Name: Intuit ProConnect: Data Entry & Tools
Uploaded: 2025-01-15T21:53:06.255Z
Duration: 1 h 4 s
Description: Intuit ProConnect: Data Entry & Tools

Transcript for "Intuit ProConnect: Data Entry & Tools": Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's webinar for ProConnect Tax on data entry and tools. My name is Ashley Henderson and I am a senior solution specialist here at Intuit. I've been here going on 8 years. I've supported ProConnect tax online as well as Lacerte. I've worked on previous tax software webinars and training videos, and I'm known as a subject matter expert in ProConnect tax. When I'm not working, I enjoy spending time with my 2 little ones and my husband and traveling as much as I can. Alright. So for our agenda today, we are going to be covering estimated taxes, extensions, amending returns, depreciation, dispositions, attaching some PDFs, and a little state specific data entry. But before we jump into the content, we are going to go over some housekeeping items. So when a poll question is launched, you are going to see a pop up in your lower left hand side of the window, where you can click on it to go to the poll. And you'll also see the poll tab at the top right of the window. You can also answer the poll question whenever the results appear on your screen by clicking on the answer. And for some best practices, the audio is going to stream through your computer speakers. We recommend using Google Chrome or Safari for the best experience. If you have any VPN ad blockers or firewalls, such as McAfee, we do recommend you turn them off or you can jump into an incognito, browser. At the end of today's session, you're going to be prompted to take a short survey, and we really appreciate it if you could spend a couple moments to answer those questions. It's very valuable and appreciated as we need that feedback so that we can continue to improve our webinars. A recording of the presentation will be available using that same link that you used to get into the session. And this session is eligible for 1 CPE and 1 CE credit. So in order to meet those requirements you need to answer the polling questions as well as attend a minimum of 50 minutes. Alright, so now on to our disclaimer. This session is educational in nature and should not be construed as tax advice. I am not a tax preparer. I am a program expert, so I just wanted to call that out there. Now before we jump into the program, we are going to start with our first polling question. So what is your primary reason for attending today's webinar? Is it to earn free CPE, to explore new solutions, solve a specific problem, is it just general interest in education, or is there some other unknown reason? So I'll give you about 60 seconds to answer that. Alright. And remember, once you select your answer, it's just going to change colors to, let you know that you have selected an answer. There is not a submit button. Give you a few more seconds here. And remember as the results show up you can click on the answer directly on that window. Alright. Okay. Well, thank you all so much for answering our poll question. I'm going to start sharing the software. Now one thing to note here is that I am going to be, doing a demo in the software for most of today's session. So I'll go ahead and perfect. Alright. So, hopefully, you have all had a chance to watch the fundamentals training session for ProConnect tax, because this is not a session that you should start with. You should already have a basic understanding of how to use ProConnect tax. Another thing is that the concepts that we're covering today are going to be able to be applied to each different tax type. Right? So you'll be able to apply the depreciation to, you know, your business returns, so everything is pretty similar. And just to let you know, in the handouts, we have provided those the steps that we're covering today. So if you wanna follow along, you can go ahead and download that from the handouts. Don't feel pressured to write everything down because you can always revisit this recording, as well as reference those handouts. Alright, so here we are within ProConnect tax and we're gonna start off with covering estimated taxes. So I have a tax return here that I've already prepared for us. Alright. So now you'll see that the program is gonna open to the table of contents and from here I'm just going to go under the payments, penalties, and extensions section and select the 2023 estimated taxes. And so here is where you can input any of those estimated payments. Maybe this is a new client, you didn't transfer the return over from the prior year, and you have to start over. Well, this is where you can enter any of those estimated payment amounts. Now down below, you'll see the section where you can add or enter additional estimated tax payments, that were paid during the year. Now what we'll do from here is we'll scroll down and go to the 2024 estimated tax and then select the 2024 estimated tax 10.40es. And this is where you can generate different, items related to those estimated payments. So if you wanted to generate the 10.40 e s, then we would go on the estimate options here, and then you can select one of these. Now one thing to mention here is that if you're using, options 2 through 7, then you'll need to go to this federal worksheets tab and enter any adjustment, excuse me, adjustments for entering next year's tax liability. Alright. And then from there, if you want to override the estimated tax payment vouchers, then you can enter those yourself. So the program will automatically calculate those amounts based on whatever estimate options, you've entered, but you can always override those amounts. And then you'll see here that you can also apply the overpayment amount to the following year. And And if you scroll down below, this is where you'll see those overrides to override the calculation of the software. And then if you'd like you can enter the total amount of estimated tax and the program will actually, divide that by 4 in 4 different payments. If you do not want to reduce the override by the overpayment applied, just be sure to check this box here. Alright. Oh, one other thing I don't wanna forget to tell you is that if you override one of these quarters, you need to override all of them. If you enter a negative one, you'll set that quarter to 0. If you've already paid that amount, then you'll enter a negative amount in that field. And if you override one of these fields, you must override all of them. Now if you want to set up the pay the payment for those to be electronically filed, then we're gonna come back over here under general, and then we'll go to the miscellaneous direct deposit information. And then you'll need to select this tab right here. And so here, we can see the check boxes for electronic payments, even of the the balance due or the electronic payment of estimated tax here. So if you do want to set up these payments to be sent with the federal tax return, you must must set this up prior to e filing the return. Because once you efile that return, those payments that you've set up are sent with the return. So you can't go back and set it up after you've already efiled and the return's been accepted. So just keep that in mind. However, there are specific states that will allow you to e file separately filed estimated tax payments. In this example, I do have California added here. And as you can see California has a section for estimated payments so in order to e file those you would just come here, check all of the boxes, notice there's not an estimated payment for federal. So once you have that checked, you have your payment information set up, and then you can go to your file return tab to actually e file this. Right? So you'll have the efile I'm sorry. You'll have the efile of the estimated payments for those states here, and then you can efile that. Alright, so now let's jump into extensions. And I'm going to jump back out here and jump right back in here. Alright, and so what you'll need to do for those extensions is go to that profile tab here and then you'll see that extension section where you can select the check boxes to efile the federal and any states. If you don't see a check box for a state for that you have added to the return, then that just means that it's not supported for the e filing of their extension. Alright. So, based on whatever's entered into the tax return, ProConnect will carry the balance due that's on that 10.40 over to the 4868. But if you want to enter a different payment amount, you can definitely do that. So we'll go back under the payments penalties and extensions section and select the extensions. Right. So you must enter this one for automatic extension. From there, you'll need to enter any of the applicable information, the total tax liability, if you wanna override that, the total payments, and then you'll see that form 4868 payments which defaults to the amount due but you can override that amount there. And then, of course, whenever you are ready to e file that, you'll go to that file return tab and just be sure that you're using the e file extension option here. Of course if you have diagnostics it's not going to let you e file that, so you'll need to clear those. Now from the tax return tab, if you have multiple, extensions that you need to efile, you can do those in batches. And you'll go under batch actions, and I'm gonna actually jump over to 2024 and then go under batch actions. And from here, I can see the batch extension filing and then any clients that are eligible for that will show up here. You'll check your boxes for whichever clients you want. You can actually even sort it out by the return status or search for it here. And then once you hit continue, it actually scans the return for any diagnostics and as you can see here, this return, has a critical diagnostic, so I cannot efile that. So either I could go back to that tax return, clear the diagnostics, and then send them all together, or I can efile it without that specific one. From there, once you've efile them, you'll have your batch extension history. Obviously, I don't have any here, but you would be able to see, you know, which ones were accepted or rejected there. Alright. I'll go back to 2023, and let's talk about amending tax returns. And so there's 2 ways from within ProConnect tax that you can amend tax returns, and that's going to be either from a return that you created and filed within ProConnect tax or maybe you have a client, a new client, coming to you who needs your help amending a return. So, there's a little some differences there which we'll cover and we'll go into the amended return here. And from there, you're going to find the miscellaneous form section and look for the amended return. Now I have my screen, zoomed in a lot so that you all can see my, my window clearer. So, anyhow, you must check this box for amending federal return before you can generate the 10 40 x. So it's always recommended that you create a copy of the tax return to preserve the originally filed forms. This allows you to actually make a copy from right here without leaving the tax return, so that's nice. And then it's asking us if we want to transfer that current data as it was originally reported for column a on the 10 40 x. So I'm going to hit yes transferred data. Alright. And so now if I scroll down, you're going to see that information that it transferred in column a. It's also required to enter a one if you are amending the state return, and then you must enter the year that you are amending. If there's any additional information, you can scroll down here and fill that out. And then you'll have your explanation of changes tab which you'll need to complete to print with the return. And then after you've enter entered all of that information, you're going to go and complete the return as you would if you were creating a new return. So you would be adding any additional information from within the inputs here, which will then flow to the 10 40 x. Alright? And then if you have a client who is amending another year, I'm gonna jump out of this one here and go to this file Now the first thing that you'll want to do is create the tax return. Right? You'll go through, you'll want to enter the general information. If a dependent is being added to the amended return, you'll enter your dependent's information here, and then we'll go back to that amended screen. I've already completed this information so I've already checked the box, entered this information, and so you'll see it's basically the same but the only difference is that you don't have anything to transfer over since this is a new return. So you'll come down here and you'll need to enter the as originally reported. So you'll enter that information there, and, again, you'll go back into the tax return, add any additional information, you know, whatever was amended. You'll also enter that explanation of changes. Now as far as this override column here, Let me just make my window a little bit or here. Okay. So the override should only be used if you absolutely have to use it. Same goes for if the return was originally prepared in ProConnect tax because that column is going to override anything that you've entered into that tax return, for those differences. So just keep that in mind when you're preparing those amended returns. And then I know for 2022 well, starting in 2022, e filed 10 40 x's can actually receive the refund by direct deposit now. And it's set up the way you would set up the direct deposit for the return in the first place, so going under well, before you do that, you'll need to sorry. This is for the overpayment being applied to the 2024, which we're also going to discuss. But, of course, you'll need to have your direct deposit information under general and then miscellaneous direct deposit and then we're coming back here. And then from there, you can scroll down, make sure you have your banking information entered as well. And then, like I said, if you wanted to apply that overpayment to the estimated tax, then from there, we'll go back to our payments, penalties, and interest, and then select the 2024 estimated tax. So if you have anything in this field here, you'll need to clear that out. And then from here you'll enter the amount of the overpayment that you want to apply to the estimated tax. Alright. So once you've set all of that information up then you can go ahead and file the amended return under file return. And you'll see we have a separate tab again for that e filing of the amendment. Make sure that all of the diagnostics are cleared, and then you'll be able to efile that tax return. Alright. Let's jump in to a polling question. So I will stop sharing my screen, And here we are. And the polling question is that you cannot e file separately filed estimated taxes in ProConnect tax, so that's going to be true or false. Again, we'll give it about 60 seconds here. Hopefully, we're paying attention when we were going over this here. This may be a a trick question. Right? You cannot efile separately filed estimated taxes. So is it true or is it false? I'll give you about 15 more seconds here. Alright. And remember, as the results are showing on the window, if you have not answered the poll question, you can select your answer right there. Okay. So let's jump back into the program. Excellent. Now you should be seeing my window, and we're going to discuss entering depreciation. And while we don't have a completely separate module outside of the program for depreciation. Most of our tax preparers who use ProConnect, they do use our depreciation module for managing their fixed assets, year round. Right? So, it does support the federal, the AMT, state, and book depreciation. We have detailed schedules for current and next year. So to generate that depreciation, we'll open our tax return. And from here, we're gonna go under deductions and select depreciation. So this is the quick entry for our depreciation. You'll see this same layout within the dispositions. So you can quickly enter your description of your property. You can link it to your form. If you have multiple schedule c's or, you know, multiple of whatever form you've linked it to, You can select which activity name that is, and then you have your category, which I'll come back to once we go inside of the details. But, here are the predetermined categories that we have. You'll need to enter that date placed in service, as well as that cost or basis, and, of course, we need that method. I'll jump into this asset here because I wanna show you that you now can rename or, give your assets a special category, you know, whatever you want it to be named. So when, you know, instead of grouping it by these predetermined categories, you'll enter your own category, and then you'll just make sure that you enter that for each of the assets you want grouped under that category, and you can have multiple different ones if you need to. And then within this depreciation window, you'll see where you can enter any prior depreciation, and some other miscellaneous info that may be needed. Now one thing about the assets here is that for form 4562, that's only going to generate when the IRS well, when it's required by the IRS. Right? So maybe you're not generating 4562, but you would like these assets to flow over there. Well, what you'll do is you'll go up here to the miscellaneous slash section 179. And from there, you'll see the option to, force the 4562. So just wanna call that out there if you're ever in that situation, and then just be sure to go back to the alphabet there. So, again, top right, miscellaneous section 179 is where you'll go if you want to force that form 4562. Alright. And so let's say that you are going to be selling this furniture here or selling an asset, any asset. Once you go into the details, you'll have that disposition tab. From there, of course, you'll need that to the date sold, dispense, or retired. That is mandatory, so if you don't have that entered, it is not going to generate that sale. Any you'll add any expense of the sale or exchange there, and, of course, you have your sales price. Now let's say you're just disposing of a portion of this asset. Well, what you can do here is you can enter that percentage or the amount of the basis that has been sold right here. And then what the program will do is it will treat the portion entered as a disposition, and then the remaining portion will remain in the software for any future depreciation. So let's jump into dispositions, which is located under income, and then you have your dispositions and then schedule d. Again, you have your quick entry screen, same concept as the, depreciation. You'll go through enter the quantity, enter the date acquired, the date sold, your sales price, the cost or basis here, and any expense of the sale. And then I'll just jump into the details for this particular disposition. So once you have that basic information entered, you'll want to go into the details here, and you can scroll down, enter any additional information, and then you'll see the sale of asset. So once you've entered that, you can come here, and this is where you could actually just, well, sell the asset right within the software. And then this is actually going to trigger the 4797 there, and as far as entering any additional information, that would be down here. You also wanna just be sure that you're checking, you know, you'll see here any additional categories to select. Now going back to the quick entry, entering the stock, transactions is pretty similar, right, so you're still gonna enter all of this basic information, but you'll need to, pay attention to this field here. So was the basis reported? And if you leave it blank, it was reported to the IRS. You enter a 1, it wasn't. If you enter that 2, then it was not on form 1099 b. And then go back to that general information there. Again, entering that sales price, the cost there, as well as any additional information. Now let's say, you know, you've this is a a large statement that your client has provided you with various dates on it. You can enter those various dates within the software as a negative date, and that will that will then show the dates as various. However, it does still use the dates that you you've entered to determine whether it's a short term or a long term. So just keep that in mind, and then you'll see that override here. If you need to, you can force it to show a short term or a long term. And I'm sure you're already aware of this, but the software is not gonna automatically generate form 89 49 for transactions that the IRS allows to be reported directly on that Schedule d, so please check the form instructions for additional information on that. But if you want to show all of the transactions on form 8949, what you will do is go over well, I'll just show you from the quick entry. So you'll see that carryover slash miscellaneous information. And from there, you will, We're on the schedule d here, and then you can see the 8949 option here. So now we'll go to our check return tab to take a look at our depreciation schedules. So under forms and then US forms, we have our, depreciation summary, and then you have your depreciation schedule for the current year, and you can see here I have it, that special category that I listed out. You can see that asset is listed there. And then, of course, you have your current year depreciation for AMT and as well as the book depreciation. And then down below there, you can see your 4797 is generating the sale of that business property there. So it's very important that you are making sure that the forms are generated based off of your data input. If it's not generated, then you need to look for some missing data or the program does go by the form instructions, so it may just be that the whatever is not appearing on the return is not required. And then I always like to call out this jump to input feature here. So, you know, if you're looking at this and something's off, you can actually just click on a field, and it'll take you back to that input so that you can quickly correct that information there. Alright. So let's jump in to our next poll question. Alright. You all should be seeing the poll question now. And this is true or false. So ProConnect allows you to create custom categories for depreciable assets. Is that true or false? And remember that the color of your answer will change once you select it. There is no submit button. After this, we only have one last poll question. Give you about 20 more seconds here. Okay. It looks like we getting some feedback there. Okay. Alright. Well, thank you all for answering our poll question. Now, if you're still seeing the results, you can get your click in by selecting the answer before it disappears. So now I will go back to sharing my screen. Perfect. So you all should be seeing the ProConnect tax window. Excellent. So now let's jump into attaching PDFs. Just to discuss some of the requirements, just know that, your PDFs combined, the size cannot exceed 20 megabytes. And that's a combination of all of the files. So keep that in mind once ever you're uploading those files. If you need to, you can reduce the size of the PDFs by scanning it in black and white as well as 200 dots per inch or DPI. You could also use, Adobe Pro or another third party application to compress your PDFs if need be. So since we were just discussing, the 8949 dispositions and depreciation, I do wanna show you how you can attach a document or a statement. So if you want to attach a statement to the 8949, then what you'll need to do is go to the input return tab, and then under the general section, you will see the electronic filing, and then from there, the e file PDF miscellaneous. And from here, you'll see the uh-oh. E file attachment at the top right, and then you'll see a lot of the program windows do look like this as well where you can have multiple schedule c's, documents attached to the tax return. So just keep an eye out for that. You have your plus button if you need to attach multiples. There. Another call out here is just throughout the software, you'll see these hyperlinks to helpful articles. So, you know, before contacting support, always check your resources. Anyhoo, from here, you will attach the PDF. And once you've attached that PDF, then you'll need to link it to a form. And so let me see. 46 here. Alright? So we're attaching that exception reporting statement there. If, you know, you had multiple activities, then you would just need to be sure that you are entering that activity name or number. If you had a state added to the tax return, you would see the option to include it with the state. And then from there, under the file return tab, this is where you can just verify that documents are attached. So under that e file section, you have the PDF attachments, and here is where I can confirm that that has been attached to the form. So moving on here, let's talk about the state specific input. Okay, so depending on which states are added to the tax return, you'll have a specific section called state and local within that tax return. And I'll show you right here, I have California added to this tax return, and from here you'll see that state and local section, so you may need to go in here and add some information about other state tax credits. Now I know, for the resident state of a few of the states, if it's, it will automatically generate the other state tax credit, but there may be, like, some deductions, or maybe even some apportionment apportionment for business returns that you'll need to enter in that state and local section. But if your client receives a multi state w two, we'll go to the wages, salaries, and tips screen. From here, of course, you'll need to enter that employer information, and then down below you'll see that you have the separate column where you can source that income to the specific states. And once you click in that field, you'll expand it. And from here, you can enter the amounts for the specific states. Right? So you may have, n I d, and then you'll have your other amount going to the other state here. And so, one call out here is that if you have a w two with a multiple states, and you enter and source those amounts in the, box number 1, you'll still need to go down to the, state and local section here, and you'll need to enter those amounts here but you'll also need to enter this source. So the s will it stands for source, of course, but that is going to send the amount to the state's return without affecting the federal amounts or the other states that are on the tax return. And then, of course, you'll need to enter any estate income withheld as well. And then down below, you'll see the electronic filing section, so you will need to complete this information as well for the, e filing of the return. Excuse me. Alright. So I know we've covered a lot of information today and hopefully you found it helpful. I'm going to stop sharing ProConnect tax and we will jump back into our slides here. Alright, here is our last polling question and that is the size of all PDFs attached to the return cannot exceed what limit? Is it there is no limit? Is it 55 megabytes? Is it 40 megabytes? Or is it 20? If you're not seeing the poll, you can go up to that top right of your screen and select the polls tab. And I'll give you a few more moments to finish that. Got some okay. It looks like a lot of you knew the answer there. Well great, let's move on, and I'm going to come back on screen. Perfect. Alright guys. Now that survey should be popping up if it hasn't already so please do fill out that, give us all the feedback. Always looking to improve. However, if you do want some more free training and resources, we have our education resource center, which can be accessed at the accountants.intuit.comforward/training. We have free live webinars, free recorded webinars. We do have virtual conferences throughout the years, and then we also have our tax pro center which is, more so focused on trending topics within the tax and accounting industry. And then if you need support, we do have our, you know, you can contact our support and we do have a community full of other tax preparers who use ProConnect so you can go there, you can ask questions, you can answer questions. And then I just wanna say thank you so much for sticking it out with me and, watching our our ProConnect webinar today. So thank you again for your time and I hope that you found the information helpful.