New Online Flex Application – TurboTax Personal Pro

Intuit recently launched TurboTax Personal Pro, built in Flex. From a consumer point of view, this fills a gap between those who want to do their own taxes and those that prefer to hand the accountant a shoe box full of receipts and pick up their returns a few days later. With TurboTax Personal Pro, the end user answers some basic questions presented in a very structured logical fashion.  Afterwards, a tax specialist contacts you to complete the return and then e-files it for you.

From an application design point of view, this is a classic use of Flex to build an RIA. The UI is simple, intuitive, efficient and includes live instant messaging with a tax specialist. Not only is the end-user front-end built in Flex, the back end CRM application used by the tax specialist for managing customers, call schedules and for preparing tax returns is Flex-based as well.   This is the type of applications I’m interested in.   Intuit is headed down a great path – more Flex-based online offerings are coming.