Business Insights Intelligence – Schulz Consulting

CT Stops Mailing Tax Forms To Individual Taxpayers

December 28, 2010 by Wayne Schulz

The Connecticut Department of Revenue Services (DRS) today announced that the agency will no longer directly mail tax booklets to individual taxpayers. This change was made due to the continued growth of electronic income tax filing, and to reduce mailing and printing costs for the agency. The IRS and several other states have recently made similar decisions.

Taxpayers that still need a booklet will be able to obtain one from their local library, post office, or town hall shortly after the beginning of the new year, or they may download forms and instructions from the DRS website at www.ct.gov/DRS.

Last filing season, 1.6 million personal income tax returns were filed with DRS DRS estimates that of the 1.6 million, approximately 125,000 returns, or 8%, were attributable to mailed books.

Electronic filing of income tax returns has grown rapidly during the past few years. Last year, more than 1.2 million tax returns were filed electronically.

In addition to downloading paper forms at www.ct.gov/DRS, taxpayers can learn about locations where tax booklets will be available, electronic filing through the state’s free Taxpayer Service Center, and other electronic filing methods like Fed/State e-file and tax preparation software. The site also offers information about the free Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program for low income individuals and the Tax Counseling for the Elderly program.

via – CT Department of Revenue Services

link – Download CT Individual Tax Forms – 2010

FRX to Sage MAS Intelligence Conversion Tool Is In The Works

April 12, 2010 by Wayne Schulz

We’ve already discussed that the financial reporting tool used by MAS 90 and MAS 200, Microsoft’s FRX, is reaching the end of it’s life in 2012. Sales of the product will stop in December 2010 and support ceases two years later.

The replacement for FRX is Sage MAS Intelligence. It’s a private labeled version of a spreadsheet based solution from a company named Alchemex which is already in use with Sage’s Accpac product line.>/p>

We had an opportunity in March to take a first look at what was then termed Sage Insights Intelligence (since re-branded Sage MAS Intelligence).

One of the questions at the time was about how FRX reports would be converted. Many customers who are using FRX have created elaborate FRX layouts for their financial reporting. Understandably many users have been concerned about whether all of this data would transfer to the new Sage MAS Intelligence.

While we don’t know exactly what data will be converted (for example it’s unclear whether reporting tree structures will convert), we can report that last night Alchemex shared the following welcome news:

..nothing new other than we most definitely will release a utility that will convert FRx reports in MAS Intelligence format, but are in discussions with Microsoft regarding the password for the FRx database and using this, so may have some delays, but realize how critical this process/function will be and are paying attention to it.

So it looks as if at least some older FRX layout formats have a chance for automatic conversion to the new Sage MAS Intelligence layout. It’s still too early to tell exactly what will convert (and how accurately) however it’s comforting to know that a conversion option remains under active development.

Business Insights Intelligence for MAS 90 & MAS 200 – First Look

March 15, 2010 by Wayne Schulz

Last week the Alchemex folks shared an hour long demonstration of the new Business Insights Intelligence module for Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200. As you may remember back in January 2010 we picked up on a semi-official announcement from Sage that Alchemex was MAS 90’s FRX replacement.

Microsoft, the owner of FRX, had previously announced that as of the end of 2010 all sales of FRX would cease. As of the end of 2012 all support for the MAS 90 or MAS 200 version of FRX will stop as well.

Here’s the recorded session. No firm word yet on exactly when this will release though it seems likely you’ll see the first release in the second half of 2010.

Sage Business Intelligence from Wayne Schulz on Vimeo.

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