Customer Success Story
“With BNA Income Tax Planner, I never have
to worry about having the most up-to-date tax
information. During periods of intensive tax law
CPA Firm Employs Tax Planning Tool to Provide
Stellar Service to Expanding Customer Base
Sher & Co. Provides Clients with Fast, Accurate
Tax Projections Using BNA Income Tax™ Planner
From Company Man to Sole
Practitioner
Based in Amissville, Virginia, Charles
J. Sher Jr. has had a long and successful
career as a certified public accountant
— first for Fairfax-based Thompson,
Greenspon & Co., P.C., and more
recently as a small Professional
Challenge: Corporation in his own firm, Sher &
Provide a wide variety Co. For most of that career (40 years, to
of tax forecasting be precise), he’s relied on BNA Income
and what-if analyses Tax Planner to deliver the flexible tax
for a continually planning his clients require.
growing client base in
a constantly changing That’s why when Sher decided to
regulatory environment venture out on his own 10 years ago,
he didn’t even consider looking for
Solution: another tax planning solution. “I’ve
BNA Income Tax Planner been so happy with BNA Income Tax
Planner that I couldn’t imagine not
Results: using it in my own business,” said Sher.
Flexible and accurate
“I simply could not perform by hand or
analyses, tangible time
by using spreadsheets the calculations
savings, and superior
and projections BNA delivers. As a
customer service.
result, I would not have been able to
provide the service my clients have
come to expect.”
Accurate Calculations
Building and preserving wealth requires
a watchful eye not just on current and
future tax implications but also on
past tax obligations. With BNA Income
Tax Planner, Sher can keep track of all
of these for his clients. Prior-year tax
calculations going back to 1987 make
changes, this has proven to be critical.“
– Charles J. Sher Jr., Sher & Co.
it easy to manage audits, adjustments,
and back-tax engagements. And the
system’s ability to automatically
download updated information from
the Internet means that Sher can rest
assured he’s always working with the
most current tax laws.
“With BNA Income Tax Planner,
I never have to worry about having
the most up-to-date tax information,”
Sher explained. “During periods of
intensive tax law changes, this has
proven to be critical.”
Flexible Projections
For Sher, where BNA Income Tax
Planner really shines, though, is in
its ability to compare multiple tax
scenarios. Since everything from
marriage to divorce to real estate
transactions, stock sales, and more
has an impact on income tax liability,
the ability to analyze multiple what-if
scenarios is key to good tax planning.
Allowing up to 20 side-by-side columns
of federal and state tax data and seven
modes of analysis, BNA Income Tax
Planner provides that flexibility.
Explained Sher, “Whether it’s
determining whether a client should
take all of the profits from a business
sale upfront or spread them out over
several years, estimating the tax
implications of self employment,
or performing any number of other
 Customer Success Story

calculations, the drill-down capabilities Improved Client Communications

of BNA Income Tax Planner have made
it an indispensible tool for viewing tax
impacts as a whole when considering
multiple variables and transactions.”
Sher uses BNA Income Tax Planner to
calculate tax implications for a broad
range of situations, including:
• Installment sales
• Capital gains on stock sales
• Asset purchases by year
• Medical expenses
• Self-employment income
• Section 179 deductions
Swift and Efficient
Data Collection and Analysis
With more than 300 clients to serve,
Sher also appreciates the speed with
which BNA Income Tax Planner allows
him to perform a variety of projections.
“If I were doing these projections
manually or with spreadsheets, they
would take hours or even days,”
he explained. “With BNA Income
Tax Planner, I can perform them in
minutes. The computations are all
done instantly.”
One thing Sher has learned over
the years is that all of the data and
projections in the world are useless if
they’re not presented in a format and at
a level of detail that makes sense to the
client. BNA Income Tax Planner assists
greatly in this task by allowing users
to provide clients with as much or as
little detail as they wish in its easy-to-
understand reports and graphs.
Explained Sher, “I share a variety of
reports with my clients, so being able to
customize them — flexibly limiting or
enhancing what information I share —
is extremely helpful, as is the ability to
dynamically link to financial planning
data in Microsoft Excel or Word.”
The bottom line for Sher is that without
BNA Income Tax Planner, he wouldn’t
be able to grow his client base while still
providing the in-depth analyses and
swift projections and responses
his customers have come to expect.
“BNA Income Tax Planner is a wonderful
product that makes my life much easier,”
he said. “It’s as simple as that.”

Another timesaver for Sher is the fact

that his tax preparation program makes a
bridge to BNA Income Tax Planner (as do
many major tax preparation packages),
which makes it a snap to import data.
“The one-keystroke command for data
import into BNA Income Tax Planner
has made my job much easier,” he said.
“The data import process is seamless,
and it works well with my CCH files.”

About BNA Software

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