Getting Started
The first section is intended to give you a high level overview of how Catalyst works and how you can utilize it to get tax clarity for life’s big financial decisions.
Help Center
Welcome
Section titled “Welcome”Welcome to Catalyst Tax Insights! You can use this help documentation to browse for articles to aid in specific tasks, read through it to get a sense of how the product works, or use the Search to find specific topics.
What is Catalyst designed to do?
Section titled “What is Catalyst designed to do?”Catalyst Tax Insights was designed out of a personal need for tax clarity. With variable income and multiple accounts to draw from, I needed to know how each of those decisions would impact my tax return. Finding no good solutions readily available, I set out to build my own - and created the foundation of what Catalyst is today.
The primary goal of Catalyst is to first assess your current taxable income into a Projection, basically performing a rough tax return. Next, you make proposed changes – “What If?” Scenarios – against that base Projection. This lets you very easily see, side by side, the tax impacts of big financial decisions.
This can be used for all sorts of decisions, large and small. How much more room do I have in the 22% bracket? What would it cost me to do Roth Conversions this year? What if I converted by LLC to an S-Corp? Should my small business buy equipment now or wait until next year?
Keep reading to learn more about how Catalyst works and how you can use it to get your own tax clarity, or jump ahead to Create Your First Projection.
Who is it for?
Section titled “Who is it for?”Catalyst is designed for two main types of users:
- Financial professionals including Financial Advisors, CPAs, Accountants, Bookkeepers, and other tax professionals.
- Individuals and families who want a deeper understanding of their taxes.
See more information in the Understanding Editions page.
What does it excel at?
Section titled “What does it excel at?”The goal of a Catalyst projection is to give you a side by side look at your current expected tax burden and any “What If?” scenarios you can think of.
Come up with a new question halfway through your analysis? It’s easy to keep analyzing more questions.
It is fast to use, often taking just a few minutes to enter your details and get feedback.
The results are simple and easy to read, allowing you to quickly find the answers to each scenario.
It also works well with “back of the napkin” directional questions - meaning you don’t need to spend a long time digging up old tax returns to get started.
What does it not do?
Section titled “What does it not do?”- Catalyst is not a tax return tool, it will not file your taxes for you.
- Catalyst is not a full financial planning tool. We do not aim to replace that software for your business.
- Catalyst is not an accounting software.
Catalyst is a tool that can aid in all of those areas, giving you more clarity about taxes in each realm.
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”The help documentation is organized into three main areas.
Using the Product
This section is designed to give specific information about various parts of the software. It is further broken down into pages that explain each feature in depth.
Concepts
The final section is designed to teach about tax topics in general.