Professional tax software
K-1 into CCH, UltraTax or Drake: what each one asks you for
CCH Axcess, UltraTax CS and Drake all want the same facts from a K-1 and hold them in different places. The paper is identical, so the work worth doing once is reading the paper correctly and writing down where each number came from.
Firms describe this work in shorthand. A K-1 to CCH, a K-1 to UltraTax, a Drake tax K-1 import, or the question of how to enter K-1 in TurboTax when the package wants a one-page worksheet: four names for the same sheet of paper. What differs is where each package puts the boxes, not what the K-1 says.
CCH Axcess, UltraTax CS and Drake are products of other companies. K1 FastTax is not affiliated with them and does not write into their file formats. Names are used only to describe what you will be typing into.
The paper
What every package wants, and where it goes wrong
A K-1 is a fixed form. The differences between professional packages are in how they store what the form says, not in what the form says. These are the parts that reach every one of them.
| On the K-1 | What it carries | Where transcription goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Issuer | The partnership or S corporation: name, EIN, entity type and the tax year. | Almost always typed. A wrong EIN is the error a reviewer finds first. |
| Partner or shareholder | Name, identifying number, and whether the interest is domestic or foreign. | Often matched to an existing client record, so the spelling must agree with theirs. |
| Profit, loss and capital shares | The percentage or amount in the capital account section. | Frequently misread when the K-1 prints both a beginning and an ending figure. |
| Box amounts 1 to 10 | Ordinary business income, rental, interest, dividends, capital gains, section 179. | One line per box with a value. Blank boxes are as meaningful as filled ones. |
| Boxes 11 and 13 to 20 | Coded items: each letter with its own amount. | The codes are the part a summary spreadsheet most often loses. |
| Foreign and state items | Foreign taxes, state amounts, and any statement attached. | A statement (STMT) means the number is not on the K-1 itself. |
What actually differs between the three
Practice shape, not form handling. CCH Axcess is built around a shared cloud return with workflow and review states. UltraTax CS is built around deep integration with the rest of one vendor's suite and a long-established import path for prior-year data. Drake is built around value and a smaller firm's volume. Those are reasons to choose one for a practice; none of them changes what a K-1 says.
What does change between them is the import route and the field names, and both move between versions. Check your own package's current import documentation before a batch, the same way you would check a bank's form.
Do not guess what a code means
- Box 13 codes are letters, and each has its own meaning. A code that is dropped and an amount that is dropped look the same on a summary line, and they are not the same problem.
- STMT is not zero. It means the number is on an attached statement. Writing zero into the package and losing the attachment is the quiet way a return becomes wrong.
- Brackets are negative. A loss that loses its sign is a return that overstates income or understates it, depending on the box.
- Both figures in the capital section matter. Where the K-1 prints a beginning and an ending amount, taking the wrong column silently changes the partner's basis.
The worksheet that makes a review possible
One row per box or code, with four columns: the box, the amount, the page it came from, and a note for anything unusual. That is enough for a reviewer to check a return without re-reading the whole K-1, and enough for you to answer a question in an examination two years later. A summary spreadsheet is the same idea with columns; the point is the page reference, not the file type.
Plain answers
Questions about the professional packages
Does K1 FastTax import into CCH Axcess, UltraTax CS or Drake?
No. It reads the K-1 and gives you every box, code and amount in a CSV and a typing checklist. The import into a professional tax package is done by that package, if it offers one at all, and it expects your own client data in its own format. We do not write into another vendor's file format.
Which package is best for K-1 heavy returns?
That is a practice decision, not a data entry one, and this page cannot make it for you. What is the same across all three is the paper: the boxes, the codes and the statement attachments. Preparing the K-1 once, properly, is work you do not repeat whichever package you use.
Why not just use the software's own import?
Use it where it exists and where the client gives you a file it can read. The problem is that most K-1s arrive as a PDF from the partnership, and the import wants structured data. Somewhere between the PDF and the import, somebody reads the boxes. That is the step this is about.
What does a K-1 look like when a statement is attached?
A box that says STMT means the amount is on a separate page, usually for box 13 codes or box 20 items. The K-1 alone is incomplete in that case. Note the attachment on the worksheet, because a reviewer who has only the K-1 will see a blank where a number should be.
How do I handle a K-1 with negative amounts in brackets?
Read the brackets as negative, and keep the sign through to the worksheet. A loss that loses its sign in transcription produces a return that is wrong in the client's favour, which is the kind of error that gets examined rather than corrected.
What should be on the worksheet beside each amount?
The box or code it came from, and the page of the K-1 it was on. That is what makes a review possible without the reviewer re-reading the whole document, and it is what answers the question when a return is examined two years later.
Read the K-1 once, properly
K1 FastTax reads every box and code from a K-1 PDF and gives you a CSV and a typing checklist. It does not file, and it does not write into any tax package.