The Look of Tax Software

Headnote

Tax software for 2004 is getting friendlier with other office applications.

The face of tax preparation software is changing. In fact, the face of desktop software in general is changing and tax software is part of a bigger trend as applications increasingly take on the appearance of Microsoft products.

Across the industry, proprietary word processing packages are either giving way to the ubiquitous Microsoft Word, or at least getting friendlier with Word, and many tax software packages are becoming friendlier with Word and Excel. The rationale is to give users an interface they are familiar with and there are few in business who are not familiar with the Microsoft desktop applications. So CCH is adding a worksheet interface for ProSystem fx while Intuit chairman Scott Cook has publicly hinted that his company's ProSeries will get an Outlook interface sometime soon.

"We think the interface is going to be a big hit," says Kevin Robert, president of CCH Tax and Accounting. Preparers, he continues, grew up with Excel, so they will latch on to the new interface.

In fact, CCH isn't just plugging the Microsoft connection with ProSystem fx Tax, it is also getting more Microsoft-like with its Tax Research Network through CCH IHand, which will enable preparers working in Word or Excel to log on to TRN without leaving those applications.

Intuit hasn't said much about the Outlook interface for ProSeries, but considering that two Microsoft products, Microsoft CRM and the Navision accounting line, now sport Outlook interfaces, it's likely that the overall market will increasingly see desktop business applications that resemble Outlook.

Meanwhile, Petz Enterprises underscored that operating in Windows isn't the same as having a graphical interface. The company has redesigned its CrossLink Tax software to give it a true Windows interface.

"We had maintained the character-based interface," says Chuck Petz, vice president of product development for the Tracy, Calif.-based company. When it came to adopting a graphical interface, Petz wanted a truly graphical interface, along with the speed of data entry on a character-based system.

"It's been a long evolution to get the interface together to let the preparer quickly do the tax return," he continues.

Similarly, RIA is looking at ways to make the appearance of its GoSystem line...