"We have seen a huge increase in volume in use of the Open Integration Platform," John Barnes, VP of product management for software at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, said during this week's CCH Connections conference in Washington D.C.

Barnes said the number of transaction through July exceeded the total for 2015. Transactions include all the times non-CCH software interacts with Axcess. Barnes says the total traffic is up more than 170 percent. Wolters Kluwer also enables third-party software to integrate with Axcess.

Firms often want to tailor Axcess applications for their own way of doing business. The Software Development Kit, licensed to the firms, provides the Application Programming Interfaces, APIs that are pieces of code that enable outside software to work with Axcess, along with the rules for what firms can and cannot do in writing modifications.

Barnes says firms have shown a high-degree of interest in such software integration. "It comes up in almost every conversation," he says.

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind