User's Manual - Drake Software

4 Preseason Preparation
Prior-Year Updates
This chapter provides instructions for bringing forward information from last year,
printing proformas or organizers for clients, mailing preseason materials, and setting
up schedules. See Appendix A, Preseason Checklist, for a convenient list of tasks to
consider as you prepare for tax season.
If your firm used Drake last year, you can save time by updating prior-year returns,
settings, letters, and EIN data. Before updating, you should (1) back up your files, and
(2) ensure that your program’s 2011 data path points to your firm’s 2011 data files.
By default, Drake accesses the previous year’s client files from the workstation’s local
drive. If your prior-year files are stored elsewhere, enter the location at the bottom of
the Network Setup window:
1. Log in to the program as a user with administrative rights.
2. From the Home window, select Setup > Data Locations.
3. Look at the Location of 2011 client files field (Figure 4-1).
Figure 4-1: Ensure that the Path for 2011 Data field is correct.
4. If the correct path is not displayed, enter the correct path and click OK.
NEW FOR
2012
For more on Drake’s updated Data Locations setup, see “Single Workstations
and Network Options” on page 16.
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