Accounting Technology articles from September 2005

Accounting Technology archives from September 2005

Workflow: the Next Big Thing.(technology use by accounting services)
September 1, 2005... At first, it looked like a response to a lackluster year in trying to interest accountants in outsourcing tax preparation. Two of the players in the outsourcing business have introduced workflow software. After that initial reaction,...

Customer Hunt.
September 1, 2005... With a stronger economy and technologies such as Customer Relationship Management taking hold, CPA firms and technology resellers are seeing more interest in their products and services. How do successful firms turn the nibbles into bites?...

Need Insights?
September 1, 2005... Editor Robert Scott also writes "Consulting Insights," a free, twice-monthly electronic newsletter that addresses issues concerning the consulting and reselling market. It's insight with an attitude. If you want to subscribe, put the following...

Street Talk: Reader Views: What will it take for Microsoft to succeed with its new Small Business Accounting software? What are its chances?
September 1, 2005... The definition of success is the key. Will Microsoft be happy with the same kind of market penetration as Peachtree or Simply Accounting, or do they want to unseat Intuit in the No.1 spot? In order to unseat Intuit, Microsoft will have to...

Practice Development News.
September 1, 2005... MICROSOFT LAUNCHES SBA Microsoft is scheduled to launch its Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 this month, after a highly publicized build up to the new low-cost product. The product has had its own Web page for most of the...

Accounting News.
September 1, 2005... MBS LOSSES RISE Operating losses for Microsoft Business Solutions rose to $76 million for the fourth quarter ended June 30, up from a loss of $70 million a year ago. It was the second consecutive quarter of increasing losses. The...

Accounting Sales Rise in June Quarter.(software industry)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... (part 1 of 2) Company Period Ended June 30 Blackbaud Q2 Epicor Q2 Exact H1 Microsoft Business Solutions Q4 ...

Tax & Financial Planning News.
September 1, 2005... TAXWISE TO MARKET BASIC ACCOUNTING TaxWise, a Rome, Ga.-based company that has historically been known for its tax preparation software, has launched a product called Basic Accounting, designed for non-CPAs who have primarily been preparing...

Intuit Announces Bonuses for Fiscal 2005.
September 1, 2005... Person Title Amount Robert "Brad'" Henske senior vice president $475,000 Scott D. Cook chairman $400,000 Richard W. Ihrie senior vice president ...

2005 Show Calendar.
September 1, 2005... September 18-19 Information Technology Alliance Fall Collaborative. Westin Kierland Resort and Spa, Scottsdale, Ariz. www.italliance.com September 21-22 Ohio Accounting Show. Ohio CPA Society. Cleveland I-X Center,...

October's Coming Attractions: Tax Software Special.
September 1, 2005... For many accounting professionals, tax preparation continues to be a major source of revenue. Each year, Accounting Technology examines the leading packages to give practitioners an in-depth look at product and program developments. (c)...

Bringing In New Customers: With a revived economy and more technology options, firms are attracting more customers.
September 1, 2005... Death Care Seminars might not sound like the most appealing activity that a CPA could engage in. But, for Mickey Scheffki and Clifton Gunderson, the seminars are part of an important niche marketing effort. Scheffki, a CPA and CITP,...

Clifton Picks Prospects Carefully.(customer service of Clifton Gunderson and Co.)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Finding the right fit between a company and its customer isn't always as easy as it may seem. In fact, Clifton Gunderson's Technology Solutions group has a formal client acceptance policy. Not all prospects are admitted as clients. "The...

Better Connecting the Accountant.
September 1, 2005... Mountain View, Calif.-based Intuit's ProAdvisors wanted to be better connected to small business owners. "After what we heard from our Accountants' Advisory Council, we knew we had to make customers and prospects better aware of our...

Outsourcing: Hot or Cold?: Numerous factors, both internal and external, affect a firm's decision to outsource.
September 1, 2005... During the next tax season, Robert Goodman does not plan to outsource the preparation of any of his clients' tax returns. It will be the first time within the past three years that his firm has not sent any 1040 forms to a vendor for processing...

Outsourcing Vendors.
September 1, 2005... CCH Tax and Accounting Torrance, Calif. (800) PFX 9998 www.cch.com GKM Management Services Centerville, Del. (609) 240-5130 www.gkglobal.net Mphasis New York (972) 712-7426 www.mphasis.com Outsource...

Write-up Power Hitters: Each software package, like each player, has something to offer.(Product/Service Evaluation)
September 1, 2005... This past summer, I had the dubious privilege of assistant coaching the men's recreational software team I had played on for several years. My responsibilities included creating the weekly lineup. That involved choosing from our 15 players...

Navigating Sales & Use Taxes: The Internet is helping make a nearly impossible job more manageable.
September 1, 2005... Few things are more challenging than staying abreast of sales and use taxes. Levies are imposed by more than 7,500 state and local authorities, each with its own set of rules; increasingly aggressive state auditors; and staff sizes that are...

Streamlined Sales Tax Project Coming Together.
September 1, 2005... The Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement will come into effect on October 1 after more than five years of effort by state governments to simplify and modernize sales and use tax collection and administration. The agreement takes effect...

Sales & Use Vendors.(accounting services.)(Directory)
September 1, 2005... AccountantsWorld Hauppauge, N.Y. (800) 829-7354 www.accountantsworld.com Avalara Bainbridge Island, Wash. (877) 780-4848 www.avalara.com BNA Tax Management Washington, D.C. (202) 833-7240 www.bnasoftware.com...

Visible Means of Support: Vendors are trying to make service and maintenance programs more palatable to end users.
September 1, 2005... In the "which came first" question, perhaps money is the egg and trained support personnel is the chicken. Or is it the other way around? Will either scenario let the reseller cross the road? Supporting customers is a requirement in the...

Intuit Offers a Deal.
September 1, 2005... While mid-market users pay thousands of dollars to keep their maintenance contracts up to date, Intuit says it's offering them something much more inexpensive with its QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. The 10-seat version of QES is priced...

Accounting Software Companies.
September 1, 2005... AccountMate Novato, Calif. (415) 883-8873 www.accountmate.com Blackbaud Charleston, S.C. (800) 443-9441 www.blackbaud.com Cougar Mountain Software Boise, Idaho (800) 388-3038 www.cougarmtn.com ...

New Products.
September 1, 2005... ContactEase ContactEase, a Web-based customer relationship management application, sends mass email messages as if they were personally addressed through its Personalized Mass-eMail Feature. This version also features browser-based...

AccountMate: What's Old is New Again.
September 1, 2005... The newfound independence at AccountMate Software Corporation is good for its hundreds of business partners. That's the view of both the company's executives and resellers. Since AccountMate management purchased the company from Sage in...

Advertisers' Index September 2005.(Brief Article)(Illustration)
September 1, 2005... Ad Appears Advertiser on page ADP 23, 25, 27 Best Software 7 Best (Peachtree) 4 CCH Cov. 4 Cougar Mountain 37 ...

Dickson: Spreading the IT Message.
September 1, 2005... Michael Dickson has been spreading the word about technology and business in the CPA community since the 1970s. In fact, he once described a company he founded as designed to bridge that gap between the two. For Dickson, whose career...

Editor's Note: Going Paperless = Opportunities.
September 1, 2005... Type in "Paperless" or "Paperless Office" in the subject box of many search engines offering quotations by the famous and infamous, and you will find a "No Match" return. Gets kind of frustrating but I do know of one source and I mentioned...

Developing a Paperless Mindset.
September 1, 2005... Often, when firms decide it's time to start implementing a paperless office, their first thought is a digital document management system. While it is a very important component, at Thomson Creative Solutions we understand that a paperless...

Some Practical Considerations.
September 1, 2005... The "paperless office," today's buzzword for Electronic Document Storage and Sharing systems (EDSS), is a lot like exercising. Everyone wants the end result, but only a few are willing to do all the hard work to make it happen. Just as...

Tips for Integrated Paperless Engagements.
September 1, 2005... In today's practice environment, successful firms use technology for competitive advantage. They seek to leverage technology to improve both financial results and client service. One of the hottest technology trends in the last few years has...

Adding To Firm Profit.(PayCycle)
September 1, 2005... Paperless payroll is rapidly gaining acceptance among accounting professionals seeking to minimize paperwork as well as the costs of their operations. PayCycle has eliminated virtually all the paperwork involved with client payroll,...

Improving Audit Productivity.(accounting services-technology application.)
September 1, 2005... Audit workflow today is governed by the generation, sharing, and compilation of information. This information takes many forms but more and more frequently, is electronic. Excel spreadsheets, emails, scanned receipts, invoices - the list goes...

DMS Transition to a Paperless Office.(Document Management System)
September 1, 2005... At the height of one particular tax season, a CPA and his three employees helped upwards of 275 taxpayers file their returns. That meant handling a lot of support documents. The CPA started looking for a more efficient way to manage the volume...

The Path to Paperless.
September 1, 2005... Paperless is really a misnomer, but I'm ok with it if we use it as an idea. It's the idea of working with organized electronic documents instead of paper documents and ad-hoc file systems (like your "My Documents" folder). It's the idea of...

Track to Greater Success.(accounting firms-management)
September 1, 2005... The hottest technology topic in our industry today is "going paperless" or "digital." Accounting firms and corporations are increasingly taking advantage of digital workflow tools that enable them to dynamically change the way they approach...

Identifying Savings.
September 1, 2005... Everyone knows that paper costs money. But how much? In a recent survey done in London, managers questioned stated that on average it takes 15 minutes to retrieve a live hardcopy document and eight hours for an archived file. And what about the...

A Paperless Office is a Must Today.(Accounting services)
September 1, 2005... Going paperless is no longer an option, but a must for CPAs today. With the trend moving in this direction, it is imperative to go paperless in order to keep up with the competition. eFileCabinet is a paperless document storage system that...

Tax Workflow Software.
September 1, 2005... By reducing the inefficiencies inherent in paper based processes, "paperless engagement" software enables firms to improve productivity, quality, and convenience. But no single paperless software package meets the needs of every engagement....

A Smart Business Decision.
September 1, 2005... For three consecutive years the "paperless office" has appeared on the AICPA's Top 10 Technologies survey. Clearly the concept of a paperless office environment is a hot topic in the accounting industry these days. Certainly the benefits of...

Paperless Expense Reporting.
September 1, 2005... For most organizations, more dollars are spent reimbursing employee expenses than in almost any other area-often second only to payroll. Ironically, while the majority of companies with more than 100 employees have automated financial...

Which Solution?(business enterprises )
September 1, 2005... The buzz about "paperless" gets louder every day. The technology is proven, and it is here to stay. You probably have noticed that everybody seems to have a paperless offering these days, and, your firm may be trying to sort through the...

Integrating Document Management.
September 1, 2005... Document management has become a very attractive tool for small firms to improve efficiency and profitability. Better-designed and less expensive hardware has made the ideal scenario of one-touch electronic access to your clients' files more...

Going Paperless In Payroll.
September 1, 2005... As technology increases, so too do the opportunities to operate in a paperless office environment. PayMaxx, a CompuPay company, offers options for paperless payroll processing and other related products and services. PowerPayroll is...

No Longer a Prisoner to Paper.
September 1, 2005... "I hated filing, and finding anything quickly was worse," says Michael Spewak, founder of InFile Software. "That's why I invented InFile. Now I save, find, and use all my documents in seconds, not hours." According to Spewak, InFile is the...