Jennifer Warawa, who has led Sage's accounting program in North America, has been selected to head worldwide efforts. She took the new position this month after being involved with the Sage Accountants Network for several years. Warawa joined Sage in 2008 as director of partner programs, a position she held for two years.

SmartPros ended a tough year on December 31 as the company reported a $1.6million loss on an 11.1-percent decrease. In June, the education course provider announced a Back-to-Basics program that led to the sale of assets of its Skye Multimedia operations, the abandonment of its custom ethics consulting business and a reduction in the number of lived events managed by its Executive Enterprise Institute division.

H&R Block has spent about $12 million in acquisitions that primarily include independent tax preparation firms during fiscal 2015. That is in addition to the $100 million spent to acquire 351 franchised Block locations as part of a plan to pick up 650 offices sold to franchisees in the last few years. The numbers were outlined during a recent webcast for financial results for the third quarter ended January 31.