Time for a change
After 17 years using other software, Barbara Jenkins switches to Drake

Barbara Jenkins readily admits she’s not a “computer person,” she’s a tax preparer. But with 3,200 customers and tax preparation software that got more expensive and harder to use, it was time for a change. That’s when she turned to Drake Software in 2005.
Barbara Jenkins Income Tax Service has been a family affair since 1977. One daughter, Georgie, is the “Lowell” on the sign in front of the office. Barbara, daughter Georgie, and Averitt are tax preparers. Averitt is the husband of another daughter, Geri, who processes returns and does electronic filing.
“We do strictly income tax returns,” Jenkins says. “Most of our work is from January through April. The rest of the year we work on late returns and try to solve customers’ problems.”
Jenkins prepared returns manually when she started her business. She kept her eye on computer technology, but wasn’t ready to dive in until it was user friendly enough so she could keep all her work in-house.
“I bought a program from another computer software manufacturer and stayed with them for 17 years,” she says. “But their costs kept going up while the service level dropped off. For a couple of years I teamed up with another person processing loans, and we faxed tax returns back and forth. She used Drake and that’s how I became familiar with them.”
When Jenkins finally got fed up with her other software two years ago, she called Drake.
“I like Drake’s program,” she says. “Overall it’s better than the one I was using. The process is very easy. Drake Software is very user friendly. The program handles state returns well, and multiple states really well.”

Interesting career         
In 1968, Jenkins and her family moved to Albany from Southern California. She had a job, but when she heard about a tax preparation course it sounded interesting to her. She worked for a national tax preparation firm for seven years.
“I worked for them in the evenings for a couple of years and then quit my other job and went with them full time,” she says.
Starting her own business was not a difficult decision.
“I’m that type of person,” Jenkins says. “I felt I could make more money with less hassle working for myself. I was in charge of the Albany office, and they let me take a lot of responsibility. I was making decisions, worrying about the business and was in the office when nobody else showed up. I thought if I’m going to do that I might as well go out on my own.”
Jenkins and her husband, Herbert, combed the city for office space, but nothing was available. So, they purchased a two-bedroom residential home and hung out their sign. When she left the national company Jenkins didn’t contact the company’s customers, she just advertised.
“I had established a following,” she says. “My name was enough to start picking up business.”
When the family moved north, there were only 16,000 people in Albany. Today it’s a city of 45,000. Most customers come from the city and surrounding area, and growth is based on word of mouth.
“Because we do a lot of returns we can keep costs down and charge less,” Jenkins says. “That’s a big deal because tax preparation can get very expensive. Our goal is a one-week turnaround during tax season. We do everything we can to reduce errors, and we file electronically.”

Easy to work with    
Jenkins likes her association with Drake’s people.
“They’re very helpful,” she says. “If I have a problem they won’t stop until I have an answer. It got to the point with my former software provider that they didn’t seem to care whether or not they had my business.”
With Drake, software updates are done automatically over the Internet.
“That’s the first thing we do every morning, so we’re always current,” she says. “Drake is much more attuned to what we want. They listen and make changes based on our suggestions. When I need to call them, I get someone right away. If the person on the other end of the line can’t answer my question they’ll find someone right away who can. They’re very nice people.”
Jenkins has no intentions of leaving her business any time soon.

From October 2007

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