Cloud use for business applications is higher for distributors in North America than in EMEA and Australia, according to a recent survey by Sage. The survey showed that 43 percent of distributors on this continent had a hybrid on-premise cloud ERP system.

That compared to about a third of distributors in EMEA and Australia.

The research was conducted in October and November, sampling 652 leaders of companies with 50 to 4,999 employees. There were 201 in North America, 401 in EMEA and 50 in Australia

North American business were also ahead in developing ecommerce capabilities. Forty-four percent of North American organizations reported boosting ecommerce capabilities, compared to 34 percent in EMEA and 24 percent in Australia. 

The survey also suggested the speed at which cloud technology is growing, reporting that 37-percent are implementing cloud-based technology and applications. 

Businesses dramatically accelerated the adoption of new technology, accord to Sage’s 2021 Return to Growth Outlook. The recently released survey of 1,000 SMB business leaders found that 52 percent accelerated their technology plans by three or more years.

 The most frequently cited areas for digitization were accounting and finance, mentioned by 45 percent of respondents; marketing, 31 percent; and customer relationship management, 26 percent.

Cloud accounting software was cited by 27 percent as the most important technology in dealing with the crisis.

The pandemic also shifted business practices with 32 percent saying they tried social media advertising for the first time while 23 percent hired employees completely digitally for the first time. Non-traditional HR policies, such as childcare stipends or flexible work arrangements, were implemented by 27 percent for the first time. Only 13 percent intend to reduce budgets for these areas in 2021.

A third of surveyed business leaders said government assistance was listed as a key reason for business survival in the last 12 months.

Fifty-two percent said increase increased government funding for COVID-19 testing and additional safety measures would have the most positive impact in the next year, followed by 47 percent who said more employee support in the form of stimulus or increased funding for items such as childcare would be the most helpful.

Botkeeper, which markets on-line bookkeeping systems, has introduced Botkeeper Basic Service and Botkeeper Advanced Service.  The company has cut its monthly fees, and implemented a sharp decrease in its platform fee.

The model includes a platform fee and a cost per entity. Basic startsat $55 per month. The prior rate was $79 monthly, scaled up based on monthly expenses. The starting fee for Advanced is $165 per month per entity billed annually.

The platform fee has been changed to $500 monthly billed annually, compared to a prior $3,500 per month flat fee.

Botkeeper Basic includes Categorizations and Classifications, Bank and Credit Card Reconciliations, Payroll Journal Entries, Standard Balance Sheet, P&L & Cash Flow Statement, Overall Book Review for any unusual balances or discrepancies, Dedicated Growth and Success Teams

Avantax, Blucora’s wealth-management business, has acquired GuideVine Technologies. GuideVine market lead-generation and marketing software using to convert prospects into clients.

GuideVine will be integrated Avantax’s existing software suite to support the marketing needs of its advisors.

Avantax said GuideVine’s technology “focuses on converting general consumer interest into motivated, qualified prospects.” It employs a variety of techniques to match prospects with advisors.

“Adding GuideVine’s technology will help Avantax streamline lead-generation and client conversion for our Financial Professionals so they can pursue organic growth while serving existing clients,” Todd Mackay, president of Avantax, said in a prepared statement.

Everybody is talking about Client Advisory Services and a lot of people are doing something about them. That is because businesses have never needed advice more than they have during the COVID-19 pandemic..

Sponsor:

.They have been confronted with decision they have not had to make before—how to transition employees to remote work; how to do deal with rapidly changing government requirements; how to keep operating in difficult conditions.

So they turn to the people that are usual at the time of their contact list at times like this: their accountants. Accountants are being called on for advice in area they usually leave to others, such as human resource and other people issues. And accountants need to be able to advise clients on what to do, not just how to reads their financial reports.

This special report looks at the evolving world of CAS, how practitioners are adapting to it and how their technology partners can help them deliver the needed services. 

The coronavirus has helped make the argument for the use of online payroll systems. With the cloud, you can still run payroll and issue checks, even if no one is in the office. But it has also put accountants on the hook for being able to answer an increasing number of client questions about human resources issues, including furloughing and recalling staff, especially with the Paycheck Protection Programs Loans, which are based on payroll.  At once, it has provided the tools for producing paychecks even when practitioners are out of the office and has also given them a new set of problems and new opportunities. In this special report, Payroll and Beyond, The Progressive Accountant looks at the impact of the response to COVID-19 on payroll and HR services.

 Where are we going in the mid-market? Or in general? The economy started out the year with record employment and has moved to record unemployment with the effects of shutdowns of the Covid-19 virus.  For resellers this year, how they are doing depends on where they are located and in what markets they are involved. Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs for 2020 examines the issues in an era of extreme uncertainty and names 100 firms who are the big players in this market.

For resellers, the issue now is meeting user needs and making money, not worrying about whether software is in the cloud. Certainly, there are many thousands of on-premise mid-market accounting systems in use and a decent number are being sold. But the action is in the cloud and it is a matter of features, which is what users really care about. The issue is which product is better at handling nonprofits, which is good for businesses with inventory, which best suits professional services and which delve into highly specialized markets. In the fact, the thought did not even occur this year to count how many of the Top 100 2019 VARs carry cloud products. It was just assumed they all do. That is why this year’s theme is “The Cloud Rules”  If you are not in the cloud game, you are not really in the game.

Jeff Siegel is the owner of Siegel Solutions, an 11-person firm that provides outsourced bookkeeping solutions usingJeff Siegel is the owner of Siegel Solutions, an 11-person firm that provides outsourced bookkeeping solutions usingQuickBooks to over 300 clients. Jeff knows what it takes to grow a business: efficiency of scale, real-time insights thatbuild strong customer relationships, and a secure data environment. He gets all three from Right Networks.

In this ebook, we’ll examine:In this ebook, we’ll examine:

• Why DIY (Do-It-Yourself) accounting systems created forsmall businesses cause undue pain for both small businessowners and for accountants
• How the right cloud-based professional accounting systemcan not only eliminate that pain, but also open up newopportunities for accountants to better serve their clients

Steven Brewer, CPA is the President of Steven Brewer and Company, CPAs, located in Salem, IN. He talked to AccountantsWorld about how he’s grown his accounting practice without needing to increase his number of clients – and how those improvements have eased his tax season crunch.

BooXkeeping: How White Label Bookkeeping Services Provide Scalability to Your Firm When it comes to running a business the main thing that every business owner wants to do is sell their products or services, create brand awareness and generate profits that they can enjoy later in life. The last thing a business owner wants to do is to worry about bookkeeping, taxes, and the rest of time consuming accounting tasks needed to run a successful business, with limited resources and time, often the bookkeeping ends up being the last on the list of things that need to be completed.

H&R Block increased the number of assisted tax clients by 7 percent for recently ended tax season. That represented an increase of 700,000 customers, which translated into the best performance in 10 years, CEO Jeff Jones said during this week’s earnings webcast for the year ended April 30.

Comparisons for tax season performance has been complicated by the extension of the 2020 tax season deadline to June 17 and this year’s to May 17.

Block said its system had prepared 21.6 million U.S. returns for fiscal 2021, an increase of 28.9 percent from slightly more than 17 million in fiscal 2020. The 26.9-percent increase is skewed by the difference in deadlines.

“We drove significant growth in DIY revenue and continued strong growth at Wave,” Jones said. He noted the company is also “seeing positive signs in virtual adoption by our assisted customers and we also saw a great uptake of DIY clients requesting human help”

The average net charge per client fell by about 2 percent year-over-year. But Jones said that was entirely due to most new clients being filers at lower price points.

Block reported net income of $590.2 million from continuing operations for the most recently ended year, an increase of 10.5 percent from slightly more than $584 million a year ago. Revenue for 2021 was $3.41 billion, up 29.3 percent from $2.64 billion

Block is also adding an element of complication by changing the end of its fiscal. Year from April 30 to June 30. Fiscal 2022 will begin on July 1 with Block panning to file a Form 10-QT for the transition months of May and June.

The company ended the most recent fiscal year with 10,675 offices worldwide, down 3.1 percent from 11,011 a year earlier. However that reflected a loss of 103 offices in Canada and 43 in Australia, with those two much less populous countries representing 43 percent of the decline. The U.S. total at year’s end was 9,271, off 2 percent from 9,461.

The last two weeks of the tax season were stronger than expected, Blucora said this week. The company, which owns the TaxAct line, raised its forecast for the second quarter ending June 30 and for 2021.

Blucora had previously said tax software revenue would range from $82.5 million  to $87.5 million for the current quarter. It has increased that to $91.5 million to $93 million. The May 5 forecast for 2021 was $212.5 million to $218 million with the new forecast increased to $223.5 million to $226.5 million. With the tax deadline extended to May 17, revenue that normally was reported in the second quarter was pushed into the third quarter. Blucora did not state how much revenue was expected to be shifted. The company did not extend the forecast for its Avantax Wealth Management business from the original $631.5 million to $649.5 million. It made a slight adjustment to the third quarter estimate, originally $155.5 million to $161.5 million, raising the bottom of the range to $158.5 million

The Internal Revenue Service has revised its Non-filer Sign-up tool  to enable for families  that usually do not normally file tax returns register for the monthly Advance Child Tax Credit payments. It is scheduled to be available on July 15.

An update of last year’s tool, it is designed to help  individuals who don’t normally file income tax returns register for the $1,400 third round of Economic Impact Payments and claim the Recovery Rebate Credit if they missed first two rounds of Economic Impact Payments..

The tool was developed in partnership with Intuit and delivered through the Free File Alliance. Users can provide the IRS with information needed to calculate issue their Advance Child Tax Credit payments—information about themselves, qualifying children age 17 and under, other dependents, and  direct deposit bank information.

Those who already filed or plan to file 2019 or 2020 income tax returns should not use this tool.

Applicatants are being sought for membership in the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council. The IRS said this month applications will be accepted through July 9 for the panel, which serves as an advisory body to the IRS commissioner.

Members are appointed to three-year terms with the next terms beginning in January. Applications should document a proposed member's qualifications and can be sent to [email protected] or faxed  to (855) 811-8021.

The IRS said it is seeking members with knowledge in these areas: individual wage and investment; small business and self-employed; large business and international, tax exempt and government entities; and information reporting.

IRSAC holds approximately four, two-day working sessions and at least one public meeting per year. Members are not paid while any travel expenses are reimbursed within federal government guidelines.

Successful applicants must consent to a tax compliance check.

 Dewey Forrester has joined payments company Bill.com as VP of its channel team. That follows three-and-a-half years at Sage where he held leadership positions in its channel program.

 His new job comes at a time of significant growth for Bill.com. This month, it completed its acquisition of spend management software company, Divvy, for about $2.5 billion in stock and cash. 

Forrester joined Sage in August 2019 as VP of strategic alliances and later interim EVP of partners and alliances. He became president of North American Business Development in March.

 The Black CPA Centennial is honoring pioneering black CPA Ph.D.s as part of its year-long celebration of Black CPAs. The organization noted Black  Ph.D.s have played an important role in attracting students to the profession.

 William Louis Campfield (1912–1993), in 1951 became the first Black CPA Ph.D. and was also the first Black CPA in North Carolina and the first Black person inducted into Beta Alpha Psi.

Along with the other first five in the category, at first Campfield had “had no chance at full-time positions in majority-white institutions, according to Theresa A. Hammond, Ph.D., accounting professor at San Francisco State University’s Lam Family College of Business and author of A White-Collar Profession: African American Certified Public Accountants Since 1921.

Campfield, who enrolled in New York University, then taught at the Tuskegee Institute in 1933. His parents were graduates and eight siblings attended a school on the Institute’s campus. 

In 1951, he was hired as a lecturer, not a professor, at the University of San Francisco. Hammond noted no other faculty members, including the Dean, had a Ph.D. A year later, he took a government position in accounting and retired in 1972 as associate director of what was then called the U.S. General Accounting Office, now known as the Government Accountability Office, 

Larzette Hale (1920–2015), in 1955 was the first Black woman CPA to receive a Ph.D. After being forced her father’s death and sent to an orphanage when her mother was no longer able to care for her, Hale learned bookkeeping at a business office.

Barred from attending Oklahoma’s two state university’s because of her race, she attended the state’s only historically Black College, Langston University and then received her master’s at the University of Wisconsin, with Oklahoma paying for her tuition.

 While teaching at Atlanta’s Clark College, she took the CPA exam, but was asked to sit in the back of the room and wasn’t allowed to use the lunchroom.

Hale ran a solo practice but wanted to teach and later become the head of Utah State University’s school of accountancy and also taught at Langston and Brigham Young. She was appointed a regent of the Utah Board of Higher Education, the first Black person in that role.  

The Black CPA Centennial celebration is a collaborative effort of the American Institute of CPAs, Diverse Organization of Firms, Illinois CPA Society, National Association of Black Accountants, and National Society of Black CPAs.

The New Jersey Society of Certified Public Accountants has named Harry P. Wills III as president for its 2021/22 term. A partner at Bowman & Company of Voorhees, Brown succeeds Alan D. Sobel.

Wills, who joined the NJCPA in 1986, is a past president of the Southwest Jersey Chapter and participated in many NJCPA committees and interest groups, including the NJCPA Scholarship Fund, Retirement Savings Plan Committee, Strategic Planning Committee and federal and state taxation interest groups.

At his firm, Wills focuses  taxation and audits of employee benefit plans. 

Elmer J. Whiting Jr., the first Black partner of a Big Eight accounting firm, is the latest subject of a profile by the Black CPA Centennial. Whiting became a partner in the former Ernst & Ernst when it merged in his practice in 1971.

Whiting, whose accomplishment came 50 years after the first Black CPA was licensed, was the first Black CPA in Ohio and the Twenty-fifth Black CPA in the United States.

Graduating from Howard University in the 1940s, he received an MBA from Case Western University and a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law. Like other black candidates, he found it extremely difficult to get work experience because white-owned firms believed their clients would not work with a black staff

He received his license in 1950 by successfully petitioning to have bookkeeping work counted as valid experience. After his Cleveland, Ohio, was running, he provided experience for the next five black CPAs in Ohio, including his brother.

Whiting, who died in 1985, also served on a city finance committee under Cleveland mayor Carl Stokes, the first black mayor of a major American city.

Whiting is also credit with help the black community become more acquainted with the accounting profession. Samuel Johnson, CPA, EY Americas vice chair–accounts, noted, “While those in underserved communities may have been familiar with doctors, lawyers, and teachers, they may not have known about the opportunities in the accounting profession if prominent leaders like Whiting had not made a name for themselves on a national stage”

Avalara has introduced a suite of products designed to help accounting professionals to provide  sales tax services for their clients. Avalara for Accountants brings together the previously released Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants with other modules.

 The suite “allows them to assist clients without adding resources”, Sona Akmakjian, global head of accounting partnerships for the cloud sales tax software company said in the lead up to this week’s Crush virtual conference. She added, “This can be a nice recurring revenue stream for accountants,:

Avalara will follow up the product introduction with resources that will help firms operate in the space.“One of the things we are working on is a playbook, which is not only product information It could be ROI tools. It could be templates for agreements, gotchas,” Akmakjian said.

The suit also includes Avalara Returns for Accountants TTR Tax Expert Access for Accountants and Avalara License Management for Accountants. Returns is for accountants with what Avalara describes as mature tax practices. Managed Returns is for those who wish to hand off the work to Avalara.Tax Expert Access includes DIY sales tax research tools plus plain-language explanations, historical information, rooftop-level tax rates, and Yes/No responses to share with clients. Licenses management offers built-in workflow management to support license research, acquisition, and renewal processes.

Avalara has purchased the operational assets from Davo Technologies. which provides sales tax software to small businesses. Terms were not disclosed.

Now shown on the purchaser’s website as Davo by Avalara, Davod  connects to POS systems to handle the collection, processing and reporting of sales tax information. It is also reported to have more than 4,000 small business customers in the United States in a wide variety of business segments.

It integrates with POS systems such as Clover and Square. Avalara will offer Davo customers its products in areas such aslicensing and registration, exemption certificates and custom data sets.

Stripe has agreed to buy TaxJar, which makes online sales tax software. Terms were not disclosed.

Stripe will integrate TaxJar into its applications and  create a suite of tax tools that platforms can offer to customers. The 200 employees of TaxJar, which was founded in 2013, are joining Stripe.

“With TaxJar, we will help millions of internet businesses running on Stripe with their sales tax and make it easier for them to sell internationally,” Stripe’s CFO Dhivya Suryadevara said in a prepared statement.

TaxJar customers can continue utilizing its services separately

Avalara has introduced an application that helps businesses create, send and track sales tax exemption documents at the time of purchase. Avalara Vendor Exemption Management, can manage sales and use tax compliance on purchases. 

The application automates the process of finding, verifying, storing, tracking and understanding the requirements for exemption certificates on tax-exempt purchases and can provide exemption certificates before or at the time of purchase.

The system also offers centralized storage of certificate and works with Avalara CertCapture to manage incoming and outgoing tax exemption documents.