Chatbots emerged as important tools for state chief information officers in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. The 2020 State CIO Survey, sponsored by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers), Grant Thornton and CompTIA found Chatbots, used for online citizen service inquiries was by far the most common technology implemented this year.

The survey of 47 state and territory CIOs found 76 percent had implemented chatbots for the first time in response to COVID-19. The second most-frequently adopted technology was mobile apps for contact tracing/exposure notification (53 percent), followed by voicebots to support call center interactions (40 percent).

Not surprising, asked which business process, practices or investments will change as a result of the pandemic, the CIOs listed expanded options for working remotely as the No. 1 impact. No 2 was expanded use of collaboration platforms and remote meetings. Increased attention on digital government services/ citizen experience was No. 3; Investments in broadband expansion/adoption, No 4; and Increased priority and investment in legacy modernization, No. 5.

Zoho has introduced an office suite, Zoho Workplace, a cloud-based suite that encompasses nine integrated applications. The applications were built on a common model with common search and AI with a single dashboard.

The suite includes a business mail package, Zoho Mail, that enables users to make audio or video calls from within the application and edit document attachments in Zoho Writer. Users can meet online with contacts, and access all email accounts from within the application.

The platform also offers a control panel with eDiscovery, Backup and Recovery. Another application is Meeting, which  can be used to set up recurring or one-off meetings and is integrated with applications such as Zoho Projects, Bookings and CRM. 

Workplace also features the Cliq messaging application; and Connect, which integrates with HR systems such Zoho People. Additionally, there is Show, a presentation system, which integrates with ‌Atlassian, Unsplash, and Humaans; Sheet, a spreadsheet system; and Workdrive, a document management system; and ShowTime for online training. Workplace pricing starts at $3 per user per month for the Standard version and $6 per user per month for the Professional version.

Digital CPA, a conference hosted by the American Institute of CPAs and CPA.com, will be held virtually. The event will be held December 8 and will be preceded by a November 12 pre-conference session on remote work. 

 The pre-conference session, “Distributed by Design: A Framework for Future Forward Organizations,” will be led by Radical Ventures cofounder Pascal Finette.  It aims to “provide a framework and toolkit for CPA firms to conduct strategic planning and decision-making on remote work, decentralization, and the opportunities and challenges that arise from them.”

Digital CPA keynoters include Jeffrey Rogers, moderator of executive education programs and international summits for Singularity University. He will speak “about change dynamics, managing complexity and transformation in a period of continuous, accelerating change.” AICPA president Barry Melancon will provide “an in-depth professional issues update on accounting and finance” while Erik Asgeirsson, CEO of CPA.com “will discuss trends in firm management, advisory services and technology. 

Digital CPA “is designed for CPA firm partners, managers and staffers responsible for implementing cloud solutions and practice management innovations, as well as business development, firm marketing and human resources directors”.

Cloud-based computing provides more security than their own company data centers do, according to 75 percent of information technology professionals responding to the recently released Oracle and KPMG Cloud Theft report. The survey also found businesses are using an almost bewildering number of products to provide security.

 Forty percent of the 750 respondents reported the cloud is much more secure than their own data centers, double the percentage in 2018. Thirty-five percent rated the cloud as more secure. Fourteen percent believe the cloud is not as protected with 12 percent saying it is less secure; 2 percent much less secure.

Twelve percent reported the security levels are the same.

 The survey found widespread adoption of cloud technology with 76 percent utilizing infrastructure-as-a-service today; while 50 percent expect to move all data to the cloud in the next two years. Eighty percent are concerned their cloud service providers will become competitors in core markets. 

Multiple security products are used by most organizations, the survey: Sixty percent responded that they have more than 76 products. Seventy-eight percent employ more than 50 cybersecurity product while; 37 percent has more than 100.

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.

2018 Report: Getting a Handle on the Cloud

Buyers and sellers are talking less and less about cloud software. The discussions increasingly center around how the software, which happens to be cloud based, helps companies solve business problems, not on the technology used. Read more how this is happening.

Sponsored by:

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.

 Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting has given users of the ATX tax software the ability to sign returns electronically. Built into the tax software ATX eSignature enables users to sign via DocuSign. 

 ATX users can now also contact product support within the tax software through ATX Enhanced Support. Support can be accessed by clicking a button in the software’s toolbar. Preparers can use in-app chat to speak with a product specialist. 

A Remote Support tool is also available.

The Internal Revenue Services has released an early draft of instructions on Form 1065 for tax year 2020 regarding the reporting of capital accounts to partners in K-1s. Revised instructions require partnerships to calculate partner capital accounts using the transactional approach for the tax basis method.

 Most partnerships already utilize this method, the IRS said. However,  they were previously allowed to use multiple methods. The IRS believes the use of only one method will make it less likely returns will be examined.

Under the method, partnerships reporting partner contributions, the partner's share of partnership net income or loss, withdrawals and distributions and other increases or decreases will use tax-basis principles instead of using other methods such as GAAP.

Partnerships that did not use the tax capital method for 2019 or maintain tax basis capital accounts in their books and records for each partner's beginning tax-basis capital account balance for 2020 can use the Modified Outside Basis Method, the Modified Previously Taxed Capital Method, or the Section 704(b) Method, as described in the instructions, including special rules for publicly traded partnerships.

The IRS intends to provide penalty relief for the transition during tax year 2020 and only for returns due in 2021. The agency will not assess a partnership a penalty for errors in reporting its partners' beginning capital account balances if the partnership takes ordinary and prudent business care in following the form instructions to calculate and report the beginning capital account balances. 

The draft instructions are intended to give tax practitioners a preview of the changes and software providers the information they need to update systems. 

Gabriel Hernandez, the partner-in-charge of tax division for BDO Puerto Rico, has been indicted on ten counts of wire fraud. That means the two men who founded the organizatoin that became a BDO firm has been indicted on multiple charges this year.

Fernando Scherrer Caillet, former managing partner for the BDO unit, was indicte in May on a number charges from an unrelated case involving fraud and inflating cost of government contracts. In 2000, the two founded Scherrer Hernandez & Co. which became part of the BDO network in May 2012

The charges against Hernandez involve his use of the Export Services Act, which offers tax incentives for Puerto Rican companies to export services to other jurisdictions—these include a fixed income tax rate of 4-percent for eligible export services, a 100 tax-exemption on dividends from and profits, and a 60-percent tax-exemption on local municipal taxes.

The indictment alleges Hernandez in December 2018 formed a company under Puerto Rican law for a person purporting to be a United States taxpayer from Arizona, but who was really an undercover special agent o the IRS-CI. A year later, Hernandez fraudulently obtained a Act 20 tax exemption status for the company.

He also decided the company would report $500,000 in business earned in Puerto Rico and in July 2020 prepared and filed a Puerto Rican corporate tax return that claimed the half-million dollars was earned in the commonwealth and additionally filed false 2020-2021 Business Volume Declarations with the Municipality of San Juan.

Scherrer, who resigned in the face of the charges, was derailed in the same case in which there were indictments of Julia Keleher, who served as Puerto Rico’s secretary of education from January 2017 until April 2019, and Angela Avila-Marrero, the head of the commonwealth’s health insurance administration until June 2019.

They were indicted on charges of wire fraud conspiracy, allegedly designed to steer contracts between the PR DOE and Colón & Ponce, a company owned by Mayra Ponce Mendoza. Her sister Glenda E. Ponce-Mendoza, was a special assistant to Keleher and both weres indicted.

Keleher,  Scherrer-Caillet and Velázquez-Piñol, president of Azur were additionally charged with a scheme to defraud involving federal funds paid by the Puerto Rican DOE to BDO for more than $13 million in contracts from January 2017 through April 2019. Although the contract prohibited it, BDO subcontracted other companies to perform work and paid Velázquez-Piñol through Azur a 10-percent commission for contracts awarded through his influence with government offices.

Azur received about $219,059 in commissions from BDO. The fraud, the indictments allege, inflated the costs of the contracts. Scherrer-Caillet faces one money laundering charge and Velázquez-Piñol, six substantive money laundering counts. Ávila-Marrro, Velázquez-Piñol, and Scherrer-Caillet were also accused of theft and conversion of government money and property in excess of $1,000 through funds paid by ASES to BDO for contracts worth $2.5 million form January 2017 and June 2019.

 Corvee, which recently changed its name from AccountingTax.com, has launched its Tax Planning software. The company clams it is the first-of-its kind to utilize machine learning and artificial intelligence.

 The Corvee application scans  clients’ tax returns, collects via custom individual and business questionnaires, analyzes estimated tax savings across multiple entities and multiple years and prepares tax plan proposals and plans. Corvee says this is accomplished “all within a matter of minutes.”

 Individualized tax plans with customized tax planning strategies and recommendations per client, are created in a ready-to-send and customizable PDF. Accountants and tax professionals using the software will have a dashboard that gives access to information about  their entire client bases

BKD CPAs & Advisors has named Abe Cole as chief operating officer. He succeed Eric Hansen, former chair of the American Institute of CPAs, who has retired.

Cole initially is focused on select issues while continuing his job as managing partner of the firm’s eight-state North Region, which includes Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois, until a successor can be found for that role.

Cole, who joined BKD in 1996, previously was managing partner for the Kansas City, Mo.; Des Moines, Iowa; and Madison, Wis., offices.

AbacusNext has hired Perry Steinberg as chief product officer. Steinberg, described a tech industry veteran,  will lead the engineering and product organizations to develop the company’s cloud computing platform and product and integration strategies.

 The organization’s products are AbacusLaw, Amicus Attorney, OfficeTools, and HotDocs, optimizing the them with the AbacusNext PaaS (platform as a service) platform.  

Steinberg, who joined AbacusNext in August according to his LinkedIn profile, was chief of product for Medidata from 2015.  Prior to that, he was VP of Product Strategy and Corporate Development, for INTTRA, a supply chain e-marketplace, where he worked from 2010 through 2015.

Frazier & Deeter has name Rasheedah Luqman as the firm’s diversity, equity and inclusion manager. Luqman is responsible for creating tools to execute the strategy, defining and measuring success, analyzing data an building a more diverse and inclusive environment.

Luqman is currently a senior manager in Frazier & Deeter’s Tax Practice. Before joining the firm, she worked as a sales and use tax auditor for the Georgia Department of Revenue,

“Given the many goals the firm’s DEI Committee has mapped out, it became clear we needed to define a position that will devote time to ensuring we reach those goals,” said managing partner Seth McDaniel, said in a prepared statement this week.

Compensation for Carlos Rodriguez, CEO of Automatic Data Processing fell by 7.1 percent for the year ended June 30. Rodriguez pay for fiscal 2020 was $17.6 million,  down from $19 million the prior year, accoring to the payroll services company's proxy, filed recently with theSEC.

The CEO’s change in pay was complicated  as two major compensation categories rose and two fell, while the fifth, salary, was off because Rodriguez took a 50-percent voluntary cut effective in May  because of the COVID-19 pandemic, while other named executives took a 10-percent cut. The result was his salary fell to $$988,969 for the most recently ended year, down from $1.1 million, the prior year. His base salary was $1.1 million.

Rodriguez took a big hit in non-equity incentive compensation which fell $1.16 million, own 65.5 percent from $3.39 million while change in pension value and nonqualified deferred compensation earnings dropped to $2.65 million, a decline  28.3 percent from $3.7 million. On the plus side, the value of his stock awards reached $7.55 million, an increase of 12 percent from $6.74 million and option awards reached slightly less than $5.1 million up 27.5 percent just under $4 million.

Kathleen Winters, who began as CFO in April 2019, was paid $4.1 million for fiscal 2020, more than double the $1.6 million from the prior year. Her compensation was boosted by a $1.25 million sign-on bonus, which was paid during 2020.

Compensation for the other three named executives was affected by a reorganization, with two of them making the list for the first time this year. ADP paid John Ayala, president of employer services, slightly more than $6 million and he became a named executive for 2020 when all North American business units were put under him. Don Weinstein, who has been with ADP for 14 years seven months, became corporate VP of global product and technology and received slightly less than $5 million.

In February 2020, Maria Black moved from her position as president, small business solutions and human resources outsourcing, to become president of worldwide sales and marketing. She received $5.6 million last year,  up 50 percent from $3.7 million in fiscal 2019.

The past six months have delivered more challenges to clients than anyone could have anticipated. Business that were primarily brick-and-mortar at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic have rushed to establish an online selling presence in order to survive. 

In doing so, they were also hastily introduced to state-by-state economic nexus laws resulting from the 2018 S. Dakota v Wayfair Supreme Court decision, requiring sales tax registration in each jurisdiction, and the collection, reporting and remittance of sales tax once sales or dollar amount thresholds were reached. Hence, the former mom and pop store entered a new world of compliance complexity that existing ecommerce merchants have been wrangling with for several years.

Wayfair also ushered in a wave of advisory work for accounting professionals, who’ve helped clients, often small businesses, untangle compliance scenarios previously reserved for larger companies. Clients who previously did business in just a small handful of states now have nexus wherever new customers buy their products online, and they need step-by-step guidance to get a handle on their new obligations.

Global aspirations meet cross-border compliance complexity

And what about those ambitious clients who look at the entire globe as their total addressable market? While many of us are hearing about trends related to ecommerce sellers going international, in lock step with more consumers shopping online around the world, and more sellers wanting to take advantage of a total addressable market, the data is still surprising.   According to IDC, by 2022, cross-border ecommerce is expected to account for more than 15% of the world’s online retail market. eMarketer estimates that the global online retail market will grow to $5.7 trillion by 2022.

While demand for cross-border ecommerce has risen, so has the complexity surrounding country-level tax and customs regulations. For would-be international sellers, mastering cross-border compliance – the value-added tax (VAT), goods and services tax (GST), customs duties (also called tariffs), import fees, and the variations of each from country to country -- can mean the difference between success and failure, in addition to staying competitive, in the up-for-grabs ecommerce world market.  

In addition to different tax systems, your clients will need to accurately assign Harmonized System (HS) codes to all their goods. The first six digits of the code are standardized across all participating countries; however, each country appends its own set of digits to classify a product based on specific parameters and regulations. Every country sets its own laws governing what can be sold by whom. For example, tax rates applied to imports from Canada to Brazil may be applied differently than those same products when coming from the United States.

Shipping and pricing transparency are key success factors

Your clients’ ultimate success in global sales will hinge on their ability to provide a good (or great) customer experience, regardless of where the customer is located. And shipping is an essential factor in the equation, in terms of how long it takes to reach the customer and how much it costs. The bar has already been raised high for shipping time, with ecommerce sellers racing to compete with tech giants who have defined and set customer expectations for delivery service. For international transactions, setting up an efficient fulfillment system and clearly communicating shipping times is mission critical to starting the experience on the right foot.

More complicated is setting expectations for price. Between assigning the correct HS code and properly applying the correct taxes, tariffs, shipping and import fees, transparency at the point of sale can be difficult. The customer in Ireland who purchased a sweater from your online seller client in Brooklyn expects a seamless drop-off delivery at their location. Some businesses are tempted to omit these fees at checkout, but surprising customers with costly fees upon delivery is never a good experience. Abandoned online shopping carts are one thing, but a rejected shipment at the destination doorstep results in an unhappy customer, and potential brand reputation damage via social media and other complaints, not to mention placing the cost of return on your client, if they decide it’s worth undertaking those costs.

Automation tames cross-border complexity

Automation solutions are a key ingredient for businesses entering the global retail space. For many international sellers, the task of manually assigning tariff codes and calculating customs duties and taxes is resource intensive, costly, prone to human error, and ultimately not a path to ongoing compliance. It’s only through modern technology that your clients can ensure that customs duties and import taxes are accurately calculated at the time of checkout to mitigate compliance risks and avoid negative customer experiences with surprise costs at the time of delivery. 

Depending on the number of countries, breadth of products, and staff available to handle rates and regulations, an automated tax solution may be the most efficient, cost-effective way to manage tax compliance. Software programs such as Avalara Cross-Border are readily available for item classification, rate calculations, reporting, and returns filing. Make sure your client’s cross-border compliance system integrates with their other business applications, such as accounting/ERP, enterprise content management (ECM), and online retail platforms. Absent fully integrated technology solutions, 21^st Century commerce expectations won’t be realized, from multi-channel commerce to selling internationally.

Advising for your clients’ (and your firm’s) growth

Cross-border compliance falls squarely within the ongoing demand for enhanced business advisory services as we wend collectively through a global pandemic. And keep in mind that clients of all sizes, including emerging small businesses, will require technology automation and advisory in this area. Learn the basic terminology associated with cross-border selling and compliance in preparation for client conversations. Determine whether you want to develop expertise internally around this practice area, or partner with a firm that focuses on compliance international sellers. Then vet the available technology automation solutions that automate the most complex aspects of cross-border compliance at the moment of transaction. The numbers tell the story—this is an ideal opportunity to demonstrate added value for clients embarking on a new path to global growth.

The spread of ecommerce has meant an increasing number of businesses have transactions in other countries.  That means those businesses also need to deal with tax, tariffs and duties imposed by other countries which has made cross-border taxation an issue for many organizations that previously did not need to even know the term.

 “Cross-border used to be more of a back water,” says Craig Reed, SVP of Avalara’s global trade business. “Increasingly retailers are considering it a core component of their business.”

To handle the confusing mass of taxes, Avalara recently introduced its cross border system which is comprised by Avalara AvaTax Cross-Border and Avalara Item Classification. The latter product is important because providing taxing authorities with the correct classification code for goods being sold. “If you don’t give customs the correct, code, your goods can get stuck at the border,” Reed said. The complex process of code goods has been largely manual and Reed says that each country has a book ‘about six inches to a foot thick” that defines goods.

Reed says companies sometimes turn the issue over to carriers. But he adds, “They are not very accurate because it’s not the core of their business.”

Avalara’s products utilize a natural language process and algorithms to classify a product and calculate duties and taxes. Reed notes the company has a global research team that uses direct government connections to stay current on tax rates and information.

SAP has taken a different approach to handle cross-border issues. In March, the giant software company, entered an alliance with Goldman Sachs Transaction Banking. 

“Cross border is about adding a layer of simplicity to a complex system,” says Sean Thompson, EVP of the business network and ecosystem, SAP Procurement Solutions. The deal enabled SAP to incorporate Goldman’s cross-border capabilities in SAP’s Ariba applications, making the services available to the member’s of the Ariba Network.

Thompson notes there are many issues in cross border, including gain and loss on currency differences. Thompson says in cross-border taxations the financial systems of the buyer and seller both need to be integrated since the ERP system “is where the payment file is”. Bank systems has generally not been integrate in the process.

The SAP-Goldman combination means foreign suppliers can be paid in local currencies with “competitive” foreign exchange rates and also easier reconciliation of payments to corresponding invoices. There is also real-time payment tracking, cost transparency on bank fees and optimized payment routing offered.

Software that enables small businesses to prepare and file sales tax returns will be introduced this year by Avalara. The sales-and-use tax software has announced plans for Avalara Returns for Small Business.

The upcoming  application integrates the feature set of TrustFile Online for a target market of emerging small businesses, which Avalara describes as those employing one to 19 individuals.. The small business returns software will to help those companies automate sales tax preparation and file returns with each state’s website.

Customers will be able to utilize the upcoming product to import transactions from all business systems to compile sales-and-use returns for every state return from a single dashboard. 

Avalara generally recommends Avalara Managed Returns for businesses with more employees.

The company is also introducing enhancements to TrustFile, including an economic nexus tracking map, support for more sales tax forms and a redesigned user interface.

Avalara has introduced Avalara Consumer Use, which is designed to help finance professionals assess their consumer use tax obligations.  The software company said this week the application assists in self-assessment for the entire use tax process, including user-defined rules, tax calculation, review, allocation, accrual, and documentation

Consumer Use can combine data from multiple systems into a single workflow in order to create an automated or semi-automated self-assessment of general ledger expense and use tax liability

The system also identifies overpaid or underpaid taxes on vendor invoices and creates reports for tax liability by jurisdiction. The application can import multiple transaction types, including purchase invoices, inventory usage and fixed asset movements

Consumer tax accruals can be integrated into the filing process in Avalara Returns.