States are looking to Colorado law regarding use tax owed by out-of-state purchases as a lever to spur vendors to collect sales tax from online sales. Moreover, a panel at sales-and-use tax software vendor Avalara's recent Crush conference speculated Amazon's decision to collect sales tax in all states may have the same impact.

Sage plans to test its upcoming Accountant Cloud suite via an early adopter program. The software company intends to release that product in the United Kingdom in July and the United States in the fall. However, features are not completely fixed and will be shaped by the test.

Xero substantially reduced its loss for the year ended March 31. Meanwhile, the New Zealand-based cloud software company this week said operating cash flow turned positive for the first time during fiscal 2017's second half  and it also topped the 1-million subscriber mark for the first time during the same period.