SOFTWARE
Smarter, Webbier
Sage ERP Accpac Version 6.0
Sage North America
www.sageaccpac.com
The latest release of Sage ERP Accpac
boasts a raft of business intelligence
features, as well as more mobility
through Web access. Its new Web portal lets users find information quickly
and easily wherever they are, in a format customized to their role or preferences, while the new Accpac Inquiry
feature lets them create customized
on-the-fly query lists quickly and
easily. Version 6.0, which is available
on-premise or in the cloud (through Sage
ERP Accpac Online) also has embedded BI
Snapshots for at-a-glance access to important operational metrics, with drill-down
capabilities, as well as a new Fiscal Period
Management feature. And it comes with Sage
CRM and the new Sage ERP Accpac intelligence BI tool built in.
Soak the feds
Small Business Tax Credit Calculator
TaxCredits LLC
www.smallbusinesstaxcreditcalculator.com
If every government credit, deduction, entitlement and consignment of free cheese
were fully taken advantage of by those who
are eligible for it, the U.S. would long since
have gone bankrupt, and run out of cheese.
But that’s the feds’ problem, not yours, and
the smart tax preparer wants to make sure
that their clients get all the government largesse they’re due. According to Tax Credits
LLC, many small businesses will be passing
up money from the Small Business Tax Credit
created by last year’s health care reform legislation, because the rules are so complex and
the calculations are so difficult. In response,
the company created the Small Business Tax
Credit Calculator, which quickly sorts through
the many variables (from time worked and
full-time equivalent counts to average wages)
to provide guaranteed calculations that tax
preparers can use to file IRS Form 8941.
Who needs letters?
Cropmark LMP Bluetooth Keypad
Other World Computing
www.owc.net
Mac users revel in Apple’s pared-down design
Send items for consideration to
AcToday@SourceMedia.com.
aesthetic, but with tax time upon us, it’s clear
that its omission of a keypad from its wireless, Bluetooth-enabled keyboard may have
been a move in the wrong direction. Other
teresting question: If Apple is looking to pare
down things even more, why not get rid of the
letters, instead of the numbers? Everything
can be expressed as 1s and 0s, anyway.
Who needs profits?
Enhancements to ProSystem fx Knowledge
Coach
CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business
http://cchgroup.com
It’s interesting to note that services to nonprofits are one the top areas of growing business for the Top 100 Firms. (For details, see
our T100 report, available now on Accounting Today.com.) In tough times, apparently,
more people are looking to nonprofits for
help, at the same time as they’re struggling
with lower funding and greater reporting and
management demands. That’s led to a call for
more help from their accountants, which has
led CCH to add a new title to its ProSystem fx
Knowledge Coach auditing tool. The new title
provides links to a variety of nonprofit tools
on CCH’s Accounting Research Manager
platform, including interpretive guidance,
a financial reporting database, unique FASB
functionality, and up-to-date coverage of current developments. It also has a new non-au-dit services independence checklist to help
auditors handle potential conflicts of interest,
new language in the audit engagement letter, and a new report on a successor auditor’s
unqualified opinion when a predecessor’s
report is unqualified and not presented.
Get with the flow
BWise 4. 1. 2
BWise
www.bwise.com
BWise has released the latest edition of its
governance, risk and compliance manage-
ment software. Since GRC is, in many senses,
all about getting employees to follow a set
of processes, and then to confirm that they
did so, some of the main enhancements to
Version 4. 1. 2 focus on just that — there are
new workflow capabilities that integrate into
more GRC structures than most other solu-
tion, so employees can focus on their activi-
ties, with the system guiding them through
the process automatically. BWise can also
automatically roll compliance assessments,
including policy acknowledgements and
compliance statements, up through an or-
ganization’s structure, so those at the top can
know what’s going on below them. There are
also enhancements aimed at user-friendli-
ness and streamlining, as well as personal-
ized reports and dashboards to help users
prioritize their activities, among many other
enhancements.
Out of bullets
SmartDraw VP
SmartDraw
www.smartdraw.com
The person who invented the bullet point
must have expected the permanent adoration of a grateful humanity. They make ideas
easier to grasp, draw the eye to important
points, and break up long, dull paragraphs.
What the proud inventor didn’t count on was
the introduction of PowerPoint, which would
teach us all to loathe the bullet point in its
role as abettor of dull, droning speakers in
overheated conference rooms. The fact is that
the bullet point is no longer an indicator of
interest, but a warning of boredom. Better,
where possible, to use an image, which is why
graphics-generation software SmartDraw
VP now includes an enhanced PowerPoint
builder feature that makes it easier to create
slide decks that won’t have your audience
cursing Mr. Bullet Point. SmartDraw itself
automates the creation of over 70 different
visuals, from flowcharts and data charts and
graphs to mind maps, floor plans, timelines
and more, while the new PowerPoint builder
feature lets you manage an entire presentation visually, in a storyboard format, without
ever leaving SmartDraw, and then build your
deck with a single click.
Nowledge is power
60mo
60mo
www.60mo.com
We’d like to introduce you to a word we here
at New Products just coined: nowledge.
Because while knowledge may be power,
knowledge that you have now is more pow-
erful than knowledge you have, say, after the
period close, or when your bank gets around
to sending a statement. We were led to this
neologism while considering the new re-
lease of 60mo’s online financial dashboard
and forecasting tool, which now integrates
directly with over 10,000 financial institu-
tions like banks and credit card companies,
so businesses get fast access to critical data.
It also has advanced projections to incorpo-
rate the new data, enhanced budget track-
ing capabilities, advanced “what-if” scenario
planning, and more. Our word, meanwhile,
has one less silent K, and endless marketing
possibilities.
Mixed trends
Enhancements to ONESOURCE Transfer Pricing,
and Global Transfer Pricing Solutions, 7th ed.
The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson
Reuters
http://onesource.thomsonreuters.com
Here’s a bad trend: Cash-strapped tax authorities around the world are cracking down
on transfer pricing in an attempt to get more
tax money from multinational corporations.
Here’s a mixed trend: More and more companies are operating globally, which is good for
business, but also means they’re exposed to
the rapacity of more and more tax authorities,
and the complexities of managing transfer
pricing. Here’s a good trend: Thomson Reuters continues to enhance its offerings for
helping companies handle transfer pricing. It
recently added tools to its Documenter solution for transfer pricing documentation, with
enhanced workflow capabilities, a report-writing solution, a multiple-revenue-author-ity report feature, an expanded dataset for
more complex transfer pricing activities, and
the Reuters Fundamentals database, which
offers financial data from over 65,000 companies to help with comparative searches.
On a related note, Thomson Reuters’
World Trade Executive unit has released the
7th edition of its Global Transfer Pricing Solutions, a special report that examines critical
issues and new strategies to help companies
build better transfer pricing policies.
New and improved!
CPE Link has enhanced its free Firm CPE
Center continuing education management
tool with new features for adding and exporting CPE data, so that, among other things,
you can track CPE earned from providers
other than CPE Link.
