Accounting Technology articles from September 2003

Accounting Technology archives from September 2003

Paperless believers.(Editor's Note)
September 1, 2003... The signs are everywhere--the paperless office may not be just around the corner, but tax and accounting professionals are starting to believe there is a legitimate chance to reduce the piles clogging their filing cabinets and cluttering their...

In search of new business.
September 1, 2003... If 95 percent of mid-market businesses have accounting software, just how are resellers and vendors going to develop new business? "The Hunt for New Customers" by Senior Editor Richard McCausland outlines steps that resellers and software...

Street talk: reader views.
September 1, 2003... How is the CRM market performing? What is needed to make it more viable for accounting software resellers and consultants? We see real interest from the SME market now--they know what CRM is, and ask about it. Previously, the product and...

Satisfied with accountants?(Practice Development News)
September 1, 2003... Significantly 32% A little 32% Somewhat 26% Not at all 34% Roughly one third of small businesses are happy with the way their accountants helped them through tough times while another third are completely...

Moss Adams sells EnTech.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Moss Adams has sold its software reselling business, EnTech Solutions, although the regional CPA firm plans to continue its software consulting and installation business. EnTech had a staff of about 20 at its peak, but had been whittled...

ePartners names CFO.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... National reseller ePartners has named Matt Purser, already vice president of finance, as its chief financial officer. Purser joined ePartners in May 1999 in the VP job. As CFO, Purser replaces Dan Duffy, who held that position before being...

Intuit starts payroll plan.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Intuit has kicked off an Accountant Payroll Referral Reward Program through which accountants can get credits or cash for referrals, or pass on the savings to clients. Accountants are rewarded if they register for the program and if the...

Microsoft broadens CRM channel.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Microsoft has opened distribution of its Microsoft CRM package to its resellers beyond the accounting market and resellers dealing with Microsoft Business Solutions. Microsoft also established a software advisor program that offers...

Yeo & Yeo names COO.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Yeo & Yeo Consulting has named vice president Jeff McCullough as chief operating officer, with responsibility for running the firm's day-to-day operations. McCullough, who joined Yeo & Yeo Consulting in 1996, holds certifications involving...

ABS tops open systems channel.(Applied Business Services)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Applied Business Services, a reseller based in Gaithersburg, Md., has been named the top reseller for Open Systems, the fourth time it has topped the vendor's channel. ABS president Maureen Williams credited the firm's service of...

EYT buys IRA.(Practice Development News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... EYT, a Solomon reseller based in Chantilly, Va., has acquired Information Resources Associates, a Silver Spring, Md., firm that carries a similar product line. The addition of 20 people coming from IRA brings EYT's staff back to the...

IDT nabs RPM.(Integrated Document Technologies and Rapid Process Management to become IDT/RPM Consulting Services )(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Integrated Document Technologies, which markets document imaging, accounting, and CRM applications, has purchased key assets of Rapid Process Management. Both companies are located in Itasca, Ill. IDT, founded in 1999, has 200...

Best buys Timberline.(Accounting News)
September 1, 2003... Best Software moved into another vertical with its pending purchase of Timberline Software, which makes construction and real estate software. A publicly held company, Timberline had $61 million of revenue for 2002. Best CEO Ron Verni says...

MBS revenue builds.(Microsoft Business Solutions)(Illustration)
September 1, 2003... MBS Revenue Builds Q1 $106M Q2 $135M Q3 $147M Q4 $179M Revenue for Microsoft Business Solutions has increased as revenue from Navision products are added. The company's year ended June 30. Source: Microsoft ...

Epicor posts profits.(Q2 2003)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Epicor Software reported a slight profit and a decline in revenue for its second quarter ended June 30, but was happy that for the first time since 1999, it could declare that license revenue had increased over year-earlier results. Net...

NetLedger adds ERP.(NetERP replaces NetLedger Advanced Accounting)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... NetLedger has joined the march toward vertical markets and enterprise resource planning with the roll-out of NetERP, which replaces the company's NetLedger Advanced Accounting application. NetERP starts at the same price, $4,800 for a...

Timberline turns profit.(Accounting News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Timberline Software, on the heels of the announcement that it will be acquired by Best Software, posted $499,000 in net income for the half ended June 30, on a 17.1 percent increase in revenue. The earnings for the Beaverton, Ore.-based...

Burgum cashes in stock.(Accounting News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Doug Burgum, a Microsoft senior vice president and head of its Microsoft Business Solutions unit, sold about $16.4 million in Microsoft stock in four separate transactions early in July. The transactions included three sales involving...

Biz Objects buys Crystal.(Accounting News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Business Objects, a French-American company, has agreed to buy Crystal Decisions, the company that makes the widely used Crystal Reports, in a cash and stock deal valued at roughly $820 million. Business Objects, based in San Francisco and...

AccountMate does WMS deal.(Accounting News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Softline AccountMate has reached an alliance with Executive Concepts of Toronto to integrate the latter's radio frequency warehouse and inventory system, Dart, with the AccountMate 6 line. Murray Aston, president of Softline North America,...

TerBush heads STF.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Charles TerBush, a CCH veteran who joined STF Services earlier this year, has been named president of the East Syracuse, N.Y., manufacturer of forms. TerBush is joined in a new management team by Rich Pauli, now vice president of marketing...

Wolters Kluwer reorganizes.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Wolters Kluwer has reorganized its North American operations, a move that could leave CCH and Aspen on the market as product lines, but bring an end to the organizations bearing those names. "CCH is still an organization," notes Kevin...

CSI buys Tax Relief.(Creative Solutions)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Creative Solutions has acquired the Tax Relief tax preparation software marketed by Accountants World, formerly known as Micro Vision. Terms were not disclosed. CSI, based in Dexter, Mich., will fold the tax software product and offer Tax...

BNA gets new COO.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... BNA has named Gregory C. McCaffery as chief operating officer, who will assume that job in addition to continuing to head the business publishing units. McCaffery joined BNA in 1986 as a reporter and editor. He was first elected to the BNA...

Advent loss narrows.(Q2 2003)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Advent Software, which makes financial planning systems, saw both its losses and revenue drop for the second quarter ended June 30. The most recent loss was $9.6 million, compared to $12.1 million in red ink for last year's corresponding...

CCH hires Bergstein.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... David Bergstein, a veteran of the tax software industry, has been hired by CCH as business development manager for consumer tax products, to expand the distribution channel for its CompleteTax product. Bergstein most recently was manager of...

Intuit buys Income Dynamics.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Intuit has acquired Income Dynamics, a company based in Omaha, Neb., that makes the ItsDeductible software, a product that lets taxpayers determine the fair market value of items donated to charity. Gordon Whitten, president and CEO of...

Top tax software companies.(Tax & Financial Planning News)(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2003... Top Tax Software Companies 2002 Software Company Users ProSeries 59,000 Lacerte 39,300 CSI 12,000 firms UTS ...

Fall show calendar.
September 1, 2003... OCTOBER 2-4 Softline BusinessVision Partnership 2003, Airport Marriott, Toronto. (877) 789-4545 www.businessvision.com/us/PartnerShip2003.html OCTOBER 6-9 Apics International Conference and Exhibition, Las Vegas Convention Center...

On the prowl for new customers: VARs who generate their own leads tend to have the edge.
September 1, 2003... With an installed base that exceeds three hundred customers, you'd think L. Kianoff & Associates is sitting pretty. Not necessarily so. As president Lisa Kianoff explains, "A few years ago, people were just buying up. Today, people are...

The tax research battle: the war over content is hot, but how you use it counts too.
September 1, 2003... There's still a race to see which publisher of tax research materials can cram more content into their CDs, onto the Web, and even onto their print materials. After all, more is better. Right? But content vendors are going way beyond...

Bread-and-butter write-up software: write-up software remains a key tool in producing revenue.(Software Review)(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 1, 2003... Spending time this summer evaluating and choosing the appropriate write-up software product for your firm may not be as exciting as reading the latest Harry Potter book or viewing a summer blockbuster action movie, but the impact of this...

Fund accounting software rules: not-for-profit specialists target government entities.
September 1, 2003... Consider this scenario: There are 15 separate government agencies using 15 different formats to prepare their financial reports, all of which need to be sent to the U.S. Department of Labor. The agencies want to standardize the fiscal...

EDI Veers to the mainstream: swapping electronic documents among trading partners isn't a mid-market norm--just yet.
September 1, 2003... For Callen Photo Mount in Paterson, N.J., it was a good news/possibly bad news kind of situation. A manufacturer of photo matting, it had the opportunity to supply major retailers Wal-Mart, Michaels, and A.C. Moore. However, all three were...

Traverse NFP.(New Products)
September 1, 2003... Open Systems' newly acquired Traverse NFP integrates with the Traverse line's General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and Payroll modules. The software enables nonprofit organizations to track restricted, temporarily restricted, and restricted...

PowerView.(New Products)(from Commercial Logic)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... PowerView allows PowerPM users to extract client, project, or contact information from PowerPM for use in mail or email merges, preparation of custom lists, labels, and downloads to PDAs. Users choose desired data fields from a Display...

Everest 6.0.(New Products)(from Icode)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Everest Standard Edition 6.0 offers improved protection against credit card fraud through its optional CVV2 security code processing. With this feature, small business owners can require that all credit card payments include the three-digit...

Peachtree Premium.(New Products)(Best Software's Peachtree Premium Accounting 2004)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Peachtree Premium Accounting 2004 provides business owners with all the features in Peachtree Complete, while enabling up to five users to view and modify records simultaneously. The Company Consolidation Wizard lets users combine...

TinyBooks.(New Products)
September 1, 2003... TinyBooks (for Macintosh), an accounting/bookkeeping program designed for home and small businesses, can be used every year, without the need to buy updates of the program, TinyBooks keeps track of multiple accounts, including four account...

eProperty Tax Accrual.(New Products)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... The new Accrual module in ePropertyTax, an online property tax management system, calculates property tax accruals on a real-time basis in accordance with GAAP. Users can create accruals by rolling forward their prior tax bills, or by...

Money Tree tax changes.(New Products)(Money Tree Software's Money Tree Suite 2.46)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Money Tree Suite Version 2.46 reflects the tax cuts contained in the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003. These changes can now be illustrated in plans prepared with Money Tree Suite programs, including Easy Money...

Profiles+ Professional 7.0.(New Products from Financial Profiles)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Profiles+ Professional 7.0 gives advisors the ability to track non-qualified stock options, new college savings plan upgrades, manual asset classifications, and cash flow enhancements. It allows users to graphically illustrate the monetary...

Marketing ROI Manager.(New Products)
September 1, 2003... NetLedger's Marketing ROI Manager tracks marketing campaigns from lead generation to customer billing. NetSuite integrates both front- and back-office capability and enables purchase transactions to be made directly in the CRM system. As a...

Project and job costing.(New Products from Accpac)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Accpac Advantage Series Project and Job Costing manages estimates, tracks progress, and controls costing and billing. The module, designed for the construction, engineering, architecture, and legal professions, gives project managers the...

Up Your Cash Flow NFP.(New Products from SLGG Consulting)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Up Your Cash Flow NFP produces budgets of revenue and expenses, cash flows statements, and statements of financial position. The software allows organizations to create budgets for fundraising activities that are automatically integrated...

Call Tracker 4.0.(from Service Intellect)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... Service Intellect's Call Tracker 4.0, call tracking and cost recovery software for Best Software's Timeslips, offers service firms the ability to track calls and recover call expenses. Call Tracker automatically links to a Timeslips...

DocuLex ArchivalStudio.(New Products)
September 1, 2003... DocuLex ArchivalStudio scans and captures paper documents, indexes content, and can retrieve scanned documents, all in one portfolio. It is created for use with production scanners and digital copiers. Components include DocuLex PDF....

Timeslips 2004.(New Products)
September 1, 2003... Timeslips 2004 provides users with the ability to track time and expenses, whether it is from one computer or from several simultaneously. The 2004 version tracks up to 5,000 timekeepers and links with remote-entry products. The TSTimer...

SalesLogix: defending the front office.(Channels)
September 1, 2003... If 20 percent of small and medium-sized businesses have CRM software, but only 5 percent of those have purchased accounting packages from Best Software, what's the possibility that Best can make inroads with a combination of its CRM and...

Internet directory.
September 1, 2003... Practical and Innovative Resources from AccountantsWorld www.AccountantsWorld.com Join the 60,000 strong community of independent accountants. Receive the widest array of free tools, services, training, education and other innovative...

David Primes: spreading the tech word.(Accounting Technologist)
September 1, 2003... As computers become more and more an integral part of an accounting practice, David Primes couldn't be happier. "There isn't a choice anymore about getting [CPAs] involved with technology--you just have to," he insists. Primes, CPA and...

Park bench offices.(editors' note)
September 1, 2003... Remember when the first mobile phone came on the market? You didn't just carry it around; you lugged it. This is no longer the case. Nowadays, you can e-mail, prepare text, fax, and surf the net--all from a piece of technology that fits easily...

Outsourcing document management.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... Immediatech Corporation (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.) points out that The Videre Group, a top regional accounting firm, has implemented GoFileRoom, a Web-hosted document service that maintains Videre's paper and electronic files in a secured,...

Productive imaging products.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... DocuLex (Winter Haven, Fla.) offers solution to users that desire a simple yet productive means of converting paper documents to searchable electronic files. The electronic files may be easily located by searching document-specific descriptions...

Back office to the web.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... NetLedger (San Mateo, Calif.) makers of Oracle Small Business Suite, has announced NetERP, a complete back-office application integrating order, inventory., and procurement business process automation with robust financials to provide supply...

High-speed connectivity.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... Sprint (Overland Park, Ks) announced plans to offer PCS Wi-Fi Access, a high-speed wireless data service that will enable customers to replicate their desktop environment in key locations across the country. Through a combination of Wi-Fi ZONES...

Making paperless a reality.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... RIA's Checkpoint 5.0 is the integrated solution for online tax and accounting information. With Checkpoint, the paperless office can become a reality because it is the one Web-based destination for all tax and accounting information needs....

Solutions aplenty.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)(including CCH's ProSystem fx Engagement)
September 1, 2003... CCH (Riverwoods, Ill.)offers many solutions to assist a firm in achieving the paperless office. First, paperless engagements are available through ProSystem fx Engagement. Engagement is an integrated solution combining document management,...

End-to-end archiving solution.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... ZANTAZ (Pleasanton, Calif.) has announced that its Digital Safe service enables financial services firms to comply with the new NASD rule that requires instant messages to be retained for at least three years and supervised, just like email....

Automatically creates PDF report.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... Universal Business Computing Company (UBCC) of Taos, New Mex., has full support for the paperless office using an industry standard, open systems approach. Every report (including checks and tax forms) can be directly and automatically created...

Start a paperless office.... in 5 minutes.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)(with Selden Integrated Systems' iKE Officer Starter Edition )
September 1, 2003... Selden Integrated Systems, a ProBATE Software Company (Greeley, Colo.) has released its new iKE Officer Starter Edition as part of its new "Beyond Simple" campaign. The product helps CPAs quickly and easily set up a paperless office and use...

No paper engagement system.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)(PPC and Creative Solutions' Engagement Solution)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2003... PPC (Fort Worth, Tex.) and Creative Solutions (Dexter, Mich.) have partnered to create a paperless engagement system to monitor workflow and manage workpapers within one program. It is called Engagement Solution and is considered as...

Managing the entire client base.(Special Report--The Paperless Office)
September 1, 2003... Intacet (Los Agatos, Calif.) has the E-Practice Console, an online application that enables accountants, through a single interface, to manage their online accounting practice along with their entire client base. Working from any web-connected...