Name: Intuit ProSeries: The Fundamentals
Uploaded: 2025-09-23T20:22:09.556Z
Duration: 1 h 4 min 8 s
Description: Intuit ProSeries: The Fundamentals

Transcript for "Intuit ProSeries: The Fundamentals": Thank you. Hello, and welcome to the Intuit Pro Series, the fundamentals webinar. I am Diana Crawford. I will be your moderator today. I am a CPA, have been one for about thirty four years. I enjoy tax planning, helping clients figure out tax strategies. I have been a member of Intuit's tax council for about five years. And if I'm not doing that, I'm presenting at, Georgia Society, North Carolina Society. And if I wasn't doing any of that and having fun, I'd be either gardening or doing doing other fun things. Okay. So your participation today, if this will be, if, broadcast exclusively through your speakers today. So if you're during the webinar, it does not work as well through, incognito mode. We will be having some polls today. So the polls will pop up, and you will either be able to answer them in the webinar or there will be a polls over on the right hand side between the chats, the docs, and the q and a. So when those polls I will give you plenty of time to answer them. They're not difficult. They're just to register your attendance. But if you'll answer them as soon as they come up, we appreciate that. And there will be two, one one towards the the beginning and one further on a little bit, later in the presentation. So this webinar is for educational purposes. We do expect that, you would take the information that you learned today and apply it to your clients as you see fits. So this isn't a, end all, definitive, technical text presentation, but, guidance for you to apply, to each of your own tax situations. Okay. So this webinar does qualify for one hour of CPE and CE credit. Your, your CPE certificates will be emailed to the email address for which you registered this webinar. If you do wanna watch this webinar again later, you can go back and do that after, the webinar concludes. Give it a little time, but shortly after. And those CPE certificates, like I said, will be emailed to you. There is some information there, then you can, follow that to get your CPE certificate. Okay. So let's go over what we're going to cover today. We're gonna talk about data conversion. That's where you take software from another program and convert it into pro series. We're gonna talk about how to optimize and set your options. We're gonna talk about creating a return from scratch, a brand new return if you've not done one before or just wanna know some optimal points. And then once you're done with the return, we're gonna talk about final review. I'm gonna talk about e filing, other return types, and then your esignature dashboard, and then finding help. So it's a aggressive agenda for the next hour, but I look forward to presenting that for you. So let me take you to our first screen and talk about data conversion. So I have acquired, a number of practices in the last, couple of years. And anytime I do that, one of the the the things that I do that helps the most is having a backup of the prior preparer's data and then having ProSeries convert it for me. And based on that conversion, then having a a good bit of the data already in the return for me to use, during the course of that, you know, while preparing the return. So let me, jump you over into ProSeries, and I'm gonna show you, how that looks for you in ProSeries. So here you can see my ProSeries screen. And when you're gonna do a data conversion, the where you go is, first of all, you need to be on the your firm or your company's administrative computer. So if you're on a network, it's the company that acts as the administrative, computer. And it's and you also need to have the data that you have backed up from the other tax program residing on the local drive hard drive of that computer. It cannot be on the network drive. So make sure those items you've passed. And then once you're on that, administrative computer, you're gonna go to import and then client data conversion, and you're going to submit the data for conversion. Now if I try to do that here, it's gonna say you're not on the admin computer, which I'm not. So then you just walk through a very simple process of, a number, because these will be numbered sequentially, and then an email address that the notification will come back to you. And this takes generally, less than a day. I've I've had it maybe a little bit shorter period of time than that. And so you'll get the notification that the data is back, and you go back to the import, the client data conversion, and then the download. And so this will download all of your converted data, and it will be assigned whatever number you started with. So I because I've done several practices, I would start them with different numbers. One's a five, one's a six, one's a seven, things like that. So that way you know or I can identify by the name of the file which of these, clients I had converted. And, usually, that conversion process is available, in November. Late October, November is when you can convert the prior year data, like the, the last year is into the the current years. And it's really, easy to access. I would say that when you get the converted data, the couple of items that you need to check is the depreciation because sometimes depending on other how other programs labeled assets and what their categories are, that asset classification may need some, classified in pro series to make sure that you've got the right asset class and that your prior year accumulated depreciation rolls over. The second would be your, prior year short term and long term capital gain losses. That doesn't always convert, and I always wanna make sure that I've got the right number, so I check that. And then if you had prior year losses from businesses like your s corporations or your partnerships, you wanna make sure that that rolls over into the, current year as well. So next, let's go and talk about the options. So the options. So what I'm so what I'm gonna tell you about is if you're new to ProSeries and you're just setting this up, how can you get the most efficient and effective use of the program, and how are there even things that that make sense for you to set up and set up in a certain way. And I've used ProSeries or its predecessor for literally about thirty six years. So, I I will tell you that not too long ago, I was look watching a webinar that someone else was presenting, and I'm like, wow. I've how long have I been using this program, and I didn't even, know that these these things existed in ProSeries. And it made makes life easier. So you would you would absolutely want to know this. Okay. So one of the first things under options is, is the home based settings. So let me go back into ProSeries so I can show you this. There we go. Alright. So if you go to tools and then go to options, so you can see here all of these options. These are the general options, that we have showing. And, what you'll learn about me is I'm a time junkie. And if I can do something quicker, that's how I'm gonna set my options to make sure it's the most efficient and effective way, to go. So, you know, showing grid lines, you see I'm wearing glasses. Any help I can get with getting to where I need to go, that's what I'm gonna have, done. The missing client information dialogue. So this is if you're preparing a return, you have a field, you're missing data, and you want to go back and put that data in later, you can mark that field as missing with your f 11, or I'll show you the, the exclamation mark later. Then when you get that information, you can instantly go to the f 11 and go to the data field where you need to put that information. Saves you a lot of time. So, yeah, if you can just jump right back to that. And then also, prompt to save your home base changes. You know, sometimes, you want that, sometimes you don't. That's up to you. Input fields only. That's for me because I don't wanna see fields that I can't go to and do anything for. So if I just see the input fields in a different color, that means something to me. So that's where I tend to set my options. Use autofill. Absolutely. If I have to type just a couple of characters and it's gonna do the rest of the work for me, I'm all for that. ZIP code automation. So this is where you type a ZIP code and it fills in the name. So I'm in the Atlanta, Georgia area. I didn't tell you that before, but, we have a lot of cities that have, broken or or come up within counties. And so you can have a city that has a different ZIP ZIP code than or the city name is different than the county, but they share the same ZIP code. So I love the ZIP code automation, and it works 95% of the time. So I'll take the 95% rather than having to type the name of the city every single time. Now what about your form indicators? Show the field icons. Yep. Want those? Married, final, joint, split warning. Absolutely. Because I always put my clients' tax returns in by taxpayer and spouse because then as sure as I do not, I will be asked for that information. And so I just have those turned on, and I do that anyway. Now quick entry mode. This is something that ProSeries has that I have to honestly tell you I've never used. Because when I started out in ProSeries so long ago, I didn't know it existed. And so it's a way that you have less words and data on your screen and more just the data entry fields. And, that that's best for you. Try it out, see if you like it, and use quick entry mode instead. Now save to automatic recovery file. So I have to tell you, I just got a new computer and installed this program, so I haven't updated this option yet. Because normally, I have that set to about five minutes. Because to me, that option says how much data are you or time are you willing to have put into a program, and you're okay with losing it. And I'm I'm about five minutes, not ten. So you can change that to whatever yours is. If you ever know what your your want to know what your customer number is, there's your customer information you could go to. If you use the client status in your firm, so you keep track of the status of client tax returns, then you can prompt to have the return go to the client prompt client status before you leave. And I like that because I am always gonna update the status of the tax return, so we do have that checked normally. And then automatically freeze the the client letter and the invoice date when the e file is accepted. Sometimes I have that checked, but that usually is later in the season after the regular filing period of time. And then at the very bottom, it's masking sensitive data. So if you're in a, public environment, a shared office space, you may not want people being able to walk by and see private information like Social Security numbers. So you wanna make sure that you have that so that your on screen information is masked. So that's really the bulk of the, options here that you have under your general tab. Now a couple of the others that you might want to go look at is the Electronic Filing, where that information goes, and the Global Printing Options, which I'm going to tell you a little bit more about, in just a minute. Alright. So let's go back and tell you what we're gonna talk about next. And that is the home base icons. So this, I'm just gonna show you here instead of within the return itself or when within the program itself because these are what's across the top of your screen. So the very first one is creating a new return. And when we jump back into ProSeries, I will show you this in starting a new tax return. So the first one is creating. The second one is saving. So your program saves typically upon exit or asks you, do you wanna save? But always, again, that five or ten minutes that you have set. But if I've just gotten something in balance or I've gotten something in and I wanna just go check it, then I'm saving. Just again, because I don't wanna lose in, information. The next two icons are your print icons. The way I think of the print ink icons are the one on the left is when I wanna print a whole return. The one on the right is when I wanna print one form or one page. So that's the difference in those two icons. The next one is transfer. So I've heard from different, firm owners, and some firms transfer all of their clients from the prior year into the current year, and then you use the client status to know where clients are. Or in the home based query, that's a good option as well. So you can use that transfer to either transfer some or transfer all of the returns, but that's a great way to, you know, get everything moved over quickly to the, to the next year. The next is how you launch and get to your esignature dashboard. And then the next is, batch, when you want to send a batch of esignatures. So we're gonna talk about the esignature dashboard, in in just a little bit. And then the next, the little house house icon that has EF in it, that takes you to your e file center. And the next one is the, the paperclip icon, which that is when you want to attach PDF files for e filing. I'm gonna show you that within a return so you know how to do that. I find that I use that a lot in the states, but there's also some situations in the in the federal return, where you use that. An example is the, ACA exception. That's a current individual return that we use that, attachment for a good bit. The next one is eFile Now. So that means if you're inside a return, because it's grayed out if you're in Homebase, and you click the e file now, that takes you directly to e filing that tax return that you're in. And then e file status. So the next one, if you are in your e file center and you have a tax return and it's been e filed and you want to update the status of it, you can highlight it, click e file status, and it will go out and check the e file, database and see if it has been accepted. The next is snapshot. And so snapshot is and I'll show you this, in another slide in a minute. It's it's a short summary of the tax return, itself. In fact, I'm gonna move you over there so you can see this. There it is right there. So on the far right side, you'll see the tax summary. It's it's a snapshot. And so if you're in a return or actually you're just on home base and you wanna click on a return, it's gonna bring up these data elements. So sometimes you just wanna look at a high level overview without going into return. This is gonna tell you what that's gonna look like. So let me go back. Alright. After that is your analyzer and then your query. So if you are looking for a given situation in your body of clients, then the client analyzer or the client query is gonna let you reach into your database and find those clients that, let's say, are receiving Social Security or have to make estimated tax payments or some different, you know, options that you wanna look for throughout your database. So that's a really good way for you to quickly, without having to look through, although you can't could in some occasions do a home base view. But that's a good way to get down to what clients fit this criteria, and there's a lot that are already filled out there for you. The next one is find client. I have about 3,000 clients in my home base, so I don't wanna scroll, scroll, scroll. I want to be able to search and find or search and filter my clients so I can get to that client quickly. So the query or the find client is is very helpful. And then the next is all or one. And so that's just about what what that says, getting down to just one or all. The next is how you can get to the options button that I just showed you before. Another way what I love about Intuit products. You can get to the same place through several different avenues based on what you're comfortable with. And and so for that, I show you again this icon where you have your, your f two keys. So if I'm gonna return and I need a form, I'm gonna show you a quick way to get there. But even still, I know that there's forms that I don't have pulled up or populated. If I wanna get there quickly, I know f six gets me there and then I can get right back, you know, right to the form that I'm looking for. After that, we have alerts. So these are things that Intuit is updating you about the program, about maybe tax changes, things that that are going to be, alerts that you need to know about within and outside of the program. And then also the next one is the globe, and this is help. So you've got the next three, the globe, the book, and the question mark. This will all get you to help instances in a different way. The next is tax import. And, I have not been able to use this as much as I would like, but it is a great option when you have, access on behalf of a client into a finance financial institution, let's say, and you can import some of their data. The tax import, it could be very, very useful. And try that out. I've done it, and and love how much time it saves. Just hard for me to show applications here because it does involve client data. Now videos. So if you click on these videos, it takes you, to the, Intuit website where there's so many short, concise videos about different things that you wanna do. So if you have a new client a new employee that you're trying to get up to speed and you need to teach them pro series, point them to these videos because that tells you a lot about all the the little things that you need to to know and just using the program, not necessarily tax trading itself, but pro series trading, about the program. Okay. So the tax return icon. So this is once you're inside of a, tax return. So I'll take you over into my, my pro series here so that I can show you this. And so we'll go through these here. So the first one is just like I said. That's creating a new file. These are the same as within the home base, opening a file that already exists and then saving it. So that's your first three. Then you've got your two print icons. Then you have your home base icon if you wanna leave the return and go to home base or leave the return and go to, the e file center. And here is where you would click e file, and you can go right in and e file this text return now. So the next two icons are your federal icon and your state icon. So this is how you have, federal and then state. So if I need to go to a state return, I click on state, and it brings up the return the states that I have populated, and I can add a state at that point. The next, of course, is the forms menu like I was telling you about. So me, I'm an f six. I'm not as much of a clicker with my mouse as I am with the, keys. But any way you wanna get there. And if you don't want to use the icons at the top, remember you've also got the forms in use over here on the left. So this is all the different forms that are open and in use in this return specifically. But then also you've got just the common forms and then they go by subject category, general, EFAIL banking, income, adjustments, credits. So, you know, whatever your method is for working around in the program, that is where you're gonna want to go, whether it's an icon at the top or under the forms down on the left hand side. The next batch are quick, quick entry screen. And I can just show you really quickly. You can see how the all of the words disappear, and what comes in here is just your basic information. So if you like that better, you could consider using the quick entry mode and you can just go right in and out of that. The next is the pencil, which is add or edit a note to the current field. So you can put notes into this tax return about given fields. I didn't know that till recently either. Add or edit missing client information. So this is something that I love. I'm gonna show it to you really quickly because, I I like it that much. So if I'm wanting if I said, oh, gosh. I don't have what what bank information this client has, I can immediately go and add this to my missing information or control f 11. And so that will bring up this this missing information box, And so there's a link there. So if I save this and then I come back into this return, all I have to do is click right here and it's gonna take me to that this very cell. So that saves time. I save this. I can print it. I can email it. I can go to the field. I can link the field. It can show during final review. There's so much you can do with this and I use this a lot. Okay. So then, we need to keep going. We're gonna go to the errors. So you can see on the left here where all these errors is, but there's also error checking. So if you go to the error checking, it's gonna tell you that there's 38 errors in this return I have to fix before I can e file it. And there's different types of errors. So there's, I'll tell you more about the errors in a little while, but you can see it's very easy to get here, and get information about the errors. And then there's the final review. And the final review, you can have it check all these different categories. So, you know, I I have a lot of the data input for me, but I I check and review every return that that our firm does. And so I want to have if the program can check these diagnostics and these things for me, why would I not use it? If I'm doing the return myself from scratch, why would I not let the program help me out and possibly see where I have overlooked or not considered something? And so that's what these, you know, previews, these reviews just helps with is a little bit extra information to help you out. There's your tax summary, that I showed you before. So it just gives you the highlight overview. This is a good time for me to tell you also about the refund monitor. So you can see here, it looks like what the tax return is. But then over on the far right hand side of the screen in the blue line that says Federal Information Worksheet, it says that they are projecting a refund right now of 5,331. How do you get that to show up? Under your view, go to view. And at the very bottom, here's your refund monitor. So that's gonna be very helpful for getting that, that to show up here. Then you have a calculator. You can have that set up however you like. Letter. This is how you go to the client letter and make the change for if you if you want to edit, if you want the standard letter, custom letter, you get to pick what that letter is, and I'll talk more about that as well. If you want to invoice through QuickBooks, here's your icon. And one of my favorite boxes, where do I enter? So, you know, there's always a new form. A client has something he hasn't haven't seen before. So up here, you have the where do we enter, and then over on the left hand side, you have where do where do I enter. It's also great for a new staff to have a form in front of them, and they don't know where do I enter. And it works in The States because you might be really great at a couple of states, but you're not necessarily great at all of them. That helps there as well. The rest of those icons are the same as on the home base screen. So I will, leave you to it, there. So let me Launch our first poll. And so the question is just very simply, what is your primary reason for attending the webinar? And it's okay if that reason is you wanted to get some CPE today. Hopefully, it's because you wanted to learn something new about ProSeries. I like I said, I've been using this for thirty four ish years, and I am always learning something new and, take every opportunity I can to, to learn something and add to what I already know, especially if it saves me time because that's what I look forward to the most is doing, doing my job more efficiently and more effectively. So I'll give you just a little bit longer to answer the poll. Alright. So if you've made your poll answers, great. I'm gonna go ahead and move on. Alright. So now we're gonna talk about creating a return. So when you're on your home base screen and you want to create a return, you can create a return of any type. Here we go. So it is up here in the upper left. You can you can go to file and create, but the little white, paper here is where you go. And so once you click that, it's going to give you the option of what you want to add. I do get the full pro, professional version, so I have all the options in terms of what, what returns we can create. And so then you you pick the return that you want to create. I have another ten sixty five here, so I'll create that. That opens the return. And then, we we back on our options, we selected to have the different fields be different colors. And so this tells you the red fields or pink fields, are the is the information that has to be filled in before you can efile a return. Also, you've got your errors over here that have to be completed before you efile a return. You want some very detailed information about partnerships. We've had another webinar on business returns, and that will go through some of the detailed information. But this is where you start in a return. And for me, I just start in the beginning and work my way through creating the return. So the worksheet is really where you wanna go first. The forms in use will have what has to be in the return and then your common forms. So, obviously, if we have a partnership, we're gonna need to fill out the k ones. So that's under common forms, so I can go there quickly. Pops up the box for me to enter the partners, and there we are instantaneously. We we get ready to go. And the yellow boxes here are for are are line data fields that you can put information in, but you don't necessarily have to because it might not be needed. So you can see, like, on the primary data, the primary physical address, if it's the same as the address above, you can click yes and the bottom part does not need to be filled out. But if you click no, then it gives you the option to fill in all that information, or it would require it once the information above. And so all of this is just starting and and filling this out, going back to, going back to that information. Alright. Now let's let's talk about the final review. So I showed you that, real briefly. And so in the final review, you have three types of different reviews that can come up that you wanna go through. The green are the suggested. The red have to be updated before a return can be efiled. And then there are orange, which means a suggested update, but not something that is required. So when you get to that final review, you know, I do that right before I mark a return as done and filed. And as I mentioned before, why not check this information, just to to make sure that you are where you think you are in that process. Alright. So next, let's talk about the esignatures. So, here I have shown you what you look what it looks like. When you have a return that is completed, all of your errors are cleared, and you are ready to request a signature from your client, then you want to, initiate the esignature. And so when you the return has to be saved and you request the esignatures. Now what I like about this is you have the opportunity in the esignature dashboard to set up templates. And the templates are going to be because every one of your clients is going to be emailed the request for their signature on the e file authorization forms. So hopefully your clients would not, sign documents that they didn't know who they were coming from or had some instructions that go with them. So you can can go to the esignature dashboard, and you can set up templates on what the email will say when it is sent to the client. We remind them to make sure that they have reviewed the tax return and to make sure that they don't sign their esignature documents through DocuSign, until they have verified that the information in the return is correct. Because in our firm, when, the process is when those come back and according to various IRS guidelines, you have a certain period of time after which you need to have filed those returns. So making sure that there's the proper wording in the email and that, again, that can be a template, in the esignature dashboard and it's sent. So this has worked just a seamless process in our firm for gathering these signatures, sending them to the clients. We love the esignature dashboard, and it shows you you can see the the top of the e signature dashboard here. So it shows you how many e signatures you have sent out, how many you have received back, how many clients have declined to sign the returns. Maybe they found an error. And so the proper thing to do for them would be to decline it or in the number that you're still waiting on. The other great thing is that you can set up automatic reminders. So the reminders go out to the clients to sign their forms on a given period of time that you choose, and so they keep going out to them. Now best practices, we've learned that when a client says, oh, I just got the esignature forms and I forgot, or my spouse reminded me that and we need to stop, make a change return and reprocess it, then we go void those esignature returns. Or there is instances in which you can just update them and then resend them out. But it's such an easy process, and it works so seamlessly, within the program that, you know, we are very happy with, how that whole process goes. And it's very easy to see when the client has viewed the e the email with the forms. It's very easy for you to look at the forms and see what was signed. This works for business returns and also individual returns. So it really is just a very quick, easy, and and seamless process on, you know, how to how to get the esignature documents. And it saves for you those documents in a PDF, in your system so that you have them, going forward. So let's talk about the e filing process as well. And so when your e filing returns, of course, you whatever your process is within your firm to make sure that, you know, you you identify when a return is ready for efiling. Obviously, you would have the efile authorizations back from your clients and in your possession. But then you can can go to you can either have the the return open and select e file, as I showed you on the icons from the top of it inside the tax return, or there's the e file center. And so you can go to the e file center, and you can efile multiple returns at the same time. So in another webinar, I go through some deep dives on the home base. And so you can also configure your home base to identify based on the client status, and a couple of other data types when you have a population of returns ready for e filing, if that would appeal to you. So once you once you have identified these, you can highlight those returns that you wanna e file together, and then you, are going to transmit them for e filing. In the e filing, you have a convert, transmit returns, extensions, payments, all of that can be e filed. You can also batch efile. So you can, batch like extensions. That becomes real helpful when it gets close to, deadline day. And when you wanna batch file, that is under the file program the file option. So that at the very top of your screen, the very first option is file, and that's where you would go to to do some batch, processing. So on the e file center, you select the return. And then once the return is e filed, as you know, the e file center will update that return with what the status is. And so if the return and the e file center has several, tabs. The first tab is the all tab. So that's all of your tax returns that are marked for e filing. That is an option also in the e filing options is if you want all returns as they're created or as they're transferred to be marked for e file. And we have that option set because it's our goal and and requirement to e file all the returns, that are eligible. The second is you have a pending. So these are the ones who've been worked on, but they're not quite, ready. The third is the rejected tab. So this is one we keep, a close eye on. So if we've filed a return, we have a method for tracking when it's been filed and hasn't been accepted. And so we go to that rejection tab to see why was the return rejected. And the, the reports, you click on the number, the submission ID, and that will get you the e file report to tell you what the reason was for the rejection. If you end up having to mail the return, you will also want to print that report so that you can submit that, with your form to to indicate why the client is having to mail the return instead of it being an e file. After that, you have the accepted returns, and then you have another tab for the esignatures. So that shows you all of the, statuses for the esignatures. And so I'm always waiting to see if there's going to be new tabs or new information in the home base. And I've always been pleasantly surprised to this point as to, all the new features that are in ProSeries from year to year. So e filing, again, you're just making sure that you're ready to go. You e file it. You're checking the status. And the statuses, you can have your system check that automatically every time you log in. It will check periodically, or you can say check the e file statuses. If you go to e file at the top and go under, e filing, you have the option of receive acknowledgment statuses or update acknowledgment statuses. And then you also have, electronic filing reports that you can use as an option as well. So let's talk about printing a state return. And so for this, I'm going to, go back into my returns and, into ProSeries and show you how to open or how to get to a a additional return from inside of ProSeries. Okay. So as as I showed you quickly a little bit before, but to show you, in greater detail, the s t is the state option. So if you go into the state, you have all these options. And when you wanna attach a return, you click on that return, say okay, and then that jumps you into the return with all of that information filled in. Of course, you see over here all of the errors that your state return has. And when we talk about doing state returns in details, it's working through all of these errors in a lot of cases that has to be done, to make sure that you've completed the the state return. But I always make sure that at least the information work you go through. Now what happens if you accidentally added a return and you didn't mean to? How do you remove that return? Under the file here at the top, you have removed this city state. And once you do that, it removes this state and it takes you back into the federal return just that easily. That return that we added by mistake is gone. Now I will tell you this, and we do have detailed state webinars as well. But on your if you have a prior year or a nonresident state, you wanna jump down here on the information worksheet because here's where you fill out all that information about the part year and the non year resident. Here you've got, the full year, part year. Then you've got two allocation worksheets, part year and nonresident. And so all of that is information that you would need if you're going to be preparing, the the state return. And so that gets you into the state. And you'll see the state or this is the federal return. And then you have to go and add the states when you're adding that, to the return. Alright. And then let's talk about printing the returns. So when you're trying to print the returns, how do you do that? I told you that there's two buttons. So the button on the left is the print return. And to me, I I coined this as print the whole return. So my left button is print the whole return. So you have where you can print it to a printer. You can print to PDF, a document management system, and we use, an associated portal. And so we have that set to print that return right there as well. So if you ever have an issue that your printer takes a little while to spool and print the return, what I do is I print it to a PDF, display the PDF, and then print the PDF, and I don't have to wait for it to scroll through my printer. It's just a little faster in case that's any help to you. Now we typically print the client copy, but there's options where you can can print and really, really effectively manage what gets printed in your return. So up under the global print options, you say control which forms print. So you have such a great level of detail that you can go through and look. You can do it for for the federal return. You can do it for every one of the federal returns, but you can also do it for all the state returns at all the levels. You can select exactly what you want printed. As we like to say, be nice. Print depreciation schedules, in what you give to your clients. So here we would come under our client copy, and we would say, if there's any assets, just please print the depreciation reports with the client copy. And, you know, then you might wanna go and and print others as well. And so there's the option of if required, if any data is used, if used, always or never. So some things you may not want to give to a client, and that would be helpful. So that's printing which forms print and then, changing the print order. So we have a specific way that we like for our tax returns to print, and that's that we do not put their estimated tax vouchers at the beginning of the return. This is just a decision that we've made. Now you have a filing copy, a client copy, and a preparer copy, and you could make these decisions for each individual copy. So you might want one to be one way, one to be another. They call it a filing copy. You call it, a different kind of copy. Preparer copy. That could be something where you have all of the associated worksheets if you don't wanna give those to all your clients, but you can do that either way. So you get to move up or down, these individual items and say, put this voucher at the end of the return instead of at the beginning of the return. That's an option. And we go through and make a high level of details and changes to how our returns print because we do want them in a specific order. Your general printing is another option. Your print with organizer. So if when if you're sending out organizers and you're doing the short or the full, you can have supporting statements. You can have smart worksheets. You can have reminder notes, and also then print with returns. So if you didn't think you had all this level of control over what actually gets printed, you do. So, go check that out. Maybe it'll save some paper or save some some space on the drives into what you're actually printing. You still have the the file. And then you also can control what letters print. So anything that you can do to, you know, keep that precise, there you go. And then all the different places that you print. Your labels go one place. If you want client presentation paper, client letters can be, on letterhead to a different printer, text forms, where you want your PDF saved. Do you want to allow overriding? Do you want a password? All of this, is what you can set up so that you have the new print returns from Credit Series and Ears right to where it is that you, you know, intentionally want that to go. So the more you can customize this in the beginning, the less angst you will have as you go throughout your your pro series, time. Alright. So let's go to our next. We talked about printing the returns. Let's talk about workflow utilities. And so, when I was in the return, I I told you a little bit about this, but that's adding a note to a field and the missing information. So the missing information is the f 11 that I had mentioned to you, and you have the box. And so you can add that information. I'll go back into Closer so you can see that and also the note field, because this is very useful to have. And so I've mentioned before that it's the question it's the exclamation mark at the top of screen. So that pops up here, missing information. If you had a moment and couldn't remember, what is it that we're missing in this tax return? If you use this missing client information functionality, then you can click on this, go here, and very succinctly is listed what information you're missing. Oh goodness. That client gave us that information. Here it is. And I can double click right to the field where that is. And just remember, all you have to do is go to that field in the return and right click or, use your control f 11, and there you you've added it. Then when you come back in and you can copy this. You can put it in an email. Like I said, we use this prolifically. Now the other thing that you can do is you can also add a note field. So see here, if you right click, you can say add a note. And so add a note, here's where you put that. And so you can have this note print with the tax return. Now, that's for filing. So this would be something that that, say, you wanted to add as a note. So if you wanna print this note, for filing, you could put that there as well. And then there's a whole list of notes that you can print. So you can print it, save it, and this is for that individual field. Now let me let me find a field where we have items that are, called the mean tax return. So let's say that you have a field here and you see the looking glass. So the looking glass, of course, takes us backwards to the supporting, either form or field or worksheet to where this information comes. But if you right click on this field, you can also add supporting statements if it's not a summary field. So we're on the summary. Let's go to this one. And if we had this and we did a right click, I'm batting zero here. But the point is if you want to add a supporting statement and it is not a field that is, layered, meaning it doesn't go straight back to one, you can add a supporting statement there. So that's always a good way to add information in if you want to add the detail without having to go to the supporting statement. But I also love that in ProSeries, you could jump right back and, you know, get to the field. And, of course, here's where you click and you get your supporting statement, and that's what it would look like if you if you added it. But even though a field has quick zoom, in a lot of cases, not always we just saw, but in a lot of cases, you have, that you can can can fill this out. Remember too, if you don't want this to print, make sure you check the box. Otherwise, it's gonna print with the return. Because sometimes we just use that for internal information. We don't use that for information outside of the return. So from a workflow perspective, that's that's what we're work look, looking at. So let's talk about, let's talk about if you are looking for help. So, you know, as I said, I've been using ProSeries for many, many years, and there's still, you know, with tax law changes, with form changes, with new forms, with new, tax issues that we've never had before, you might be looking for help. So where is it that you could go to find out more help about, ProSeries itself, about the return, about an issue? And so across the top, remember I showed you on the far right, there's those three icons that take you directly in to help. So within the program, you've got the the three icons across the top of the screen, and that is right here, about dependents AGI. That will take you to more information. And then you have ask, pro series or search help. And here, you have these two options here in the upper right. And then as I mentioned, you have videos here, and you have, these information here, which is your help, your government instructions, and then the alerts, which tells you about, about new things within the program or the updates to the program itself. So that is where if you're looking for, more help, that's where you want to be is is in looking in those different places. And, also, in the my accountant section under ProConnect, That's also a great wealth of information about, the program itself and changes to the program. The videos, as I mentioned before, in the help section, those are smaller and more specific than an a webinar per se that lasts for an hour. I will go in there if I have an issue where I can't get something in like I wanted to, and that really gives me some quick, succinct information, on on, you know, where to where to go. So in review and I know we covered, a lot, but, hopefully, if you're new to ProSeries, that kinda gave you a a leg up on getting started. Data conversion works great. It's quick. Just do your due diligence. And and once you get the returns in the ProSeries, look at the two year comparison, look at your depreciation schedules, look at your carryovers, your long term, short term capital loss carryovers, and then the loss carryovers. And I don't know that I mentioned it before, but also look at the QBI carryovers. I don't think I said that before, so I'll make sure I mention it now. If you're a little bit of a time junkie like me and get your options set because it can save you a lot of headaches down the road for what you wanna see, don't wanna see, nowhere to go, not go, to me, that just saves time. Then there's also the, the tax import, home base. I didn't show you the home base queries. We do have some of that in another webinar, but querying home base. So I get mine narrowed down to okay. It's getting close to, first extension time. Who have I projected owes and hasn't yet whatever. I can do a home based query. I feel like a programmer when I do that. Just kidding. But but getting that home based query down so that I can figure out what returns I need to look at or who needs to make an estimated tax payment or, you know, what the what the population is of of what we still have to do to do. Creating a return, once you create it, I work my way through the program. If you if you do a lot of business returns, we have a business webinar. We talk about some of the key sections in those business returns, so I'd welcome you to, go look for that as well. Printing the returns. I don't like to waste paper. I don't like to waste disk space. So get that down to what you want it to look like and then get your own. That tax return can be not the filing copy, but your client you give to your, copy you give to your clients or the copy you keep for yourself, you can you can create that and put that in any any order that you want. Filing has a, an obvious path or or list that it has to go in. But if it's for you or for your clients now you might wanna take that two page comparison or five year history and put it right up front, move those estimated tax payments to the very first or or the middle or or in a different position, but you've got flexibility. Just, use that. Esignature, I love it. Use it and, it has saved us so much time, effort, headache, and it makes their returns quicker. If I can review a return, go over it with a client, send it to them, they they sign the the returns and we filed it. That whole process can be done, you know, in half an hour, from from filing to accepted in most cases. And and to me, that just allows me to put that away, and and I'm done and I can move on. Workflow utilities, that that f 11, I know I've said it three times, but I do really love it because it works for us, and it helps me get right back to the exact field that I wanna put that information in. And my goodness, finding help. There's so many ways and process you can go and find the things that you need both within the program and then within the community and help. The Intuit community is great as well. And so all of that really helps with, learning how to use the program and better. And again, I'll plug one more time those little videos that are in price series itself. Very, very good for trying to find the things that that you just don't know for sure where to go. So next steps. When this when this, webinar concludes in just a minute, there will be a survey link. And as I mentioned, I consider my time and your time extremely valuable. If you fill out the survey and make recommendations on what we could do to make the surveys better, we certainly do appreciate that and would welcome, that feedback. There are also under the docs in the far right up in the upper right, the the slides for today. So if you would like to download those, that's where you go. If you are looking for more training and resources, you'll see there the links, and these are, of course, in the documents that you can download. So you have the links in those, documents to get more training. I do moderate several other webinars on ProSeries. Love to have you join us for those as well. And then also the online help that you can go to. There is a big community of support, and I'm involved in in some of those and answering questions. And that's where my first stop is in, in looking for help that I can't find any other sources that I've already given to you. So this is the last poll. If you would like more information about proof series or something specific that I said in today's presentation, you can, say so on the polls. If not, you just say no and give you about ten more seconds to answer that. That will be on the poll tab. And the poll is still there on the poll tab, but I will just say thank you. And, thanks for being here, and I hope to see you on another webinar.