return to be updated with revisions to an earlier year return.

Did I explain that satisfactorily?

I hope so.

Larry Hancock, CA
larry@dlarryhancock.ca

[Hardev@Intuit]

Hi Larry:

Thank you for your suggestion.

Carry forward opens a prior year file, creates a current year file, uses SDK to input the data then saves the file. What you are looking for is a carry forward process that opens a prior year file, looks for and opens a current year file and imports data to the current year. We don’t do that and will unlikely consider it as we would be faced with some fairly big programming challenges that may not be worth the development resources. Simple things like, what should ProFile do when it is importing to a field and that field already has data in it. How is ProFile to know which data to keep and which one to discard? It is much cleaner to assume that the prior year file is ready to carry forward (i.e. reviewed prior to carry forward and after NOA) then carried forward into a brand new file). The carry forward process serves to help you create the new file and to carry forward pertinent information. If you have already created the file, half the work is done.

We recommend you do all three files making sure they are as accurate as possible, and then do a T1Adj should there be any adjustments required after filing.

Hope the above has answered your question.

Thank you for choosing Intuit Canada.

Regards,

Hardev Koonar
Intuit Canada

[samhill]

Hardev_Koonar, on Aug 18 2006, 10:23 AM, said:

Hi Larry:

Thank you for your suggestion.

Carry forward opens a prior year file, creates a current year file, uses SDK to input the data then saves the file. What you are looking for is a carry forward process that opens a prior year file, looks for and opens a current year file and imports data to the current year. We don’t do that and will unlikely consider it as we would be faced with some fairly big programming challenges that may not be worth the development resources. Simple things like, what should ProFile do when it is importing to a field and that field already has data in it. How is ProFile to know which data to keep and which one to discard? It is much cleaner to assume that the prior year file is ready to carry forward (i.e. reviewed prior to carry forward and after NOA) then carried forward into a brand new file). The carry forward process serves to help you create the new file and to carry forward pertinent information. If you have already created the file, half the work is done.

We recommend you do all three files making sure they are as accurate as possible, and then do a T1Adj should there be any adjustments required after filing.

Hope the above has answered your question.

Thank you for choosing Intuit Canada.


Regards,

Hardev Koonar
Intuit Canada

Good answer, Hardev.

I have had this situation many times but realize that there is only so much that software can do. Somewhere along the line, a person must decide what to do and when to do it. I prefer to do them in order, so that the annual amounts get carried forward and the five year summary is up to date.

We don't file any of the "older" returns until all are done, so a T1ADJ is not needed.

One good thing, though - If it takes longer.. then the bill is higher. Winners all around!

[Kai]

Hi Hardev,

I made a similar suggestion quite a while ago but don't recall hearing a reply from Intuit. Your response to the current post is obviously welcomed.

What Larry suggests is a dynamic link with prior year returns, especially on the 5-year summary form and the carryforward amounts. I can certainly appreciate the technical concerns you raise, especially on the cascading effect of the carry forward amounts. However, the 5-year summary form can be dealt with more easily.

Option 1: When a current year file is opened, open and compare summary data with the four prior years. If there are changes made to any of those fields in a prior year file, T1 offers a warning to the user that certain data will be replaced. The user can choose to accept or decline the update. I bet many, if not most, users will accept the change since we don't "do" much with prior year data except for comparison.

Option 2: Add a function button on top of each column of the 5-year summary form to manually ask T1 to update prior year data. T1 will then do a one-time comparison and import. This way, the user has better control and takes the responsibility of overriding the data.

With a quasi-automatic update on the 5-year summary, it would be easier to deal with the carry forward amounts. I understand that this will still be a labour intensive process, but that's why clients need a professional tax preparer in the first place! The technical tools would just help make our work a bit easier.

(Sam says that more work means a large bill. How can I disagree with him? B) )

Kai Ton Chau, CGA

[Hardev@Intuit]

Hello Kai:

I have forwarded your suggestions to our Development Team to be considered for possible inclusion in a future release of ProFile software.

Thank you for your input and constructive feed-back.

Regards,

Hardev Koonar
Intuit Canada