Hello and welcome back to another edition of App Watch, the weekly column that gives you – the accounting professional – a quick snapshot of what was announced in the application and service provider world that we have deemed relevant to you. We also offer a bit on insight as to the importance of the news for you and, at times, the accountant-focused tech world at large.

This week’s Watch should come as little surprise. We’re neck deep into tax season and, as such, some familiar (and some not) tax product vendors have some news to share that could be pertinent to this season and beyond. So, without further adieu…

News: Small Firm Tax Research Tool Hits the Market

Metakite Software has released MetaTax, a tax research tool built for small firms and sole practitioners available on the Web and iOS. The company claims it has has over 100 tax topics covering the most common issues encountered while working with individual and small business clients. All content in MetaTax is fully searchable and cross-referenced. All information in MetaTax can be tied back to IRS forms, revenue procedures, notices, and other IRS guidance. Citations are available upon request. Sole practitioners can pay $9.99 per month for the product, while a small firm can pay $19.99 for up to 3 members.

Views: On first pass, who wouldn’t want a relatively inexpensive tax research tool. If you are a sole prac or very small firm, you’re probably just on Google or some other web search for what you need, maybe even the IRS site. Sure there’s the tax research tools offered by the major tax and practice management software makers, but it may not be viable if you’re an extremely small tax practice. If this tool does all it says it can, it seems worth examining.

News: Bloomberg BNA Updates State Tax Analyzer

The new version of Bloomberg BNA’s State Tax Analyzer is out and features NOL Manager, a new way to predict the impact state net operating losses (NOLs) will have on cash, the effective tax rate (ETR), and corporate earnings per share. The NOL Manager feature automatically computes the generation, utilization, carrybacks, and carryforwards of state net operating losses across multiple years and multiple scenarios. NOL Manager was also built to compute and document valuation allowances to withstand internal and external scrutiny; show impacts of IRS and state tax audits on NOLs; estimate taxes for financial statements and quarterly estimates; and calculate and track NOLs from the year 1998 forward for pre- and post-apportionment states

Views: So if any of your clients are dealing with net operating losses (they probably are), you know that while the federal code allows 20 years of NOL carry forwards and two years of NOL carrybacks, states vary greatly on their own NOL rules. As such, companies often have to navigate filing multiple entities in multiple states, forcing them to deal with hundreds or even thousands of returns in a single year. Not to mention, each filing requires its own NOL supporting schedule that could span upwards of 10 to 20 years. Sure, you’re in the middle of tax season now and you probably don’t have a lot of time to check out something new. But it seems this can help take away a pretty significant headache when it comes to state taxes.

News: Vertex SMB Inks Partnership With TaxCloud

Vertex SMB has formed a partnership with TaxCloud, a sales tax compliance service for online retailers. This partnership effectively expands TaxCloud’s geographic area of automated capabilities to include all U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions, while expanding e-commerce platform support for Vertex SMB – specifically to small online retailers. TaxCloud is certified to provide registration, filing, remittance, and audit response in the 24-member automated compliance states included in the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement.

Views: As with any growing business in this space, it’s good to build partnerships. And when you are a comparatively lesser known service provider, particularly when it comes to sales and use tax compliance, any such union is going to be a plus. Some of you may know that Vertex has a strategic partnership with CPA.com, the business/promotional subsidiary of the AICPA. That alliance alone looks to generate some awareness within the accounting community, now with this TaxCloud deal it adds further awareness and usefulness within the small business community.

That’s all for this week, as ever, if you have anything to add or some of your own commentary and insights feel free to do so below or post your own Any Answers or Blog post on our site.

Sales tax technology vendors have been expanding their efforts to help small and midsize businesses cope with the dizzying array of tax rates and rules across states, localities and countries.

“One of the things that we focus on is the SMB space,” said Marshal Kushniruk, executive vice president of business development at Avalara. “Even though we do some enterprise business, our major focus is the SMB space. We believe that the smaller businesses need to compete with the bigger guys and are really the ones that are driving the economy.”

Another sales tax technology vendor, Vertex, has set up a Vertex SMB unit to target small and midsize businesses with a streamlined version of its corporate offerings, according to Bradd Wildstein, director of channel sales. Thomson Reuters markets its ONESOURCE series of indirect tax products across the world to businesses of all sizes.

Demand for international capabilities has been growing among smaller businesses, particularly for ecommerce.

“We believe we have to develop a product or suite of products that allows us to take globalization for the little guy to the market,” said Kushniruk. “When these customers are selling across borders or across countries, they really have to worry about shipping it, with landed cost, duties, excise, and tax. They need to collect the right VAT or sales tax and most importantly pay the tax.”

Avalara and Vertex use connectors that are able to link their systems to outside accounting software, such as QuickBooks and Dynamics GP, or ecommerce technology such as Magento. ONESOURCE also integrates with outside systems like SAP.

“We have 500 different connectors that have been written, and they allow small businesses to essentially have an omnichannel type of presence,” said Kushniruk. “They may be doing invoices in QuickBooks and selling in a Magento shopping cart and a Shopify shopping cart. We’re consolidating all of the tax and helping them figure out the right tax that should be charged on the item, and paid in that particular jurisdiction, whether it’s the state of New York or Germany.”

Expanding internationally can be a challenge for any small business. “When clients go global they have to figure out first of all should they be registered in a country or not ship into that country,” said Kushniruk. “If they should be, what’s the correct VAT rate? On top of that, what is the product you are selling in that particular country or set of countries or states in the U.S. and how is that particular product taxed?”

Avalara is also offering specialized content for growing industries, like the sharing economy represented by companies like Airbnb and Uber. In recent years, it has also been forming alliances with state CPA societies, such as the Illinois CPA Society, the Kansas Society of CPAs, and the Maryland Association of CPAs. Vertex SMB has allied with the American Institute of CPAs’ CPA.com unit.

The calculations can be complex. “A baby carriage could be taxed at 24 percent in the U.K., and at a reduced rate in Germany, which is about half of their standard rate, and a zero rate in France, which is not a zero amount, but it’s essentially a tax holiday on it,” said Kushniruk. “In Louisiana, it could be 100 percent of the state rate, and then it could be in a tax holiday in New York State from August 1 to 14 because of back-to-school sales or something. All of that stuff goes into the determination, as well as landed cost. If I’m shipping a product from the U.K. into Ireland, is there an excise or a duty on top of that? For small businesses, the penalties are huge if they get it wrong.”

Several of the most influential and respected leaders in the accounting profession are meeting this week, Feb. 15-17, at the Westin Galleria Hotel and Resort in Dallas, for the sixth annual Accounting Thought Leader Symposium. These individuals come from across the accounting spectrum, including small tax-focused firms, general practices, national firms, accounting educators and technology consultants to firms, and all are well-known speakers at tradeshows and CPE events.

[Follow the Symposium on Twitter: #CPAPA_TLS]

During the symposium, these professionals will meet with core development and executive staff of key accounting technology providers to determine and shape the future of the profession, including both short- and long-term evolutions in technology, workflow methods and firm management.

The companies participating in this year’s event include Avalara, Intuit, Sage, TSheets, and Xero. The invitation-only event is hosted by CPA Practice Advisor, a provider of practice management advice, best-practice insight, news, digital resources and technology reviews for professional accounting firms.

Participants come from across the world, with the most distant attendees this year being Donny Shimamoto, a CPA and technology consultant from Hawaii, and Clayton Oates, a former Big 4 accountant who is now principal of an Australia-based technology consultancy.

“As we conduct these meetings, we believe all accounting professionals should think about challenges they have faced in the past year,” said Gail Perry, Editor-in-Chief of CPA Practice Advisor. “How did their firms meet these challenges? What was less than successful and why? And what new challenges have surfaced that will have continuing impact on their firm and the profession?”

These thought leaders will be discussing the same issues, Perry said. “They will be focused on what they can do, considering their visibility and their roles as mentors, teachers, advisors, and solution providers, to help the accounting profession get to the other side of modern obstacles.”

The symposium also hosts the annual Accounting Hall of Fame Awards award and reception. Hall of Fame members include Greg LaFollette, CPA.CITP, Randy Johnston, Rick Richardson, CPA.CITP, L. Gary Boomer, CPA.CITP, Chris Frederiksen, CPA, and Tom Hood, CPA.CITP. A new Hall of Fame honoree will be inducted on Tuesday evening.

The 2016 Accounting Thought Leader Symposium attendees are:

• Jim Boomer, CPA.CITP (Boomer Consulting)
• Jim Bourke, CPA.CITP, CGMA, CFF (Withum)
• Jean Caragher (Capstone Marketing)
• David Cieslak, CPA.CITP, CGMA, GSEC (Arxis Financial)
• Gale Crosley. CPA (Crosley Company)
• Chris Frederiksen, CPA, CGMA, PFS (2020 Group USA)
• Angie Grissom (The Rainmaker Companies)
• John Higgins, CPA.CITP (CPA Crossings)
• Tom Hood, CPA.CITP, CGMA (Maryland Assn. of CPAs)
• Randy Johnston (K2 Enterprises and NMGI)
• Roman Kepczyk, CPA.CITP, CGMA (Xcentric)
• Allan Koltin, CPA (Koltin Consulting Group)
• Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA (AICPA Firm Services)
• Greg LaFollette, CPA.CITP, CGMA (CPA.com)
• Clayton Oates (QA Business)
• Edi Osborne, CSPM, CPBA, CPVA (Mentor Plus)
• Rick Richardson, CPA.CITP, CGMA (Richardson Media Tech)
• M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP, CGMA (Root & Assoc. and Rootworks)
• John Sharbaugh, CAE (Texas Society of CPAs)
• Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA (Intraprise TechKnowlogies)
• Leslie Shiner (The Shiner Group)
• Doug Sleeter (The Sleeter Group)
• Sandi Smith-Leyva, CPA (Sandi Smith-Leyva, Inc.)
• Brian Tankersley, CPA.CITP, CGMA (K2 Enterprises)
• Rick Telberg (CPA Trendlines)
• Geni Whitehouse, CPA.CITP, CSPM (Even A Nerd)
• Sandra Wiley (Boomer Consulting)
• Jennifer Wilson (Convergence Coaching)

CPA firms across the board see new client services as their top innovation priority for the next 12 to 18 months, but firms that have embraced cloud technologies see more urgency in making those additions.

That is one of the key findings of the CPA.com Innovation in Public Accounting Survey, the results of which were unveiled at the Digital CPA Conference in Las Vegas in December. CPA.com is the for-profit arm of the AICPA.

A total of 409 firms responded to the survey, which was conducted online Oct. 4—23, 2015. Of those firms, 178 were identified as early majority, which CPA.com defines as firms that have either launched a cloud-based accounting practice or made advancements in client advisory services. The remaining 231 firms were deemed to be in the general group. The early majority group had a higher proportion of larger firms (20% were associated with firms with 100 staffers or more), compared with the general group (10% were from firms with 100 staffers or more).

Asked to name their top innovation priorities, firms in both categories placed highest importance on the development of new service offerings for clients (see the charts "Firm Innovation Priorities: Early Majority" and "Firm Innovation Priorities: General Group"). Early majority firms, however, see greater urgency for deeper and faster change than firms in the general group (see the charts "Timing of Change: Early Majority" and "Timing of Change: General Group").

"The good news is that a solid majority of CPA firms realize they have to change to stay relevant," said Amy Radin, a strategic marketing consultant and innovation expert, who helped design the survey and discussed some of the results in her keynote speech at the Digital CPA Conference. "But for the general group of CPA firms, we see a sizable minority who say change may not be necessary for five years or more, if at all. Beware: Clients aren't likely to be that patient."

Firms in both categories ranked time and talent concerns as their biggest barriers to innovation. Those in the early majority, however, view processes as a bigger challenge than strategy to their innovation efforts, while firms in the broader group place a greater priority on strategy issues.

"One interesting finding of the survey is that CPA firms, early majority or not, don't really see a competitive threat from specific challengers," said Erik Asgeirsson, president and CEO of CPA.com. "Only a small percentage of firms said it was a priority to respond to 'a competitor who is outpacing us.' The problem is tomorrow's competitor might be invisible today, and if you aren't paying attention to client expectations, it can take you by surprise."

While the vast majority of honorees in our annual Top New Products listing are software and applications, there’s a reason we don’t call it the “Top New Computer Programs.”

Software — whether on desktops or, more and more, in the cloud — has already revolutionized the practice of accounting several times over, and we fully expect that it will continue to do so. But it’s not the only thing with the power to change the field, and the tools that will make the most difference to you won’t always run on your laptop or tablet. (Well, actually, they might — but as content, instead of software.)

Hardware products, services, educational programs and continuing education courses all can have a major impact, too, and this year a number of entries in the last two categories really caught our eye. As knowledge workers and professionals whose value springs in large part from their expertise, accountants are both serious about their ongoing education, and well-positioned to capitalize on new ideas and new ways to demonstrate their competence to clients.

For instance, this year saw a rush of certificate programs in a variety of areas, letting accountants learn about and then prove their knowledge of everything from basic tax prep to handling the tangible property repair regs all the way up to working with nonprofits. It also saw a push on different ways to educate the profession, including in small bites, as well as a program that legitimately, actually, honestly shows you how to predict the future — for real.

And if that doesn’t grab you, there are still plenty of great software tools and apps on this year’s Top New Products. Read on to see the 2016 list.

Accounting

QuickBooks Online Self-Employed (Intuit)

Designed for the rapidly growing on-demand/“gig” economy, Intuit’s QuickBooks Online Self-Employed was built to be as simple as possible for freelancers and independent contractors. The solution imports bank and credit card transactions, capturing them as individual expense cards that customers can categorize as business, personal or both — a process made even easier and more intuitive via the mobile app, where expenses can be swiped left or right. One of QBO Self-Employed’s biggest advantages is its year-round tracking of deductions, so entrepreneurial customers can easily pay those estimates at quarterly and year-end deadlines, minimizing distraction from business operations.

Affordable Care Act Tools

ONESOURCE ACA Reporting & Compliance (Thomson Reuters)

Helping businesses of all sizes comply with the Affordable Care Act is one of the great opportunities of the past few years (as well as one of the bigger nightmares), and we’ve named Thomson Reuters’ ONESOURCE ACA Reporting & Compliance tool as one of our Top New Products for managing the distribution and filing of the forms associated with Obamacare for all the organizations that need to send out 1095-As, Bs and Cs. The Web-based tool tracks form corrections, collects consent forms for electronic distribution, and helps with managing file errors when e-filing with the IRS.

We gave Greatland’s Yearli an Honorable Mention, for adding the ability to file Forms 1095-B and C with the IRS and send copies to recipients, as well as developing a toolkit of great ACA-related resources for users.

Business Analytics

BlackLine Insights (BlackLine)
and Host Analytics Modeling (Host Analytics)

Finance professionals know key performance indicators are crucial to improving business processes and results, but beyond the obvious benchmarks, some mission-critical KPIs can be elusive. While BlackLine Insights includes core accounting activities like account reconciliations, the solution also enables accountants and chief financial officers to hone and calibrate the performance indicators that are most urgent for their business. These numbers can be tracked in real-time, and benchmarked against industry numbers based on live, aggregated and anonymized cloud data collected from other BlackLine customers. And because it lives in the cloud, this data is dynamic and easily adaptable to new and changing business goals, including the new benchmarks that BlackLine will provide in future product updates.

Accountants can bolster their advisory work with Host Analytics Modeling, a module in the company’s cloud enterprise performance management suite that enhances budgeting, planning, forecasting and modeling processes. By integrating both financial planning and operational data from other systems, the cloud modeling engine can map out multiple what-if scenarios related to tax and accounting, and the numbers can be collaborated on across multiple interfaces, from Excel to mobile. The models also cater to a range of user sophistication, from a quick drill-down into profitability metrics to the activities of what Host Analytics dubs “power modelers”—users actively communicating with the data and adding new dimensions and submodels.

In this category, we’re also giving an Honorable Mention to iLumen’s Franchise Intelligence, a productivity tool for CPA firms with franchise consulting practices, which simplifies and standardizes data collection from franchisees.

Certificates and Credentials

AICPA Not-for-Profit Certificate I and II (American Institute of CPAs)

When they want expertise, clients come to accountants; when accountants want expertise, they have to earn it themselves. This year saw the release of a number of different certificate programs to teach a wide range of very specific skills — and then let you prove it. We named the AICPA’s Not-for-Profit Certificate I and II our Top New Products in this category not just because the programs are comprehensive and jam-packed with real-world examples, case studies, animations and videos that will help you bone up on everything from the basics of nonprofit reporting to the complexity of preparing a complete set of NFP financials, but because this is an area that really calls for deeply knowledgeable accountants, and with more firms entering it as a sideline, it’s an area where they can’t afford to be uninformed.

We’ll single out a pair of other programs as Honorable Mentions, each of which touches on a hot regulatory or legislative topic: Wolters Kluwer’s CCH Tangible Property Regulations Certificate, and Thomson Reuters’ Checkpoint Learning Health Care Reform Certificate Program.

Data Transfer

Rivio Secure Financial Statement Clearinghouse (CPA.com and Confirmation.com)

An online clearinghouse for private businesses to exchange financial information with their lenders and investors, Rivio is also a secure platform for these businesses to share secure, authenticated data with their CPA firms. CPA.com provides the front-end verification that CPA firms are appropriately licensed to upload financial information, and Confirmation.com delivers the same technology that powers its own audit confirmation platform. CPA.com and Confirmation.com’s mission for the platform is to eliminate outdated and unsecure methods of exchanging sensitive information such as e-mail, and Rivio provides the controls and collaboration to modernize the process.

Nonprofit Accounting

Abila MIP Advance (Abila)

Abila brought its MIP true fund accounting solution to the cloud, where the comprehensive financial management and reporting tool finds greater agility and integration capabilities. Within that cloud-based interface, MIP Advance presents a multi-dimensional and flexible chart of accounts, with detailed coding and tracking of all financial activities in unlimited segments and dimensions. Users can track, report and manage finances via customizable and role-based dashboards that enable them to view and drill down into the data most essential to their role — whether financial or otherwise. Nonprofits and government entities can then use MIP Advance’s reporting and analytics tools to present this data in digestible, graphical formats that inspire engagement from boards and funding from donors. The solution’s new API also provides easy integration with other applications.

Practice Management

Sage Impact (Sage)

Online, customizable hub Sage Impact was built for accountants, by accountants (or at least with their detailed advisement). And while it imports real-time data from other Sage products, it also integrates with non-Sage solutions. Serving as a central location for practice management and client collaboration, Sage Impact also houses two of the company’s newer cloud-based tools: Sage Value and Sage Match. Capitalizing on the emerging trend of value pricing, Sage Value provides tangible tools to have those cost discussions with clients in the form of service plans, comparison documents and proposal generation, while Sage Match makes accountants more accessible to prospects, giving business owners the ability to search for CPAs based on business focus, goals, location and desired expertise.

SALT Tools

BNA State Tax Analyzer (Bloomberg BNA)

States are on an ever-more-desperate prowl for revenue, and that means more complex tax legislation and more stringent audits. The continually changing landscape of state tax regulations requires a powerful and streamlined tool beyond spreadsheets, and Bloomberg BNA provides it in this multi-state, multi-year, multi-scenario state tax analysis tool. With the cloud-based solution, tax and accounting professionals can do what-if planning, tax provision analysis, quarterly estimates and tax audit response, all with a full audit trail. The State Tax Analyzer also keeps up with the latest legislation, delivering automatic tax-law updates, and provides the added security of permissions controls.

Self-Improvement

The Anticipatory Organization: Accounting & Finance Edition (MACPA/BLI)
and the Insight HR & Career Development Tool (Indiana Society of CPAs)

With a staff crunch going on, the accounting profession is scrambling for warm bodies — but it’s also worth spending some time on the bodies that are already here. Two of our Top New Products do exactly that, offering to help accountants boost their careers by bringing more value to the table. The first is the Anticipatory Organization: Accounting & Finance Edition, a set of video courses and exercises created by a partnership of the Maryland Association of CPAs and its Business Learning Institute with futurist Daniel Burrus. The point of the coursework is to teach you, literally, how to predict the future by identifying reliable trends — and it actually works. The applications for firm strategy, client service, and guiding your own career are endless.

Our second Top Product in the Self-Improvement Category is the Indiana Society of CPAs’ Insight HR & Career Development Tool, which lets CPAs evaluate themselves on core competencies and the “soft skills” that will mark the future leaders of the profession, as well as offering 360-degree assessments, and a toolkit for tracking personal development.

Software Platforms

Onvio (Thomson Reuters)

The cloud has certainly made collaboration and integration easier — but it hasn’t eliminated friction entirely. For that, you need to look at tools that were built from the ground up to interact, and that’s what Thomson Reuters’ new Onvio platform promises, with the added benefit of not having been built on the ground, but in the cloud. It’s designed to give a single look and feel as well as a common database to a host of tax and accounting-related tools, and it launched with two core modules, Onvio Documents for document management and Onvio Client Center, a portal for securely sharing information with clients and staff. Thomson Reuters has already added Onvio Time and Billing, and plans more additions in the future.

Tax Tools

CCH International Tax Compliance Calendar (Wolters Kluwer)

As more and more small businesses find customers overseas, more and more accountants are finding themselves trying to answer awkward questions about international tax issues. We named the CCH International Tax Compliance Calendar a Top New Product for giving users the ability to easily monitor updated tax laws, filing deadlines and compliance changes around the globe — or in just the specific tax jurisdictions where they (and their clients) are interested. Customized alerts and mobility mean you’ll never miss an important development or deadline, no matter how far afield you or the taxing jurisdiction are.

Wolters Kluwer also took an Honorable Mention in this category, for its CCH Code­Connect, which makes it even easier to find useful answers and guidance in its IntelliConnect research platform. We’ll also give a nod to RCReports, an online tool that makes it easy to create reasonable compensation reports for closely held business owners to show the IRS, and to Autokept, which is the only mileage and other tax-related information tracking app we know of that you can talk to.