Accounting Today - September 27 2010

SOFTWARE

New Practice Aids
PPC’s Smart Practice Aids — Single Audit
and IFRS Disclosure
The Tax & Accounting business of
Thomson Reuters
http://ria.thomsonreuters.com/

Thomson Reuters has added two new Smart Practice Aids to its Checkpoint platform — one for single audits, and the other on IFRS disclosure. The first is an automated tool that walks users through the complicated process of doing a single audit for organizations expending federal funds, and aids in accumulating federal awards, determining if a single audit or just a program-specific audit is required, preparing a Schedule of Expenditure of Federal Awards, and more. The second helps accountants help their clients comply with IFRS (or IFRS for Small and Medium-Sized Entities), letting them tailor lengthy disclosure checklists to just the applicable requirements, and identify new or changed requirements.

Check your statements
i Transact service
CCH Small Firm Services and i Transact Inc.
www.cchsfs.com

Wise consumers check their credit card statements to make sure there aren’t any incorrect charges; CCH Small Firm Services is suggesting that wise businesses check their statements — the ones that cover their card-pro-cessing costs. It has partnered with payment acceptance firm i Transact to let accountants offer an analysis of clients’ processing and handling fees, which it claims can often be reduced by as much as 30 percent.

Separately, CCH SFS has partnered with Western Union to allow tax practitioners who use its ATX and Tax Wise tax preparation software to help their clients receive their tax refund on a Money Wise debit card. The cards can also receive payroll direct deposits, and function as general purpose reloadable prepaid debit cards.

Peace in our time
DataReconciler
EMA Softech
www.emasoftech.com

If people were numbers, then you could
take, say, Palestinians and Israelis, Tea Par-
tiers and socialists, or Justin Bieber fans and
those of us with taste, run everyone through
DataReconciler, and have one happy set of
reconciled people. People aren’t numbers,
of course, but numbers, fortunately, are, and
the cloud-based DataReconciler lets users
like accountants and auditors compare any
two mountains of data, such as trial balanc-
es for different periods, or bank statements
and cash book transactions, without hours
of mind-numbing labor. Data is uploaded
with 128-bit encryption, and the Standard
Edition automatically deletes all uploaded
data and comparison reports when users exit
(though subscribers can save comparison
parameters for future use). Data, of course,
isn’t limited to numbers, and DataReconciler
can handle other types of information, such
as a contact list — which is pretty close to
reconciling people, and gives us hope that
someday DataReconciler will bring peace
in our time.

Bean meme
Beanbills Version 2. 5
Bean Services Inc.
www.beanservices.com

Why no vendor has made use of the whole “bean counter” trope before is beyond us, but Bean Services has taken the idea and run with it. More important, its Web-based accounts payable control and automation solution, Beanbills, streamlines the whole AP process, cutting costs and steps out of handling invoices and making payments by reducing data entry and speeding workflow. The latest version lets users e-mail invoices directly into Beanbills, so you don’t have to scan paper. It also includes an improved audit trail and tightened security, enhanced approval rules and mechanisms, better search and reporting functionality, and more.

Get on my cloud
eXpresso for Microsoft Office
eXpresso Corp.
www.expressocorp.com

With all the problems associated with col-
laborating on files — version control, differ-
ent editions of software, managing multiple
contributions, and so on — we here at New
Products have long refused to work together.
It’s simply too cumbersome. We may have to
rethink our “lone wolf” policy, however, with
the launch of eXpresso Corp.’s eXpresso for
Microsoft Office. Much as its earlier product
did for Excel spreadsheets, the new release
lets multiple users share and simultaneously
work on Word and PowerPoint documents in
a cloud-based environment. Given that we’re
working on geriatric versions of Office, our
favorite feature is that eXpresso preserves file
formatting regardless of the software version
the individual is using on their desktop. It
also lets administrators and other jealous
document owners set viewing and permis-
sion levels for whole files, or for specific areas
or sections of a file. Our days of working in
splendid isolation may be numbered.

Virtual work
Virtual TimeClock Pro
Redcord Software
www.redcort.com/timeclock

The latest version of Redcort Software’s Virtual TimeClock now includes integration with a number of leading payroll vendors, such as SurePayroll, Paychex Online, Paychoice, AccountEdge and CheckMark Payroll. This would naturally lead to a comment about virtual time clocks creating virtual paychecks, but since our paychecks have been virtual for some time now, what’s the point?

Now, if only our employers would accept virtual work ... .

Tax my property, please ONESOURCE Property Tax Version 9. 3 The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters http://onesource.thomsonreuters.com

We can’t imagine a product that would ever make people happy about paying their real and personal property taxes, but we can imagine one that would make them a little less unhappy about it, and it would be something like the latest version of Thomson Reuters’ onesource Property Tax. Now completely browser-based, it helps users manage their real and personal property tax compliance. New features include the ability to manually add assets in the Asset Detail screen, the ability to nationally classify assets one time for all states, the ability to click and drag location moves, and much more.

Timely gifted
GiftsonTime.com
www.giftsontime.com

The rise of modern technologies for client
relationship management, while useful, has
tended to obscure the fact that keeping in
touch with clients isn’t about integrating
contact lists and data-mining databases
— it’s about keeping in touch with clients.
One time-honored way is the thoughtful gift
sent on the appropriate occasion, a warm,
personal reminder of how much you value
your clients that you can now automate with
the help of Giftson Time. This Web site, cre-
ated by a former partner at a CPA firm, lets
professional services firms consolidate and
manage their gift-giving with a platform
that can extract contact data from Sales-
force.com, multiple tax programs and Excel
spreadsheets. Our address, meanwhile, can
be extracted from the front of the newspaper
for gift-giving purposes.

SharePoint snapshots
File Preservation Program
KPMG LLP
www.us.kpmg.com

The latest version of Big Four firm KPMG’s electronic information-gathering File Preservation Program now includes enhanced capabilities for remotely collecting information from Microsoft Office SharePoint sites, allowing users to preserve multiple data types from a SharePoint site in the same format as the end user would view it, with all the formatting and content preserved. It collects not just a snapshot of the page contents, but all the back-end metadata for each item collected.

New and improved!

AccuFund Inc. has released the latest version of its AccuFund Accounting Suite for nonprofits. Version 4.01 now supports SQL Server, and includes improvements to a number of modules. ... Spreadsheet and data management software vendor ClusterSeven has launched a new Web site, www.cluster-seven.com, that now features additional information on spreadsheet management and showcases relevant developments. … Laplink Software has released an updated version of its PCmover software for migrating from one PC to another, with a new customized user interface, and the ability to restore old Windows images or the contents of a hard drive to a new PC, without overwriting anything, including the operating system. … Journyx has released Version 8.0 of its Web-based time tracking and expense management solution, Journyx Timesheet, with a new user interface, greater speed, and more. ... SharePoint Solutions has released SharePoint Ex-tranet Collaboration Manager (ExCM) 2010, a SharePoint add-on that creates, secures, manages, monitors and streamlines the use of SharePoint 2010 extranets.