CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business — ProSystem fx Fixed Assets

From the December 2010 Review
of Fixed Asset Management Systems

Designed
for use by accounting and tax professionals, ProSystem fx Fixed Assets
is a comprehensive tracking, management and reporting program that offers extensive
depreciation calculation capabilities, projections, asset-life events and reporting.
The program is part of the ProSystem fx Suite of professional applications,
which includes integrated tax, write-up, trial balance, practice management,
document management and other solutions for professional firms.

BASIC SYSTEM FUNCTIONS:
The fixed assets system is designed for use by professionals managing the asset
depreciation and planning for multiple entities, and provides good client management
functions that allow for global changes across all or groups, as well as advanced
consolidation functions. Initial program installation processes are quick, followed
by setup of client information, which can be imported from existing entities
in other ProSystem fx programs. Users can set client-level defaults
for books, reports and Sec. 179 setup, and can duplicate client settings when
creating a new entity. The program can be used to manage any number of assets
for any number of independent or inter-related taxable entities and subsidiary
divisions, departments or cost centers. When networked, it can support any number
of concurrent users.
The program’s primary interface opens to a blank work area with menus
for opening or creating clients and for accessing program utilities, such as
setting user preferences for display of prior years and zeroed-out assets, rounding,
data-entry options and group dispositions. The client selection screen offers
sorting by name, ID and entity type, along with access to client histories and
quick output of client lists to printer, file or PDF.

Selection of an entity opens the program’s real activity interface,
which provides multiple feature icons across the top and offers multiple tabs
and defaults to the master asset list, with a spreadsheet view of all company
assets along with descriptions, date in service, categories, location and cost
basis. The main asset list can be customized to display up to 400 field selections.
Other tabs are based on the asset type and class, allowing users to quickly
move to detail screens for a selected asset, vehicles and listed information,
dispositions and projections. From the detail tab, the program displays all
books assigned to the asset, side-by-side, with data entries automatically calculating
across all affected books and offering selection lists for setting of property
type, convention, method and other treatments. Asset screens offer tracking
by cost center, department, custodian, location, GL asset account numbers and
GL depreciation/amortization expense accounts.

CORE ASSET MANAGEMENT FEATURES:
ProSystem fx Fixed Assets offers up to eight books per asset and forecasting
of each out to seven years, with preconfigured books for federal, financial,
AMT, ACE and state, and with the ability to easily create custom books for E&P,
state AMT, state ACE or other needs. The system includes built-in asset types
and class data, with automatic calculation for ACRS, MACRS, declining balance,
sum-of-years’ digits, straight-line, Sec. 179, units of production and
amortization. Users can create up to 99 additional methods and can calculate
depreciation.

The program’s like-kind exchange tab simplifies these transactions,
while multiple options for disposal allow partial and group dispositions, splitting
of assets in up to 99 separate assets, as well as unsplitting, sales and transfers.
The program offers tools for automatically allocating available Sec. 179 deductions,
as well as computing recaptures and limits for listed auto and Sec. 179. Global
and group update features simplify making changes across large numbers of asset
bases. Companies managed in the program can also be consolidated.

ProSystem fx Fixed Assets includes data fields for asset location
tracking, including assignment of responsible parties and service management
functions, but does not offer barcode or RFID integration options.

REPORTING:
Reporting functions in ProSystem fx Fixed Assets are accessed from
the main print menu, offering an impressive collection of output categorized
into groups for calculation reports, projections, activity and status, asset
reports, tax forms, and report sets for monthlies and year-ends. Reports can
be customized and formatted from within the system or can be output to Excel
and Word for more customization, as well as to CSV and PDF. Projections include
FASB 109. Fileable tax forms include the ACE and 4562 worksheet, Sec. 179 and
JCWAA/JGTRRA accelerated depreciation. The program allows generation of prior
year reports and future years, with the ability to include all amortized assets
in the same or on different reports as depreciated assets. Recently added is
the new Annual Cost Summary report that shows cost totals for each category
type for current and preceding years.

IMPORT/EXPORT/INTEGRATION:
The fixed assets system integrates directly with many other programs in the
ProSystem fx suite, including Tax, Engagement and Global fx.
It can import from Excel, CSV and other text file types. The system offers data
and report output into the same formats, which enables import into third-party
programs for tax, accounting and trial balance, and also can generate data into
PDF and Word reports.

HELP/SUPPORT:
ProSystem fx Fixed Assets can be used on all modern Windows operating
systems and provides numerous in-program assistance tools, from extensive right-click
menus and field/context-specific Help and guidance, to wizards, program tutorials
and a traditional index-based reference. CCH’s support website offers
FAQs, tips, program updates, user guides and additional documentation, tax and
technology news, access to an online user community and training options. Live
technical support is included with program pricing.

SUMMARY & PRICING
ProSystem fx Fixed Assets is a robust asset management system that
provides extensive calculation features and reporting, yet retains a friendly
and intuitive user interface. The system is designed for professional firms,
and provides good integration with the other programs in the ProSystem fx
suite, allowing for streamlined data flow. Pricing starts at $1,975 for a single-user
license with unlimited live technical support.

2010 OVERALL RATING:

Technology