Name: Tax Season Briefing for Intuit Lacerte
Uploaded: 2025-11-13T18:21:09.056Z
Duration: 1 h 8 s
Description: Tax Season Briefing for Intuit Lacerte

Transcript for "Tax Season Briefing for Intuit Lacerte": Hi, everyone, and welcome to tax season briefing with Lacertax for tax year 2025. I am Ashley Henderson, a senior solution specialist here at Intuit. And over the next hour, I'm going to walk you through what's new, some time saving updates, and a few tips and tricks to make tax season run smoother. So a little bit about myself. I joined Intuit in 2016. I spend my days now helping firms simplify their workflows across the Intuit ecosystem. I lead trainings and webinars. My goal really is just to make technology simple and practical. When I'm off the clock, I'm usually chasing around my husband and our two kiddos. Alright? So our agenda today, we're going to cover four main topics. What's new in Lacert, new forms and schedules, tips and chart tips and tricks for faster prep and review, and resources to keep you supported all season long. So let's jump into some housekeeping. The audio streams through your computer speakers. So if you lose sound, just try refreshing your browser. We do recommend using Chrome or Safari. If you're on a VPN, try using an incognito window. If the slide freezes, you can try refreshing. You'll see some tabs at the top of the top right window, the chat, polls, docs, and messages. We do have moderators here working to answer questions as we go along. At the end of the at the end of the session, there's gonna be a short survey pop up and we really, really appreciate if you can fill that out so that we can continue to improve our sessions. And don't worry about any any screenshots. We're going to send you a recording, and you can access it using the link you logged in with today. Onto our polls. So we're going to have a total of four polling questions. To earn CPE, you must answer at least three of those. When a poll appears, you'll go to polls or open the polls tab at the top right. Once you select your answer, hit submit. If you miss one, you can still answer from the tab before it closes. Alright. A little quick reminder, today's session is for education only. It is not tax advice, so always verify the details before applying them to your client's situations. To earn CPE credit, you must stay for at least fifty minutes and answer three polls. Your certificates will arrive within forty eight hours to your email. If you don't see it, check your spam, check your junk. If you don't receive it or have any other questions, you can email [email protected]. First poll, why did you join today? Are you looking to earn free CPE, explore new solutions, solve a specific problem, or just general interest in education? Give me about forty five seconds to answer that. Looks like most of everyone has answered. Okay. Great. So, as we close this poll, looks like we have a nice mix. So thanks for being here with us. So what's new in 2025 at Lacert. This year is all about automation and efficiency. So first up, we have the dependent the automated dependent return. And this is one of the biggest time savers this year as before this feature, you had to manually create each dependent file, retyping names, SSNs, and addresses, and hoping not to mistype anything. But now Lysser is going to handle that for you directly from the parent's return. And so from the parent's file, you'll go to screen number two, the dependents. And then once you verify their information is correct, you'll go up to tools and select generate dependent return. Now from here, you'll select the dependent and enter the I'm sorry. You don't have to enter the client number here. You can edit it later. But from there, you'll go ahead and select sit close. Alright. And so from there, you'll see that client's return listed out separate from the parents. If you need to make any changes, all you'll have to do is access the parent's return, and those changes will flow down to the dependents. So pretty excited about that new feature. Okay. Another poll before we jump to our next topic. How do you currently deliver k ones to the partners? Is it print and snail mail? Email, secure PDF one by one? Oh, that's a lot of work. Do you use a generic third party portal, or do you just not send them, but someone else's job? So give you about forty five seconds there to a minute. Alright. Looks like we got a good mixture here, mostly printing and email. Okay. Alright. So as we move on, we're gonna talk about the automated k one delivery. So this is a new feature that is going to come soon to the partnership module. So this really streamlines the k one delivery by allowing you to send secure, batches of k ones to the packet to the partners all at the same time. So this will be sent via email. This is gonna save hours of manual admin time, eliminating the time it takes to send out those snail mails cost of the postage. This is gonna provide a secure auditable trail for compliance. Alright. So now I'll show you here what it will look like in the software. You're able to add a column to send k one package. So you'll just go up to your settings and then options. And then from that display tab, we're going to select k schedule k one and select the over arrow. And then once you close it, you'll you'll see that k one package column. Alright? So you can begin the process one of two ways. So one is gonna be from that column if you decide to add it, and the other one will be from the print menu. So you just go to print, tax return, and then select the k one package only. And then after you hit next, you'll see this window here. It'll prepare all of the partners k ones. From here, you can select or uncheck any of the partners that you would like to skip. And then from there, if you're missing an email address, you can add it here. There's also a column or I'm sorry, a switch called show clients with invalid emails, and that's actually going to catch any typos or missing information before sending. So this step right here is to ensure your delivery list is clean so you don't get any bounce messages. Now from here, you can actually personalize the email, as well as the subject. And then once you hit send, the clients are going to receive an email with a link inside. And so that link will take them to our Intuit website. If they already have an Intuit account, great. They can just use those same credentials to sign in. If they don't have an Intuit account, it's very quick and easy for them to create that. And once they're signed in, they'll be able to access their k one package. So no more attaching, printing, or lost emails. You'll be able to have that auditable trail seeing when they opened it as well. Just to remember that this is this will only be available in our partnership module with more coming soon. Alright. So now on to Intuit tax advisor. So we're gonna talk through this. We're especially excited to show you some of the brand new offerings, that have been recently released. So we have the business planning tools like the s the live s corp and partnership basis tracking, a new growth advisory feature like the PTET simulations for California and New York. We'll also cover how to use the new 2025 projection tool to model wages and quarterly payments. So we're gonna move on to the strategies. So we have a library of over 50 tax strategies. Let's say you wanna show a client a rough conversion. You pick that strategy and ITA pulls their real data from their Lacert tax return so you're not retyping any numbers. It'll show you instantly a side by side comparison. Gives your tax bill today. Here's your savings with this plan, which is a great side by side comparison. But, really, it generates a very beautiful client friendly report, with visuals. So when your client sees it, they're actually going to understand the value that you are bringing to them. Projection. So for 2025 projections, these are going to allow these you to apply these strategies effectively and to be able to look ahead. So that's where these projections come in. Your client, say, gets a huge raise in July and asks, am I going to owe a ton in taxes? Well, normally, you'd have to create a brand new dummy return and list there to guess. But with Intuit tax adviser, you can run a 2025 projection right then without all the extra work. It'll even model wages projections, and automatically figure out your quarterly tax payments and penalties. So now moving on to the business planning tools. So this kind of forward looking plan isn't just for individuals. It's absolutely critical for their businesses. Think about your s corp or partnership clients, you know, the ones that when you're tracking basis on a complicated spreadsheet, hoping the math adds. Well, this is actually going to be your fix. ITA does the s corp and ten sixty five basis tracking. And if your client takes a distribution, it's tracked. The income and deductions are going to flow in. Alright. So now let's discuss the growth advisory. So once you have these powerful tools for your current clients, how do you find more? And that's what we consider growth advisory. This also has a client prospecting tool that works with OneView. So this is huge. This is going to scan all of your clients, their tax return data, and it's gonna tell you, hey. These 10 people would be great candidates for Roth conversions, or these five business owners should really talk about the PTET. So, speaking of PTET, you can run simulations for California and New York with more states coming soon. You can also clone and test plans. Let's say your client asks, if I sell my business, can you duplicate I'm sorry. Can what if I sell my business? Well, in that case, you could duplicate their plan, test one scenario there, and show the outcome for both in minutes. But before we dive into the new forms and schedules, I'd like for you to drop in chat. Have you used the Intuit tax adviser, or do you plan on trying it in the future? Just like to get some responses out here. Oh, yeah. Okay. Looks like we have some folks that have already used it. Okay. Well, now let's go into our new forms. For Arkansas, both the s corporation and partnership modules now include form ARKREC. That's Arkansas's pass through entity members reconciliation of income and deductions, and other items. So this helps firms report pass through income consistently across all partners. No more manual state level adjustments at the end of the year. For New York, there's a new form, IT two seventy. That one is for tuition deduction and higher education, pass funds, both of those forms actually are fully integrated into the search diagnostics and efile workflow. So when they are available, they will appear automatically. Alright. So what is new within e filing? This year, LeCerc has expanded the e file support for Oregon and Portland. We'll start with the separately filed forms. So you can now e file the following, Portland, N E T V I T Twenty S and the Portland p 2025 for s corporations. So that means city level filings that used to require paper can now be transmitted electronically. We've also added the extensions for both partnerships and s corporations. That's the Portland BI text and the Portland BZ text. These are going to now be fully supported for e file so you can submit extensions quickly and accurately. But, we've added some more amended returns. This one is going to support amended e filing for several new forms in states. That includes the Portland METEIT 65, the p twenty twenty five, as well as the METVIT 20 s. For Iowa, you can now efile the amended eleven twenty corporate return. So these additions mean fewer paper filings. You're gonna have those faster acknowledgments from the filing agencies, clear tracking, writing your e file dashboard. Alright. So what are the easiest ways to stay up to date for the forms and the release dates? E file dates is going to be with the tax form availability tool. That's gonna be form-status.app.intuit.com. Those hyperlinks can be found in the handouts for today's session, so make sure you download those. But this site was going to show you real time updates for printing and the e filing of return I'm sorry, e filing the forms. Under the print form status, we have the 2025 listserv watermark status list. And this is where you can go to check which forms are final and which forms are still in draft. So you may not know this, but our development team has to work with the state and IRS agencies, in order to get those forms made available and approved in our software. So that's that can also hold up the time of the release for those forms depending. So under the e file form status, you'll see the HNC approval and start dates for every jurisdiction we support. You can filter by return type or select a specific state. Alright. How is everyone filling? Let's jump into our next poll. Just for fun, what keeps you going during tax season? Is it coffee? Is it quick snacks, energy drinks, or pure determination and strong work ethic? If it's other, feel free to drop it in the chat. We would love to hear from you too. So we'll give you about sixty seconds to answer the poll. I'm gonna say that coffee probably is going to win. Maybe it looks like we got some water in the chat. Okay. Looks like we do have a a good mix, but coffee is always a strong winner. Alright. Now we have now we're getting to my favorite section, which is the tips and tricks. These are gonna be everyday tools built in to save you time, especially during the busy season. So we'll walk through the slides here, and then we'll go in product time permitting. So first, let's start off by making sure your system is set up to go. LeCerte runs best on Windows 11. Though Windows 10 is supported, I know that the security updates are no longer going to be sent out unless you pay for them. So we do recommend that you go ahead and upgrade to Windows 11. Aim for at least 16 gigabytes of RAM and 50 megabits of high speed Internet. If your system freezes or feels sluggish, when you're printing, It's usually during, due to a network drive issue or background process. But we do have the Lacero tool hub to help you in those cases. We'll jump into that in a minute. Also, I just want to mention that we do not support NAS drives. Okay. So now moving to the LeCerte tool hub, you can think of this as your all in one repair shop. You use it for any time something isn't quite right. So if Lucerne won't launch, a return won't print, or let's say you can't get connected to a shared workstation, instead of calling support, we always recommend using this hub so that you could possibly prevent a call to support. Let's see here. This is what the LeCerte hub looks like. So you see we have, what, multiple items. But now for this, you can save a good twenty minutes, by just using this tool to repair your database, restore your network there. And so just recommend installing this on your computer, and everyone's workstation would need their own instance of the Lacert tool hub. So we'll provide the link to the tool hub for you to install it. Alright. And so we're gonna take a look at a few helpful, features that are built in the software to save time while you're entering data, while you're reviewing your return. So first, you have the one is, the find feature. So this allows you to search by form, field, name, or even a phrase you've manually entered into the program. And so for instance, you'll click in that field, hit control f, and then you'll see this menu pop up. And so from there, you'll just select which item that you would like to search for and then search. So let's say you were reviewing a client with multiple rental properties, and instead of scrolling through dozens of screens, you can type in schedule e and hit enter and go straight to the rental inputs. Yeah. Or let's say you're looking for alimony. Well, you can enter it, and it'll take you right there. So a small tool, but a massive time saver, especially when you're cleaning up big return problems. Alright. So this one is going to be the f one help. So if you're ever unsure about a field, not really sure what's required to be entered, you can click in it, press f one, and then it opens a help article and explains what's what belongs there, with examples and IRS citations. So let's say you're in the depreciation screen and you can't quite remember how section one seventy nine limits apply for SUVs, you can click in that field, hit f one, and boom, you're going to see that IRS reference. So it's gonna be a huge time saver, not a lot of Google searching, Internet searching. We have a lot of that help embedded in the program. So from here, another time saving feature is going to be the missing data tags. And so for this one, you will actually click in that field with the right click, and then select mark as missing data. That return well, that field is actually gonna turn red and add the note to your diagnostic list. So you'll be able to actually view that missing data, tag from the diagnostics. It also allows you to generate a list of missing items. So let's say, you withdrew a return and you realize your client did not provide the necessary information, for this tax year. So you go through, highlight all of those fields. Well, from there, you can generate that list, which I think showed you here in the software. So, yeah, just great to work, have these types of features when you're working in, multiple procure environments. Right. So moving on, the jump to input. So this one is super helpful whenever you're reviewing a form and maybe you see a line that looks off and you're not quite sure where it came from. Well, this enables you to right click on that field and select jump to input. LeCERT will then take you straight to the data source. But let's say it's a line item as in one a that consists of multiple amounts. Well, once you right click and select jump to input, from there, it's going to show you where those amounts are coming from, itemized so, that you can quickly then select that hyperlink and get back to the input. Alright. So we have our government instructions. And this is great because it eliminates you having to jump out of the software to go do your research. Right? All you have to do from within here is go to the form and select government instructions at the top. And this actually pulls up the official IRS instructions for that for that form without even leaving the cert. So let's say you're checking form twenty four forty one, but you can't remember the dependent care limits. You can quickly open the government instructions, hit control f, type in dependent care, and you're there within seconds. So very, very big time saver there. It's built in compliance and guidance. So forms help. I'm curious how many of you all have used this forms help. Yeah. Maybe a couple. So this one is actually also accessed from within the form. And so as you can see in that screenshot there, once you click on forms help, you'll see which input screens feed to that value, which can also be found on the line items there. So this one is going to trace that calculation all the way back to the originating inputs. Alright. Now we are going to take a look inside of Lacert, so bear with me just a moment. Alright. I have my LaSalleq software pulled up. And so, like I said, I wanted to show you these features within the software as well. I'm not going to show you the tools hub. However, since I have Lacert over here, I want us to take a look at that setting to add the, partnership same k one package. And so you can see I have mine added here. And then if you need to add it to yours, you'll be able to come here to settings options and then select. And then we'll go to settings. Oh, well, it was hiding back there on me. So from the display here, see that schedule k one, and and you'll move it over here and hit okay. So that's really gonna be the easiest way once it becomes available for you to access and sending those k one packages. Alright. So I'm gonna jump over here to the individual module and jump in return here. Alright. So I mentioned earlier we have that control f feature. So it quickly pulls up this menu here. So let's say we'll bring up alimony again. We'll type it there. And then once you search for it, you'll see multiple, places. Obviously, there are multiple, dozens and forms that that would explode to. Let's say you're not quite sure where to find the schedule c. You can type it, and it's gonna take us there. Now for the next feature that we discussed was the f one help. And so I'll just quickly jump into the wages screen. And so from there, once you select that field and hit f one, the Lacert help center comes up. And so this is gonna tell us exactly what is required of that line item, as well as any supporting information. Definitely take advantage of all of these free resources that are built in the software to save you time. And then let's see here. The missing data tag. Right? I did wanna show you how you can, flag these fields here, and we'll just use random ones for timing purposes. But once you've flagged these fields by right clicking and selecting missing data, from there, you can go up to tools and select missing data. And now you can see that it has compiled a complete list of all of the missing data. And from here, you can either print this missing data report, which is great. Maybe you wanna save it to the work papers or send it in an attachment. You could do that. But if you have a MAPI compliant email provider, then from here, you'll actually be able to generate this email and send it directly to your client from within the software. So that's a great feature there. Let's say you get all that information and you wanna clear them, well, now you can quickly clear all missing data tags for clients. Alright? Another item I wanted just to show since we're here is the views. So for those of you that are, let's say, using one monitor, but you wanna view both the forms and the data entry at the same time, in that case, you can go up to view detail and then detail forms split view. So from here, it's going to pull up the forms on the side of the window, which is great if you only have one monitor. And so since we have our form pulled up, I just wanted to show you the jump to input feature, which is nice so that you're not actually jumping back and forth. Even though you're still jumping, you're just still on the same page there. So here I'll just check his employer, and you can see now I'm taking directly to that w two. Let's say you have multiple monitors, like I know most of us do. In that case, you can actually go up to tool I'm sorry. View and then the detailed forms view and do the pop out forms screen. So you'll see that this pulls up a whole second page with the forms on it where you can drag it to your other monitor. Alright. And so just jumping over here to our forms, we talked about the government instructions, and you'll notice that those are right next to each other. But from the government instructions, once we collect select that, it's going to pull up the government instructions. It even has these bookmarks here, but this is super helpful, especially if you want to search for a particular section and jump right to it. You could use control f to do so. So for that forms help, you'll just need to make sure you have that box checked. And then from there, you'll see specific line items where we can get forms out. And so this actually pulls up with an article there with additional information. So it is a little bit different from the government instructions. Alright. Let me go ahead and close the screen share, and I will take us back to these slides. Alright. Just confirmed. Seeing the slides okay. Oh my goodness. I thought okay. I thought there was something there. Okay. So now we're gonna cover the listserv support resources here. We do have toll free support. You can actually speak directly with the listserv support specialist, to ask product questions. So let's say you're not quite sure how to get a particular number on a line on a form. Those are the types of situations that support can assist with because it's not direct tax advice. Right? But they can assist you in those types of situations. You can also email our support team, and then you'll get an email follow-up from the LeCerpe support team. We do have the website support, so you can access the FAQs, knowledge base articles, video tutorials as well. So, again, there's that in program help. But I wanna mention that you have training videos inside of your accountant's portal. So that's going to be the accountants.intuit.com. And from there, once you sign in, you're going to see videos and training on the left hand side. I'm sorry. Videos and docs, and you're gonna find a lot of helpful videos there. Anything from using our Intuit link to setting up your settings and options, preparing returns. So very helpful. Again, that's gonna be that accountants.intuit.com. And then we all or here are our support hours. Right? We're gonna be open from 6AM to 5PM Pacific Standard Time. So that's gonna be Monday through Friday. We do have extended hours during, tax season as well as leading up to those major deadlines. So highly encourage you take as advantage of those there. Who's ready for another poll? Your last poll. Alright. And so if you would like to learn more about our software, please do let us know by selecting yes, please contact me or no, not at this time. Should be a few more seconds there. Perfect. Okay. Well, either way, thank you so much. And I did see I got a message from Mark, and he mentioned that they wanted to see the dependent return creation. And since we do have a few extra minutes here, I can go ahead and share out my screen. Perfect. Alright. So for that dependent return, we're going to go inside of the parent's return. And, of course, we're going to jump into dependents. So from here, you can add your dependent info, edit it, whatever the case. And then from there, we'll go up to the tools and then generate dependent return. I'm gonna see all of the dependents on this list, but we're only gonna be able to select one. Let's say you've already prepared another return for that, dependent. It's going to alert you. So I'm gonna go ahead and select the second born dependent here and select okay. So now it's creating that dependent return, lets us know it was successful, and that we can access it from the client list. So from here, I see that second born dependent, And now it has all of this information entered. However, if you didn't have additional information in the parent's return, we could definitely and you would definitely see that information flow over. Okay. Let's go ahead and jump over here. Alright. Who's ready for a coffee break? Just me? Okay. Alright. So now moving on to the last few slides here. For this community support and community, we have a wonderful network of accountants, that use our software, and you have access to them. So definitely check out the accountants.intuit.com forward slash support. And then from there, you can post your product and workflow recommendations. You can connect with other tax professionals. So, again, great resource there. Those will be hyperlinked in the handouts, which will be at the top right hand panel there. Alright. Looking for more training and resources. So as you know, all of our webinars are free. Pretty sure you can find a lot of them, a lot more, loved ones coming up soon. So, definitely check those out. But we also have free self paced training, and then other virtual conferences as this one. And then we have the Taxco Center. So those are gonna be additional articles on important and trending topics, in the tax and accounting industry. Alright. Well, we are here. It's time to wrap up. Just wanna remind you, you're probably seeing that survey at this point. If you could please complete that for us, we do appreciate it, and we'll apply feedback to our future sessions. Don't forget to download the handouts under the doc the docs tab. Will include all of the hyperlinks to all of the articles mentioned and used in this presentation. Don't forget that those CPE certificates will be mail emailed to you within twenty four hours. Check your spam. Make sure it didn't go into the jump. And then, again, if you don't receive it, please do reach out to the email address that we provided earlier. But other than that, we at Intuit, thank you so much for being the part of the Intuit family, and we hope you have a great rest of the day.