I’m still using Profile and haven’t used TaxCycle, but I have some questions about carrying forward Profile files to TaxCycle.
Namely, will my memos AND tapes carry forward as well (provided that I checked the “carry forward to next year” box)? Are there any fields/information that are NOT going to carry forward from Profile to TaxCycle?
Also, I’d love to hear from those who have switched from Profile-how long did it take you to learn TaxCycle?
Thanks!
Jack
I am fairly sure that they do. When I converted several years ago, I did not have many issues regarding the carry forward. It is possible that some newer areas of profile may not convert; however, if you do some test conversions and find that something is not pulling, there is a good chance that if you talk to Taxcycle, they will fix that for you (assuming it is possible that is)
Down load the demo and give it a try in respect to tapes and memos.
I personally did not have that much trouble making the conversion from profile to Taxcycle. there are a couple things that I miss from Profile like how donations are handled; however, I hope that the added functionality will be in Taxcycle this year.
I find that Taxcycle has many features that are better than profile (at least when I used it) and Taxcycle is willing to fix things which I found difficult to get profile to do the same.
Once you start using it I do not think you will regret it. @snoplowguy just converted last year so he maybe able to give you a better idea of the timing to pick up the new program.
I currently have a full paid subscription to both Profile an Taxcycle. My Profile subscription expires at the end of December and I don’t think I will renew. Last tax season I used both Profile and Taxcycle for T1 returns. There was not much of a learning curve in switching from Profile to Taxcycle. There are, however, many more configurable settings in Taxcycle which may take more time to set up. Taxcycle is quite intuitive and includes many settings that I would miss if I had to use Profile again.
The biggest difference I noticed between the two pieces of software was with the AFR. Taxcycle’s Auto Fill My Return import routine beats Profile’s lame import function by a factor of at least 10. I thought Profile did a decent job of AFR until I used Taxcycle… after which I couldn’t believe the lack of thought Profile had put into the design. I originally thought the AFR limitations were CRA imposed but it turns out they were Profile software limitations.
I haven’t ever used tapes in Profile but I do know that Memos do carry forward to Taxcycle. I carried forward and prepared just less than 500 T1 returns from Profile to Taxcycle and did not come across any field that did not carry forward properly.
I started filing T2 returns with Taxcycle earlier this month. I found the T2 carry forward to be quite seamless as well. I deliberately carried forward my nastiest T2 return (4 Associated Corporations, Rental property, Investment income, GRIP, over 500k in taxable income, Eligible Dividends, Sale of Eligible Capital Property, Capital Gains on Real Estate) and Taxcycle handled the files more efficiently than Profile. I do like the fact that you can list asset additions and disposals in the T2 module.
I am having some issues in the T5018 and T4 modules that I expect to get sorted out.
I was likely one of the biggest skeptics … had been loyal to Profile since 2000 … and I don’t really like change. I can honestly say that I don’t have any regrets in switching to Taxcycle. I wish I had of made the switch to Taxcycle a few years earlier, at the same time that colleagues such as James, Bert, Joe, JohnV, and Kevin climbed on board.
I appreciate your reply. Just today I downloaded TaxCycle and carried forward a tax return from 2014 to 2015, which had a number of memos and tapes (with the ‘carry forward to next year’ box checked). Unfortunately, they have not carried forward. Well, they’re quite important for me-apart from saving me time (tapes), I often write notes which are quite important.
Snowplowguy-just saw your reply, thanks! I’ve been using Profile since 2000 or 2001 and still remember the names of Profile users you mention, they often appeared on the Profile forums (which have totally changed and are not very useful). Although I like Profile, I’ve had a number of issues and it seems this company either is unable to fix them or does not care.
So, do you have to check any box to carry forward memos (and possibly tapes)? I carried forward another return from 2014 to 2015, with a number of memos, and none has carried forward.
In any case, I’m still in the process of evaluating this product.
@Jack –
With respect to ProFile memos, we carry them forward to the corresponding TaxCycle form, but we don’t map them to a specific field. After you carryforward your ProFile file, take a look at your prepare forms index, and look at the list of forms. Any forms that had memos in Profile will have corresponding yellow 'M’s on the right, as shown below. To make it easy to find those forms, select ‘memos’ from the filter drop down.
Once you’ve done that, you can click on the yellow ‘M’ and taxcycle will open up the form, along with the list of memos in the review index. At this point, you can use drag and drop to move the memo to the TaxCycle field of your choice.
Give that a try and see if you’re getting the memos you expect. If not, give us a call and we’ll investigate.
~ Cameron
I think the time investment for the conversion to TaxCycle would be minimal now. The software has had a few tax years with scrutiny and suggestions from many users. Additionally, Cam and his staff have been and continue to be very pro-active in implementing those suggestions from their user base. There are always additional tweaks coming but the software is quite stable and reliable. The fear of carryforward issues is helped by the ability to import that information from CRA.
@Jack I was just playing around with the T1 conversion from Profile and “tapes” do not seem to carry forward into Taxcycle. The “memos” do carry forward in the fashion that Cam indicated above, but I believe you need to check the “carry forward to next year” box in Profile for each memo you want to bring forward.
When I switched the tapes not carrying forward was a little disappointing but it was definitely still worth the switch. I just kept the prior year Profile file open when working to review and duplicate tape entries when necessary.
I do not use tapes I guess I was wrong on the carry forward. that being said, that would be a difficult thing to carry forward since the tapes are very different than memos. I agree with the other comments, it is still worth the conversion even if you need to key the tapes again.
At the moment we do not carry forward the tape descriptions from ProFile.
~Annie
Thank you very much for all your replies, I appreciate them very much!