Financial media giant Bloomberg is buying one of the stalwart players in the tax and accounting field, the Bureau of National Affairs, for $990 million, three times the $331 million the target company reported for revenue for the year ended December 31. BNA will operate as a standalone unit once the deal closes this year.

The choices in payroll used to be very simple. There were companies that wanted to calculate payroll and take the duties off their clients' hands. And then there were those organizations that sold software to their customers so that the latter could perform processing themselves. But increasingly, vendors providing payroll services offer a spectrum that range between doing it yourself and handing off all the tasks to another company.

Wave Accounting, a nine-month-old company, has started the Wave Pro Network, a program aimed at getting accountants and bookkeepers involved with its online accounting application. Currently there is no application form and the company does not plan to charge fees for professionals to join.

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