Accounting firms did well when Microsoft named its Dynamics Inner Circle this month. Inner Circe includes the 50 top value added resellers in the world with three of the Big Four and four other accounting firms honored.

 The Big Four in the category are Ernst & Young, KPMG and Pricewaterhouse Coopers. The other firms named to Inner Circle were Armanino, Crowe, Sikich and RSM US.

 While accounting firms are a small part of Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs this year and in past years, for 2019, they comprise five of the Top 10 and seven of the Top 20. That list did not include the Big Four.

There has been a lot of attention paid to blockchain. But despite that, the distributed ledger system is simply another way of delivering information. It’s plumbing as far as regulators as concerned.

“Regulators don’t care what technology you are use,” says David Deputy, Vertex’s director of  strategic development and emerging markets, and president of the Accounting Blockchain Coalition. “I feel like Paul Revere. I keep saying the regulators are coming, the regulators are coming.”

Vertex itself has not yet brought a blockchain-based system to the transaction tax market, but that is coming. It is testing a system and hopes to have it on the market not too far in the future. That is simply bringing “high-quality tax compliance to blockchain through automation”, says Deputy.  To put it another way, doing what Vertex has been doing all along with a different generation of technologies.

Deputy’s work with Vertex and with the coalition dovetails on this. A major problem, he says, is that  “If you are exchanging goods and services it’s subject to transaction tax” and that is not always happening with companies which use blockchain. “There are companies selling goods and services today and ignoring this,” he continues.

Deputy notes some refer to accounting with blockchain present as triple-entry accounting. “You have witness that is watching our debits and credits,” he notes. The blockchain network validates and preserves the transaction.

But there is a case to be made that it goes beyond triple accounting—to the dimension added by governments with government increasingly trying to get close to the transaction, with the possibility of payment to governments coming straight off the invoice.

Split payments—with part of the money paid going to the vendor and an other to an account for taxes—has been around for a while.

“Italy has some split payments,” Deputy noted. But blockchain makes it easier to track payments and make sure governments get their cut with part going to the vendor and the rest going to an account for taxes.

Italy has had split payments since 2014.  It. has gone further. Under a system that went into effect this year, Italian businesses must convert invoices for private domestic transactions into a government-defined XML format and send them through the SdI exchange. 

Armanino has launched the Armanino AI Lab this week. Designed for business executives who want to deploy AI technologies within their organization, the lab is designed to educate decision makers in a pragmatic approach to utilizing AI tools.

The Lab incorporates predictive analytics, robotic process automation and virtual assistants. Members attend peer-to-peer meetings and have access to product and vendor reviews. They can also interact with Armanino’s data scientists, AI developers and consultants; learn about AI best practices; and execute on AI proof of concepts. 

. “Armanino’s AI Lab will serve as a one-stop shop that enables its members to harness the opportunities that AI offers without being left behind by their competitors.” Tom Mescall, partner-in-charge of Armanino’s Consulting practice, said in a prepared statement.

Paychex has introduced enhancements to its Paychex Flex HR application. Among the updates includes the ability to tailor the frequency of employee reviews, such as quarterly and monthly.

The software also offers review templates. The company also added 25 self-service actions users can initiate during the workflow approval process. Paychex also added several features to its Live Reports, which include hiring and turnover. In addition, the December release includes benchmarking against like organizations by region, company size, and industry. Finally, an events calendar enables administrator to keep track of key dates.

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.

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Report: Payroll Gets Easier: Running payroll, whether for a company to pay its own employees or to pay clients’ employees, has rarely been easy. But it is necessary, which is why the question of whether tax and accounting firms should offer services as a line of business has had some firms moving into the business and others moving out. Read more and find out where your firm falls.

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The handwriting is in the cloud. And given some real barriers to adoption of cloud-based software, the move remains a question of when, not if, for most businesses with the purchase of web-based applications picking up speed. Download this free special report and read how.

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7 QUESTIONS TO HELP GROW YOUR ADVISORY SERVICES

Providing advisory services has been an important talking point in the accounting community for a while now. However, many accountants are still unsure of which path to take when making changes to their firm while some accountants even question why they should provide additional services when their core products—accounting, audit, and tax—have proved so successful for so many years.

But there can be no mistake. Moving to advisory services will benefit your firm and your clients. To help frame a story around why this is the case, this whitepaper provides seven questions you can answer that will help you kickstart the process of adding advisory services to your firm.

93% of small businesses value accountants as their source of business advice, so the opportunity is out there. Don’t ignore the potential that providing advisory services can bring to your firm by continuing to only provide basic offerings. By growing your advisory services, you can tap into the potential for more profit for you and your firm and higher satisfaction from your clients.

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.

A UNIQUE ADVANTAGE

In our more than 30-year history of helping tax professionals become successful financial advisors, we have learned a thing or two about the unique advantages our Tax Professional Advisors bring to the table, and how they can be leveraged to help your clients pursue financial freedom and seize valuable opportunities. For Advisors without a tax practice, through our innovation, you too can leverage the 1040 Advantage.

For more than 30 years, we’ve remained steadfast in our mission to give every American the opportunity to have access to a skilled financial professional to help plan for their retirement.

We believe that tax professionals offer one of the most appropriate business models to naturally extend their services to offer financial products. Your knowledge of your clients’ finances, coupled with your trusted relationships, places you in a unique position to not only do what’s right for your clients, but also grow the revenue your firm generates. We execute our mission on a daily basis by assigning a dedicated staff liaison to support, train and guide highly ethical tax professionals to become HD Vest Advisors.

Client information and communications are now handled through Avii Workspace. The recently introduced tax features mean the software identifies missing or conflicting information immediately and alerts participants for follow up or confirmation

Moreover, the Avii dashboard shows progress as it occurs and the current status of the clients’ projects at all times, Workflow sequencing is automatic with work moving to the correct individuals in the tax preparation process.

Overall, Avii automates the entire practice management workflow, including project, task, secure document, proposal/opportunity and resource management. It also offers discussion, calendar/scheduling, notes, time keeper and a newsfeed. Additionally, it syncs data and files between other software applications such as  Microsoft Office 365 Calendar and Box. 

Avii Workspace includes a free Client Portal which handles information such as Contact Information; Proposals, Contracts & Disclosures,Document Request Lists, Secure Document Exchange;  Task and Project Management and Review/Approval.

Avii’s website shows a list price of $95 per user per month, currently marked down to $55 per user per month when pre-paid annually.

Blucora plans to merge its two wealth management businesses under the name Avantax. H.D. Vest is expected to be renamed this month with the name being applied to 1st. Global later this year.

Blucora, which also owns the TaxAct software, line intends the name to show the inherent relationship between taxes and financial planning.

“Every investing decision, at the heart of it, is a tax decision,” Enrique Vasquez, president of wealth management for Blucora, said in an interview this week. “Most people go to a tax professional or to a financial advisor. What we do in our organization is we work with advisors who do both.”

The company began in June the rollout of what it calls a  tax-smart investing software platform. It started with a module focused on tax-loss harvesting with more planned for introduction this year.

Blucora reported when its second quarter ended on June 30, it had 4,225 advisors, an increase of 14 percent from 3,709 the prior year, a result of the addition of the H.D Vest advisors.

Liberty Tax, becoming a parent to franchise organizations, has agreed to buy Sears. Hometown Outlet and the Sear’s business, Buddy’s Home Furnishing Stores. The deal is a cash transaction with a value of about $132.9 million and is expected to close next month.

Another Liberty holding, Buddy’s Newco, had acquired 41 Buddy’s Home Furnishings from A-Team Leasing, a Buddy’s franchisee. A-Team plans to become a franchisee of five Sears Outlet locations. In addition, Liberty expects to complete the purchase of the Vitamin Shoppe in the fourth quarter.

The parent company, Liberty Tax, is changing its name to Franchise Group, Inc., with its tax preparation services operating under the name Liberty Tax as a subsidiary.

H&R Block said last week its newly acquired Wave software business registered revenue growth of 50 percent for the first quarter ended July 31. During the webcast for earnings for the quarter, Block added Wave had revenue growth of more than 40 percent year-over-year “over the last several years”.

Block closed the purchased on July 1 and its one month under the tax services company’s ownership produced $3.6 million in sales.

 Originally, Block expected to have nine months of Wave revenue of about $40 million to $45 million for fiscal 2020 but the deal closed earlier. That nine-month forecast translated into annualized revenue of about $53.3 million to $60 million.

Ironically, Block found value in the fact Wave has little market recognition. “We love the fact that this is a brand that is still unknown,” CEO Jeff Jones said during the webcast. “So we still see opportunity to deliver this value proposition to more people.”

At the time the deal was announced, Block said Wave will not be profitable anytime soon.

Wipfli has hired Thomas Wojcinski to leadits cybersecurity practice in the Chicago and Eastern Wisconsin market.  Wojcinski specializes in cybersecurity, IT risk management and IT governance initiatives for American and multinational organizations. 

He worked with Baker Tilly Virchow Krause from July 2003 until taking the new job. From September 2012, he was a director who was responsible for the firm’s growth and development of cybersecurity, IT process assurance, and IT governance services nationally.

Frazier & Deeter has hired CPA James Dawson as a tax partner with a focus on international tax. He will serve American and foreign enterprises in a wide range of tax areas.

Dawson will focus on subjects such as tax efficient global supply chain management, structuring of international business models and operations, cross border transactions, project management and coordination of services in foreign jurisdictions.

He was previously a partner of international tax for accounting firm Crowe from May 2015 through October 2018. Before that, he was national leader of international tax services at Cherry Bekaert from January 2012 through April 2015 and was a partner in international tax for RSM McGladrey from 2006 through 2012.

Xero has named Hubdoc’s co-CEO Jamie McDonald as executive general manager of product, accounting and global services.  McDonald, who will continue his Hubdoc role, will oversee development of core accounting tools in the newly created position.

Xero acquired Hubdoc in August. Hubdoc go-to-market teams will continue to report to Jamie Shulman, Hubdoc’s other co-CEO. McDonald said he would be continuing work in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning for the benefit of Xero customers around the globe.

Val Steed, widely known as a consultant and CPE presenter in the accounting community, has accepted a position as director of accountants for Zoho. Steed, a shareholder, is best known for his work with K2 Enterprises since January 1989.

“I’ll be responsible for maintaining industry relationships with national and international accounting organizations and top accounting experts,” Steed said in a LinkedIn post. He said he will also work to initiate partnership iwith accounting technology companies. Zoho is interested in connecting with all kinds of finance professionals, including bookkeepers, accountants, PAs, CPAs, CAs, CFPs, CFOs. Zoho markets a range of web-based applications, including accounting, CRM, HR and IT management.

“Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but service to community.” - Simon Mainwaring

Remember, a new leaderboard with updated rankings is generated every two weeks, so keep up the great work on social media and watch your ranking climb! Think you’ve got what it takes to make the Top 100? Join for free today!

“Social media is a much more personal approach to marketing than more traditional tactics like placing an advertisement in a local newspaper, and lends itself to a more human approach. You should always err on the side of professionalism, but sharing a few details about the person, or people, behind your company can give your brand more personality – something that works very successfully in the world of social media.”  

 Here are some highlights from the newest Top 100…