Lacerte is the only software that has everything I need for filing an individual return. There are no offline forms needed. If your client has a form 8833 treaty position, form 5471 foreign corporation, or form 8857 innocent spouse relief etc. This program includes everything. There is no double entry for the FBAR and form 8938 so you don't need to input on two different forms. The information from one will show up on the other form. In other software you have to input accounts twice. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I do not like the fact that it saves returns in multiple files. It's hard to save the file as a Lacerte file is made up of many files in a folder. So, moving it around is difficult and if you want to save it on a box of shared platform its difficult Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Very easy to use year after year and to get the tax returns correct. Multi state tax is pretty easy to get right. I've used (and still use) other tax preparation programs and Lacerte is probably a good combination of speed and accuracy. If you don't do a lot of returns (at least 100), I think it is a very pricey.

I like that 1099-DIV checkbox for foreign taxes withheld that was added this year. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

There efile engine is pretty slow, even going to Lacerte. They say that it could take up to a day. My other experience is that only some states take that long (Illinois, Colorado, in my experience). Fed taxes usually (even on the 15th) don't take more than a couple hours and almost instantaneously for a 1040 off peak.

Price again is a factor. Full licenses of other software are under $2,000. I just got a REP bill for $895 for like 8 clients from Lacerte, which is on top of the no returns included REP license. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have been using Intuit Lacerte Tax for the past 7 years and for the past few years we have used their hosting services to have a more streamlined, reliable approach to 5227s every year. In the past, we struggled to work from home because of the connection to our network, but since we switched to hosting, things have been working seamlessly. I would recommend switching to hosting if you are like the rest of the world and work from home. I would also recommend it if you work alongside multiple people who would like to access Lacerte at the same time as you. I also ran into a problem logging in this year and was able to talk to a real person in real time and my problem was solved in minutes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I have run into a few glitches that I can not seem to get fixed but they are very minor. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's helpful that the layout has essentially remained the same for years and years. Each year's program is as familiar as the last so you can hit the ground running without having to relearn a new layout each year. The screens are organized well and you can always jump between screens and forms quickly by clicking the corresponding tabs. A lot of input screens have streamlined entry layouts for quick W2 and 1099 inputs. It also displays prior year information alongside the current input fields for ease in seeing what was input the previous year. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I wish there were a little more options for form defaults to avoid having to clear diagnostics on every client. For example, every client in California requires an entry for if they owed use tax or not, they all need an entry for health insurance coverage, as well as if they want more info on health insurance programs. With probably 99% of clients not owing use tax, having health insurance, and not wanting info on Covered California, I wish we could have this defaulted instead of having to clear these diagnostics for every client. It takes maybe 10-15 seconds to clear these diagnostics for each client, but for an office that might do 1,500 individual returns, that means 4-6 hours will have been spent clearing these diagnostics alone.

At least make it like the diagnostic for cryptocurrencies and foreign bank accounts: they default to "no" and just have an informational diagnostic instead of a critical diagnostic.

Intuit Pay integration is lacking. You can send a return electronically with "1-click" as they call it, which in itself is quite easy and nice in some cases, but if you send an invoice along with it, there is no way to lock a return to paying, and there is no way to void a payment request so the screen will always show an outstanding invoice. I tried to get it cleared with support but they said there was no way. There is a disconnect between Intuit Support and Quickbooks support so they can't really help much with these integrations. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The most helpful thing I find that Lacerte has is the easy format of the contents. The categories are split out into income, deductions, credits etc.. which is very helpful if you need to enter something you haven't entered before. This makes it easy to find the entry places you need, saving a great deal of time you could be using for something else. The diagnostics are also very thorough and provide tax saving suggestions and alerts to help the review of the return. Another great aspect with Lacerte is the customer service. They are always available and happy to help. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The least helpful area that I find Lacerte has is regarding the state screens. Each state has a different screen for the modifications and credits. So if you are working on a new state, it may be a little more difficult to find what you need. Although do I find that most answers can be found on the Intuit Lacerte website, which combats this difficulty. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Intuit Lacerte offers many amazing tax preparation features, especially for professionals handling complex returns. Some of the features I like include:

1. Automatically calculates deductions and credits.

2. Features like batch processing and extensive e-file capabilities help streamline workflows.

3. Detailed Diagnostics which provides alerts to potential issues or missing information to ensure accuracy. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Intuit Lacerte can be very slow sometimes, especially during busy season. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Intuit Lacerte is overall a great tax software. I've been using the program since joining my current firm 11 years ago and typically, no complaints. Customer service is exceptional in regards to low wait times and jovial, ready to help representatives. I'd say that the software and its features definitely outperforms it's competitors. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Although customer service is typically very responsive, every time we call it seems like the representative is stumped and troubleshooting along with us which typically does not leave us confident in the service they are providing. Additionally, I'd like to see Lacerte continue to evolve with the priority being ease of use for both the client and preparer experience. As more firms are moving towards digitizing their firm and providing "paperless" options for clients, it would be great to see Lacerte's "processing" capabilities evolve with the times. Furthermore, providing access for both taxpayer and spouse to features such as their tax organizer, Intuit Link. Also, the program gets very slow and glitchy with A LOT of frozen screen time and "send/don't send" errors. I had a tax return that was 3,500 pages and it took me all day saving the PDFs/K-1s to file and emailing to client. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lacerte Tax is a very straight forward tax system that makes things convenient for you for simpler tax clients. It makes things fast and efficient when dealing with the everyday tax documents like W-2s & 1099s. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The downside I feel with Lacerte is that for more complex clients the software can be difficult to work with to get it to do what you want it to do. Knowing certain things are deductible and just finding the right box to put it in can be difficult. Can be semi-confusing to navigate when a client wants to claim some credit you haven't heard about in a long time and you need to find it. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Ease of use. Speed when installed on computer (not hosted). Great workflow, visibility, intuitiveness. Generally reliable. Autosaves work which is wonderful.

Relatively easy to teach to new employees. Great customer support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

As a firm that serves many foreign persons and persons having foreign related tax issues, the software falls short in the following areas:

- For 5471 required multiple inputs which are duplicates.

- Not user friendly for certain elections - such as the election to be taxed as corporation for GILTI purposes.

- Missing form 3520.

- Missing form 8865.

- Missing form 8843.

- FBAR accounts must be entered one by one on form 8938. Current connection of 8938 to FBAR has low visibility and is not user friendly.

- Dual Status returns are required as separate 2 client preparation.

Some suggested Improvements not foreign related:

- As a preparer in Massachusetts - no option to electronically submit state estimated payments.

- Hosted software becomes laggy and slow (tried twice int he past).

- No option to automatically email clients when their returns or other submissions have been accepted. Must be done manually unlike some other tax programs.

- Scheduling portion of the software not really usable, and doesn't integrate with outlook.

- No auto-backup option. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lacerte does a good job of staying up to date on tax changes and providing the necessary tools and forms to prepare annual tax returns. Customer service is great, they are very responsive and can generally address concerns in 15 mins or less. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Lacerte could do a better job managing the number of updates required and providing some specific transaction support (either supplemental calculators or additional tabs) to calculate certain transactions (ie, NOL absorption, Form 8829 property tax indirect/direct deduction) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.