K1x Ideas
Request: The ability to have CTRAC truncate a form field (as it is displayed on the government form) and add a statement to the return with the full detail of the field. Currently it will just put “(see statement)” in cases where the character limit of a field is exceeded. This treatment degrades the overall appearance of the return and it makes review more time consuming and difficult for the preparer and the client.
The input fields on a return/form are generally character limited. This limit is imposed by the IRS and it is a requirement that developers adhere to it. However, I think it would be a great feature to be able to dictate how CTRAC handles a character overflow when they occur.
Currently, when the input for a form field (990 Schedule I for example) exceeds the character limit, CTRAC will display “(See Statement)” in the field and generate an attachment with what would be the contents of the field. This behavior leads to instances where some parts of the form will appear as normal with information in a field while other parts just display the see statement message. I have attached an example of this.
A more uniform-looking approach would be to allow the form to display the input text up to the character limit and truncate the rest. To deal with the truncated portion, CTRAC could then generate the additional page with the full contents of the field as it was entered when preparing the return. The alternative is to do this manually.