Ask AI, described as a GenAI Ally, has been added to CCH Tagetik, the corporate performance management software from Wolters Kluwer.

The resulting CCH Tagetik Intelligent Platform enables users to receive real-time, visual responses to text- and voice-based natural language queries. 

Wolters Kluwer says the new technology also adds Intelligent Analytics, offering self-service reporting, analytics, dashboarding and visualization. In addition, AI automapping is said to accelerate data collection and ensures data governance while Anomaly Detection automatically identifies outliers and flagging unusual or abnormal data patterns.

In addition, Intelligent Disclosure integrates financial, non-financial, and ESG consolidated numbers with narratives into data-linked reports. 

WK says the new capabilities build on existing AI features of CCH Tagetik, such as  Predictive Intelligence and Transaction Matching.

ADP has introduced ADP Assist, which it calls a cross-platform tool that utilizes generative AI.

 Using the company’s reservoir of data, Assist is designed to help solves problems across ADP’s HR, payroll, time and benefits products. That includes validating payroll information and checking for payroll anomalies, using GenAI to identify and help resolve missing tax registrations and answer questions.

ADP says that means the GenAI is used to “dramatically simplify report creation by understanding context and generating insightful reports in an easy-to-understand format.”

The company says Assist can also anticipate and solve common employee problems across HR, payroll, time and benefits and eliminate low-value tasks usually performed by managers and HR professionals. 

This is based on  the system’s ability to send personalized, proactive notifications to employees on their mobile device or desktops to help resolve HR issues. In addition, employees can employ its conversational interface to obtain information without involving HR.

Additionally, ADP’s Run payroll and HR application feature an omni search bar that understands intent behind search terms.

Intuit has outlined plans for QuickBooks Solopreneur. The software company did not provide a date other than “coming soon”.  

Solopreneuer will have access to QuickBooks  Live Tax so users can have access to tax professionals and those using QB Online Accountant will be able to add Solopreneuer for their clients.

The software is designed for one-person businesses (Schedule C filers), whose business is their primary source of income. The new edition differs from QB Self-Employed in that is designed for owners who prefer to manage their own day-to-day books.

Solopreneur has single-entry bookkeeping on the front end, but uses double-entry bookkeeping in the background.

Transaction management tools automatically separate business and personal transactions using predetermined categories.

Solopreneur has features that can be used on a mobile device, including mileage tracking.

 FreshBooks will use Gusto’s technology to provide a payroll product to its customers in the United States.

FreshBooks Payroll is scheduled for introduction in January, with specific features to be introduced then. In a prepared statement, FreshBooks president Mark Girvan touted the “reliability and compliance” of Gusto Embedded API’s which provides the integration with the FreshBooks platform.

The company described the software as offering “an embedded, full-service payroll solution that small business and medium-sized owners can seamlessly add to their monthly subscriptions.”

 The pace of technology does not slow down...

If we thought that it would take a breather after the end of the Covid pandemic and the advent of the remote work era, the impact of trends such as artificial intelligence and on-demand pay proved us wrong. If anything, automation promises to keep changes in payroll moving at a fast clip. That should translate into making it easier to calculate and run payroll and have greater accuracy in producing the end result—paying people for their work. This special report—Payroll Big Changes Ahead—looks at the trends impacting this crucial business.   

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To say the broad economic picture is confusing when applied to mid-market reselling would be an understatement.

Many observers expect a recession and some report sales cycles stretching out. Meanwhile, the immediate problem for many firms is a shortage of consultants to handle all the cloud implementations—a recession might send more businesses scrambling for SaaS financial software for more efficient operations. In a world reshaped by the Covid shutdown, remote work drove an accelerated interest in cloud computing. It's a new world in which how the forces interplay is yet to be fully understood.

This year's Special Report for Bob Scott's Top 100 VARs, "A Tougher Road Ahead?" looks at the thoughts of leaders in the channel and in the vendor community about these issues and the trends that have impacted ERP mid-market resellers over the last year. Of course, this report also features 100 reselling firms that have been chosen based on revenue. This year's list includes more than the usual number of newcomers and the expectation is, next year will reflect the continue rapid pace of change in technology and layers.

It was a good year for the 2022 Class of Bob Scott’s VAR Stars. It could have been better for many if they could have found more consultants. Finding qualified staff was the major problem facing all of the mid-market channel with both resellers and software publishers grappling with ways to get fresh bodies into the channel. The good news behind the problem is that many businesses have not made the move to the cloud and the future looks brigh for sales. Download our special report and view the list of 100 VAR Stars and read about the factors shaping the industry.

The issues surrounding payroll have changed dramatically over the last two years. With a significant percentage of the population working away from the office—and like to stay away, many businesses now have a work force in more than one state, meaning tax compliance is more complicated.

 The Great Resignation in which millions have changed or are changing jobs having clients asking accounting firms questions about hiring and employee retention. Fortunately, payroll software and service providers are responding with tools to answer these challenges. These include employee self-service that can improve the accuracy of employee records and payroll. Read about the trends that are reshaping payroll and drawing accounting and payroll firms into providing people services in the special report “Self-Service Reshapes Payroll”.

Jeff Siegel is the owner of Siegel Solutions, an 11-person firm that provides outsourced bookkeeping solutions usingJeff Siegel is the owner of Siegel Solutions, an 11-person firm that provides outsourced bookkeeping solutions usingQuickBooks to over 300 clients. Jeff knows what it takes to grow a business: efficiency of scale, real-time insights thatbuild strong customer relationships, and a secure data environment. He gets all three from Right Networks.

In this ebook, we’ll examine:In this ebook, we’ll examine:

• Why DIY (Do-It-Yourself) accounting systems created forsmall businesses cause undue pain for both small businessowners and for accountants
• How the right cloud-based professional accounting systemcan not only eliminate that pain, but also open up newopportunities for accountants to better serve their clients

Steven Brewer, CPA is the President of Steven Brewer and Company, CPAs, located in Salem, IN. He talked to AccountantsWorld about how he’s grown his accounting practice without needing to increase his number of clients – and how those improvements have eased his tax season crunch.

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.

An Arizona tax preparer has pleaded guilty to using an abusive-trust tax scheme to shelter more than $60 million in income from the Internal Revenue Service.

From 2017 to 2013, Kent Ellsworth, operated Ellsworth Stauffer P.C, pleaded guilty to two counts of tax return fraud for more than 500 false tax returns for about 60 clients nationwide filed from 2017 through 2013. This cost the IRS a tax loss of about $17 million.

Clients, largely business owners, were directed to to assign or “donate” nearly all of their income to sham trusts and a so-called “private family foundation” to create the illusion that the income was not theirs. However, these were nothing more than bank accounts designed to hold funds the clients earned and continued to control.

 H&R Block increased its market share with do-it-yourself filers but that was offset by a decline in market share with its assisted tax preparation, the company said in discussing its results for the first quarter ended March 31.

CEO Jeff Jones said during the company’s recent earnings webcast that paid volumes in DIY grew about 6 percent. On the assisted side, while Block performed well with higher-income taxpayers with the fastest growing segment those who earn $100,000 or more a year, “We still have work to do in lower-income segments,” Jones said. He noted Block halted the loss of files claiming the Earned Income Tax Credit.

Overall, revenue from DIY filers rose 18.9 percent to $198.6 million for the most recently ended period, up from $167 million a year earlier. Assisted preparation revenue reached $1.53 billion an increase of 5.6 percent from $1.45 for last year’s corresponding period.

Total revenue was $2.55 billion, up 4.4 percent from $2.44 billion. Net income jumped 34.2 percent to $337.5 million from $251.4 million.

Jones said its AI Tax Assist product performed well in its first year. ‘Feedback indicated that the tool was easy to use and helpful in the tax prep process, and clients found value in it,” he said. “Importantly, we saw greater conversion among new clients who leveraged AI Tax Assist.” J

Block also piloted GenAI for improving call center performance and Jones claimed the accuracy of the AI system was higher than competing systems.
In addition, the number of customers using assisted services virtually increased by more than 25 percent year-over-year. “We expect this number to continue to grow in thefuture,” Jones said.

Jones also pointed to a wide range of changes in the company, including a new tax platform and new telephone system. Block also changed  its tax professional compensation model and introduced a new system for measuring performance to the individual preparer.

 A U.S. District Court has barred Aric Elliot Schreiner and his company, the Columbia CPA Group, from abusing the use of charitable remainder annuity trusts for tax dodges. He has also been ordered this month to disgorge $400,000 in proceeds he earned.

The court order prohibits Scheiner and Columbia from organizing, promoting, selling or marketing tax schemes involving the use of CRATs. Scheiner is the last of six defendants that were sued in February 2022 to have agreement to a permanent injunction.

The government alleges Schreiner told customers that via use of the CRATs they could avoid reporting the sale of property to the IRS and paying federal income tax by utilizing the following steps:

*Transferring to a CRAT;                                                                                                                                                                                    *Stepping-up the cost basis in the property on tax documents;                                                                                                                           *Selling the property and using the sale proceeds to purchase an annuity;                                                                                                                   *Receiving payments from the annuity but failing to report the annuity payments as income on tax forms. 

Schreiner prepared tax forms to implement the scheme.

Wolters Kluwer is introducing generative AI to its tax and accounting suite. The company has also taken steps to dramatically reduce the possibility of error—the widely talked about hallucinations.

The company has added GenAI to CCH AnswerConnect, its tax research software, to provide faster research and to enable customers to employ plain language in framing queries.

However, it is not allowing the system to find information outside of Wolters Kluwer’s own source material, according to Dean Sonderegger, SVP and general manager for Canada and Research & Learning for Wolters Kluwer TAA North America.

“We ground the result so that is only based on our content sets,” says Sonderegger. “It significantly reduces probability of hallucination.”

With AnswerConnect in a beta mode, the plans are for a research summarizer and a client letter generator. WK also introduced a invitation-only AI Labs for select users to work with products under consideration.

A major goal of using GenAI in research is to speed up the process. “It doesn’t obviate your need to do your diligence,” Sonderegger says. “But takes 80 percent of the time away. He notes WK has not performed a time-and-motion study to quantify the savings.

WK research has typically used a keyword relevant-based search “that gets boosted by our editorial folks,” he says. “We also augment that so when certain questions come trough we have an editorially curated answer comes back.”

Gen AI can more quickly return definitions and cite relevant results and generally enable workers without great expertise to conduct basic searches.

It can also be used to write summaries that can lessen the amount of time someone conducting a search must spend writing. The resulting narrative, Sonderegger says “doesn’t have to be 100-percent finished.” 

Gen AI can produce a first draft that is 80-percent finished which can then be edited. can so be used refine writing—such as asking the system to remove jargon or simplify the writing.

Sonderegger says Wolters Kluwer envisions GenAi enabling firms to get more out of data—detecting “quiet patterns of fact and circumstance”.  For example, instead of providing generic information about tax consequences of divorce, GenAI-equipped AnswerConnect should be able to tailor answers to a specific couple’s circumstances.

SafeSend, which makes software for assembling and emailing tax returns, has named Mathieu Stevenson, as CEO. He replaced Scott Fleszar, who announced his departure right after the April 15 tax deadline.

Fleszar joined the company as chief operating and strategy officer in November 2019 and became CEO in November 2020. His LinkedIn profile now calls him a senior advisor. Stevenson spent the early part of his career at McKinsey & Company, focused on technology and financial services, where he served one of the Big 4 tax and accounting firms. Since then, he has held senior leadership roles at several high growth companies, including TaxAct and Avantax. Most recently he served as CEO of Snagajob, the largest software enabled marketplace for hourly work.

 Scott Fleszar is leaving SafeSend, which he has served as CEO since November 2020. Although Fleszar announced the change in a LinkedIn post, the SafeSend website still shows Fleszar on its leadership page and the company has not announced his departure.

Fleszar came to the company as chief operating and strategy officer in November 2019. He listed no specific plans saying, “I plan to take a breath, reflect, recharge and plan purposefully what’s next."

SafeSend’s suite of products is built around SafeSend Returns, which enables staff to assemble, deliver and collect e-signatures for tax returns.

Fleszar came to SafeSend after working for 20 years seven months at Thomson Reuters, and came to Thomson after its purchase of the former Creative Solutions, which originated the UltraTax tax preparation software that Thomson still markets.

 The Iris Software Group has named Neel Lee Chauhan as chief product officer. 

Iris owns several accounting firm products, including Practice Engine, Iris Star Practice Mangement, Doc.It. and the AccountantsWorld product line.

Chauhan is responsible for the strategic direction and management of the Iris portfolio of more than 100 products and will work with the engineering, product, and commercial teams to execute a product roadmap.

He previously worked at FiServ for four years three months where his titles included GM and VP of product management for credit and retail processing. Before that, he had leadership roles at ADP and Google, working slightly more than four years at each.

Centri Business Consulting has named Pavlo Ageyev as a partner. Ageyev joined the Philadelphia, Pa.-based firm in January.

Centri cited Ageyev’s experience in the technology, life sciences, manufacturing and distribution, retail and consumer products, and media and advertising fields in its announcement. 

Ageyev  joined Centri from BDO USA, where he most recently served as an Audit Partner within the firm’s Technology, Retail, and Consumer Products industry groups. He was with BDO from October 2007 through December.

Avalara has established a online portal of a key part of its new partner program. 

The indirect tax company say the Avalara Partner Portal, provides access to such services as technical support, sales and marketing resources and the engagement desk. 

In its statement, Avalara said, “Partners have access to a richer portfolio of financial incentives that allow them to reach their full potential when bringing opportunities to Avalara.” Other incentives include co-marketing and training.

The company’s channel is comprised by accountants, consulting partners, and technology partners who participate through three primary methods: referring, expanding services and building integration

States are reducing transaction thresholds for tax online goods and services, according to Avalara Tax Changes 2024 special report. 

Driven by the volume of inexpensive goods that could be taxed, the change is likely to be assisted by the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Governing Board which is encouraging members to elimination transaction thresholds.

“The SST states are the majority of states that have a transaction threshold,” Scott Peterson, Avalara’s VP of government relations, and former Executive Director of SST, said in a prepared statement. “If they get rid of it then very few states will have it.” 

Peterson notes that since the Wayfair decision from the U.S. Supreme Court gave states the right to tax online sales from companies outside their borders, states have realized there are many very inexpensive products which produce an amount of tax less than the cost of compliance.

Fourteen states—largely south and southwestern—never imposed thresholds: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Another ten estates—heavily northern—have reduced thresholds California, Colorado, lowa, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin

Thomson Reuters has acquired 60 percent of the shares of Pagero, a Swedish company that markets software for the e-invoicing, which is increasingly required by countries around the world. The growing importance of e-invoicing was underscored by a press released from Avalara, which withdrew its bid for Pagero last week.

“E-invoicing is the clear direction for the future of compliance. It’s important to remember that countries that don’t have mandatory e-invoicing requirements now will have them in the future,”  Alex Baulf, VP of E-Invoicing at Avalara, said in a prepared statement . 

Thomson beat out two rivals in the indirect tax software space, Vertex and Avalara. 

 The value of Thomson’s purchase of 53.8 percent of the Pagero has been estimated at $627 million. However, since it won the bid, the stake has been raised to 60 percent of Pagero shares, Thomson CEO Steve Hasker said ina recent investor webcast.

Thomson noted that more than 80 countries have required or announced plans for e-invoicing, which gives governments greater insight into the amount of revenue and indirect taxes generated by sales.

 Avalara says it is improving data import for Avalara Returns for Accountants and Avalara Managed Returns for Accountants. The indirect tax software company says this is being accomplished via five new API extractors.

"The goal of the extractors is to create a more streamlined and efficient way for firms to import data into the Returns console," the company said in a prepared statement.

These capabilities were announced simultaneously with additional integrations of its products with ERP systems.

Avalara is providing its ninth integration for the Salesforce Service Cloud, which will enable sales tax calculation on service- and product-related line items within the Service Cloud and gives customers the ability to easily map custom fields from Salesforce to Avalara AvaTax.

In addition, Avalara E-Invoicing and Live Reporting are now available for Oracle Cloud Fusion ERP. ELR was introduced this year to enable companies operating in other countries to simplify compliance in these areas.