2006 Readers’ Choice Awards

Insight: Tax preparation
is definitely still the bread and butter of the profession, with more
than 92 percent of voters reporting use of a professional tax preparation
system. In our subjective polling of “favorite” programs,
Drake had just over 35 percent of the votes, while the combination of
Intuit’s ProSeries and Lacerte lines had nearly 30 percent of the
votes. Actual usage of tax programs by professionals shows that Intuit’s
two professional tax products have more than 45 percent of the market,
while Drake actually has less than 10 percent. This shows that Drake has
a very loyal user base that is driven to support the vendor and recommend
its programs. However, the Intuit folks would likely have the opinion
that the real vote is the purchase decision. CCH recently completed the
acquisition of TaxWise and ATX and plans to continue both lines of software
under a new small-firm focused division, which is why these programs were
grouped together.

Insight: With nearly 25
percent of voters reporting that they use a tax planning system, the polling
in this area was very close, with the Intuit and CCH products virtually
neck and neck, and BNA close behind.

Insight: AMS and CFS may
be smaller vendors, but they have very satisfied users. Surprisingly,
more than one-third of voters reported using a stand-alone 1099/W-2 program,
which should serve notice to the vendors of write-up and professional
tax and accounting packages that these compliance functions are sorely
missed, especially by professionals who do not utilize a payroll system.

Insight: CCH
has a clear advantage in this space, however, only about 10 percent of
voters reported using an estate planning system, likely as a result of
the legal profession’s encroachment on this area of tax law.

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Insight: Business valuation
is a very niche specialty, with only about 5 percent of voters in this
poll signifying usage of a business valuation package. But with only a
few products on the market, the field is still very close.

Insight: Whoa, Nelly!
QuickBooks took this category by an order of magnitude, clearly dominating
the other products among the more than 50 percent of voters who cited
a product in this category. Although this is not a scientific survey,
these results should finalize the debate over whether the professional
accounting community has accepted Intuit. This is certainly a sea change
from about five years ago when the profession bemoaned QuickBooks as not
appropriate for write-up. But through continued evolution of the product
and building it out to core verticals as well as the addition of core
features designed for accountants, QuickBooks has continued to proliferate
throughout virtually all types of small businesses, and so it seems that
many (if not most) accounting professionals are adopting QB at least for
handling their QB clients.

Insight: About
two-thirds of voters reported using a dedicated tax research system. CCH
and Thomson RIA have long been respected leaders in the tax research field,
so their lead in this area is not a surprise, and the close proximity
of the Kleinrock offering is likewise expected, especially considering
the bundled tax compliance/research package with ATX. The rapid growth
in popularity of TaxAlmanac is noteworthy, since the free online research
“wiki” was introduced just over a year ago. The tax information
portal received a 2006 Tax &
Accounting Technology Innovation Award.

Insight: With more than
half of all voters reporting use of a payroll system, the QuickBooks payroll
package was a clear winner, although both AMS and PayCycle performed well.
It is noteworthy to point out that the PayCycle system, which won a 2006
Innovation Award, is a completely web-based payroll solution. See, accountants
can embrace technological change.

Insight: In this category,
voters were allowed to select more than one vendor (but not the same vendor
more than once), since they might have and like multiple computers from
different vendors. But even though the percentages add up to more than
100 percent, Dell still received a vote from more than 50 percent of the
voters. Dell and HP are by far the leaders in this brand loyalty here.

Insight: Voters were also
allowed to select more than one vendor in this category (but not the same
vendor more than once), since they might have a printer and scanner from
different vendors. We probably should have split this category, but as
with the computer category, even though the percentages add up to more
than 100 percent, HP still received a whopping 77 percent of the votes.

Insight: Once again, voters
were allowed to select more than one vendor (but not the same vendor more
than once), since they might have more than one such product. There should
be little surprise in these results since the leaders here also happen
to dominate the market. Next year, we’ll ask about cell service
providers, since that is where more of the interaction is.

Insight: See, accountants
do have a sense of humor (at least when it isn’t 11 p.m. on April
15). Most of these results are expected, although the number of voters
choosing “healthier items” was a welcome surprise. Of course
that may be offset by the few dozen who voted for various types of alcohol
(not on the chart). As long as it doesn’t affect where that decimal
point goes.

Insight: Fortunately,
there were no illicit drugs receiving votes; the last thing we need is
an accountant on speed. For the most part, even with those who do not
use caffeine, the results of this question pretty much show that the rest
of their peers do. Yes, coffee is still the primary fuel of the tax and
accounting profession.