Thomson Reuters has announced it will incorporate generative artificial intelligence features into products, including Checkpoint Edge next year.

The new AI capabilities will be released with Westlaw, Practical Law and Drafting in the second half of this year. Those capabilities will debut next year with Tax and Compliance, Risk and Fraud

A demonstration is planned at the Microsoft Build conference in Seattle Wash., this week. 

The demo will feature Legal Drafting and Copilot for Word, which will create a draft contact in minutes utilizing a Thomson Reuters plugin and the will draw content Westlaw, Practical Law, and Document Intelligence

Thomson noted it said early this year it intends to invest $100 million annual on AI capabilities.

 Expensify Chat has been introduced this week. Based on New Expensify, the company says its chat is designed to consolidate conversations such as tracking tasks, communication and payments.

Eliminating separation discussions is important to accountants, according to CEO 

David Barrett. “This is a problem that affects all industries, but especially accountants, and is something Expensify is excited to solve with Expensify Chat,” Barret said in prepared statement.

Task management provides accountants the ability to assign to-do’s to clients directly within Expensify. Chat enables accountants to collaborate with clients in gathering information, tracking expenses, and completing tasks related to financial reporting and tax filing, Expensify says.

Canopy has integrated ChatGPT in its practice management software. The bot enables user to creating email messages by entering key words. fter key words are added, users adjust levels for formality for the message.

Messages can be rephrased and spelling and grammar corrected. A beta test was conducted at the end of April with the feature expected to be available this month to the entire customer base.

“We see opportunities to leverage AI in every module of our software and are already working on integrating it in other areas and workflows.” CEO Davis Bell said in a prepared statement.

The beta test of the feature utilizes the GPT AI language prediction technology to enable customers to creating email marketing campaigns. Content can be generated based on industry, marketing intent, and brand voice.

The company says Mailchamp has more than 20 AI and data science features, such as Creative Assistant, Content Optimizer, Send-Day and Send-Time Optimization, Predictive Segmentation, and Product Recommendations. Within the email editor tool, customers can see three options of copy, with users ablet to select one by dragging and dropping that one into their campaign.

Among the tools, Send Day Optimization takes the date range for a campaign and recommends the best day to send an email within that range based on industry benchmarks. With Send Time Optimization, Mailchimp adjusts the time to send an email at a predicted optimal time. Content Optimizer helps marketers to create and design marketing content, utilizing analysis based on industry best practices.

Creative Assistant imports marketers’ brand assets and houses them in a brand kit so they can be used to populate marketing with auto-generated designs. In addition, Mailchimp uses e-commerce data, like individual purchase history and patterns, to help marketers estimate customers’ lifetime value and likelihood to purchase again, for those that integrate ecommerce stores and/or QuickBooks Online accounts with the Mailchimp platform.

Customer Journey Builder’s Next Action Recommendations help marketers analyze the behavior of similar users to recommend steps to add to a customer journey.

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”.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant changes to most segments of business. That includes payroll where remote work, staff shortages and resignations have steered businesses to their advisors to increasingly ask questions about human resource issues. And there is the complexity of businesses that have unexpectedly found themselves with worker in many different jurisdictions. This special report examines the significant changes faced by accounting professionals who deal with the payroll and people issues faced by their clients.

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.

A New York tax preparer and his client with submitted more than 100 application through the Paycheck Protection program, the United States alleges. 

The preparer, Sandeep Grover, and his client, Shikha Sehgal are accused of obtaining more than $13 million in PPP loans from seven financial institutions

 Grover, age 54 of Massapequa, N.Y., is the owner of Excellent Business Services, a tax preparer firm, based in Seaford, N.Y. The Justice Department alleges he recruited Sehagl and others to open accounts for companies with no business, creating fake invoices and documentation in order to apply for PPP loans.

According to the charges, bank records show Grover moved millions of dollars in loan proceeds between many accounts his controlled, using those funds to purchase property, pay off personal loans, and pay expenses for other companies he owned.

Grover is also accused of misusing the IDs of one of his employees to obtain a loan.

Both Grover and Sehal are accused of major fraud against the U.S. and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud as a result of the alleged offenses Grover. is also charged with one count of aggravated identity theft,

a loan.

Intuit expects the number of TurboTax customers to drop by 5 percent this year. The company said recently its results are mirroring the drop in individual tax returns submitted to the Internal Revenue Service.

CEO Sasan Goodarzi said during the recent webcast for earnings for the third quarter ended April 30, the company expects a 1 percent drop in TurboTax Online customers and a drop in the number of customers that pay Intuit nothing to more than 11 million, down from 13 million a year ago.

The. result was TurboTax revenue will about $200 million lower than the company’s original expectations.

The number of IRS returns fell by 2 percent with drop in the DIY category, “The company believes this was driven by taxpayers who filed in order to receive pandemic-era stimulus and tax credits during the past several years but did not file taxes this season,” Goodarzi said.

Intuit expects total TurboTax units to drop by 5 percent with thethe number of TurboTax Online units dropping by 1 percent.

However, the average revenue per run is expected to rise by 12 percent year-over-year while Intuit anticipates TurboTax Live revenue to grow by 19 percent and number of customers will rise by roughly 13 percent.

Revenue from assisted tax preparation increased by 4.4 percent for the second quarter ended March 1 for H&R Block. But a drop in DIY preparation and refund transfer revenue left the held the overall revenue increase to 1.5 percent.

Net income fell to $643.4 million, down 4.1 percent from $673.2 million.

Two days after the filing of the company’s Form 10Q, Block announced the departure of Karen A. Orosco, who had been with the company since March 2023. Orosco, who will leave the company on July 1, had served as president of global consumer tax and service delivery since June 2021.

Assisted revenue rose to $1.45 billion in the most recently ended period, from $1.39 billion a year ago. Overall revenue was $2.09 billion, compared to $2.06 billion.

Block said DIY revenue dropped to slightly more than $167 million from $175.2 million in last year’s corresponding period. Revenue from refund transfers fell 11.2 percent to $117.4 million from $132.2 million

The Internal Revenue Service has submitted a report to Congress about its plans to pilot a Direct File option for taxpayers in the 2024 filing season. The study is evaluating the feasibility offerings a free, voluntary IRS-run electronic filing system.

The IRS said it found many taxpayers are interesting in using a free, IRS-provided system for preparing and field taxes. Its Taxpayer Experience Survey surveyed opinions of thousands of taxpayers about the topic.

“Direct File, used by numerous tax jurisdictions around the world, has long been discussed as an option for improving the customer experience for taxpayers in the U.S.,” IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. Said in a prepared statement.

The agency is already technically capable of delivering a Direct File program. It says effective executive of the plan would require “a sustained budget investment and careful management of the potential program's operational complexity.”

The report focuses on taxpayer opinions, cost and feasibility and includes an analysis conducted by an independent third party, while laying 

 Sikich says Richard Lynch and Antony Nettleton will become its next leaders of its CPA business. They replace Tom Krehbiel, who is retiring in January

Krehbiel, who joined Sikich in June 1986, became managing partner of the CPA business early in 2015.

Lynch joined Sikich in 2011 as a partner in the not-for-profit and higher education practices. Prior to that, he spent 13 years three months with McGladrey & Pullen (now RSM)

Nettleton came to the firm as partner-in-charge of Sikich’s assurance practice, later assuming responsibility of the Northern Illinois market. He previously served as global leader of assurance, quality and enterprise risk at Grant Thornton International.

Macias Gini & O’Connell has named Cesar Reynoso as leader of its Public Company Practice.  

The Los Angeles, Calif..-based firm said the area is its fastest-growing practice and also its largest service line, whose offerings, include financial statement audits, integrated audits, IPO services and Sarbanes Oxley compliance. 

Reynoso joined MGO in 2018 from Benjamin & Young where he was a partner in 2017 and 2018. Prior to that he was with Marcum from as an office senior manager for three years and an audit manager for three years with Cohn Reznik. He spent 2004 through 2012 at Baker Tilly

 Armanino has promoted partner and Midwest market leader Tony Caleca to the position of manufacturing industry leader. The accounting firm said that move comes as it is expanding its analytical and operational technology offerings for manufacturers.

Armanino plans to introduce new service offerings throughout this year. It also will expand its ESG-related advisory services for the manufacturer market.

The firm said Caleca, based in St. Louis, “will now spearhead the development of key technology service offerings to directly address manufacturer and distribution client needs.”

Caleca joined Armanino with the acquisition of Brown Smith Wallace, where he was managing partner, in August 2021. He joined that firm after graduating from Fontbonne University in 1992.

 Jason Marx, who heads North America Tax & Accounting for Workers Kluwer, will become CEO of the company’s global Tax & Accounting division next month.

That move is made possible as the current leader, Karen Abramson, will take over as CEO of the newly formed Corporate Performance & ESG  (environmental, social and governance) division next. Abramson has headed the tax and accounting operations for nine years.

The new group is designed to serve corporations and banks and brings together CCH Tagetik, Enablon, Finance Risk & Reporting and TeamMate. That reorganization leaves tax and accounting smaller, as TeamMate and Tagetik, which are currently under the division, and are among the company’s growth products.

Tagetik is a corporate performance product and TeamMate is designed for internal audit.

WK says the Enablon Integrated Risk Management software platform enables users to “manage risk, drive sustainability and boost productivity across your entire value chain—from EHSQ to GRC, and from Operational Risk to ESG.”

Avalara has introduced Avalara E-Invoicing and Live Reporting, a compliance API for multinational businesses.

E-Invoicing can be integrated into systems such as accounting, ecommerce, and ERP applications. It is designed to meet legislative requirements globally.

The sales-and-use tax software company says more than 60 companies have e-invoicing mandates or have announced plans to require e-invoicing and predicts the number may double by 2030. Avalara notes many countries have introduced other digital reporting requirements, including live reporting of invoice data and e-reporting of international sales and purchases.

With Avalara E-Invoicing and Live Reporting, users can accomplish the following:                                                                                                                                                     *Set up global e-invoicing capabilities in their ERP, ecommerce, or accounting systems store, set up their credentials, and configure the app based on their reporting need;                  *Access e-invoice exchange networks and government platforms;                                                                                                                                                                          *Support e-invoicing models by country or region;                                                                                                                                                                                                  *Monitor the status of e-invoices; and                                                                                                                                                                                                                               *Set up archiving. 

 QuickBooks Online can now recommended appropriate sales tax item categories for products and services.

Part of the November enhancements to QBO, the ability means when clients map a product or service to an item category, the rate will always be correct—even when the rate changes.

When items in Products and Services are setup, QBO will make category recommendations when sales tax machine-learning model has high confidence in the sales tax item category. It will prompt customers to edit categories for recommendations when the model has medium-high confidence in the selection.

In addition, Intuit said it has made it easier to migrate desktop QuickBooks data to BQO via the addition of a view-only mode feature. Clients can use this to view their data up to one year after their desktop subscriptions end.

The QuickBooks Online app for Windows QuickBooks Desktop uses who are using a QBO Essentials, Plus or Advanced subscription. The app must be downloaded by December 31 or before 25,000 app downloads have been reached whichever comes first.

 Indirect tax specialist Avalara is being acquired by Vista Equity Partners for $8.3 billion. At $93.50 per share, the all-cash deal is 27-percent higher than the closing share price on August 6.

CEO Scott McFarlane heads Avalara, which he founded in 2004.

At the same time, it reported a loss of $55.8 million second quarter ended June 30, up from a loss of $31 million a year earlier. Revenue for the most recently ended period rose 23 percent to $208.6 million, from $169.1 million a year ago. Subscription revenue of $189.8 million increaed  24 percent from $152.4 million in last year’s corresponding period

Avalara has introduced Transfer Pricing Reports for Accountants. The indirect tax software company this week said the product is designed for use by both transfer pricing experts and non experts at accounting firms.

The system automates the production of U.S. and OECD transfer pricing reports, documenting the process andenabling firms to produce reports for clients in three steps: data collection, documentation review and report generation. 

The application creates templated reports by combining predetermined, fixed benchmarks with a guided questionnaire, which prepopulates data based on transaction types selecied.

Transfer Reports covers both local file and master file for countries that have adopted OECD guidelines. Built-in databased on best practices from publicly available data, covering the Americas, Europe, and Asia.  Reports included built-in, noneditable date and time stamps, benchmark-related appendices, and analysis.

The software also offers management tools with built-in visibility and tracking.