Intuit has made major enhancements to its Generative AI Operating System to include GenOS AI Workbench for application development.

The software company also made enhancements to the system’s GenStudio, GenRuntime, and GenUX components

Intuit describes Workbench as a new foundational component to the OS in includes LLM Leaderboard, a tool for quickly identifying the best large Large Language Models for specific uses. It offers model cards to help technical and non-technical members of product development teams understand the context, performance, and applications for which an LLM may be the best match.

In addition, there is Prompt Management, a tool to help developers create, iterate, and deploy prompts faster throughout the GenAI development process via a systematic way to store, version, retrieve, manage and templatize prompts.

Another new tool is Evaluation Service for evaluating LLM and GenAI application performance (quality, latency, cost) using a wide range of services integrated into existing workflows—and augmented with manual testing—so developers with any level of GenAI proficiency can build customer experiences.

Accounting software vendor Xero has launched Xero Inventory Plus, for small goods-based businesses.

The updated software now integrates with Amazon’s Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program. The company said the inventory package was integrated with Shopify “in the early phases of product development.”

Inventory Plus syncs product information, sales orders and inventory via low stock alerts and offers the ability to set reorder points. It provides a complete fulfillment process; with embedded shipping features powered by Shippo,

In addition, the company said the software makes it “easy and fast to connect new sales channels and get set up to sell to customers with a simple guided onboarding process and an easy-to-use interface.”

Inventory Plus enables accountants and bookkeepers keep their books up to date and gives a clear view of clients’ inventory levels and margins.

SafeSend has introduced what it calls Next Gen Gather AI in its new SafeSend One product.

The updated software’s Next Gen Gather AI is included as part of a new Premium tier package. SafeSend says Gather AI automatically generates “a document request list, identifies and categorizes uploaded documents, provides real-time visibility into document completion status, and ensures a frictionless document gathering process for both firm and client.”

SafeSend says Gather AI enables the application to do the following:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  *Bulk generate Document Request Lists (DRLs) in seconds;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Sort and identify common source documents for both customers and clients'                                                                                                                                                                                                                  *Provide real-time notifications when source documents are uploaded;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 *Give real-time visibility into client completion status.

Business belief in the impact of artificial intelligence is growing rapidly, according to the second annual survey of professionals by Thomson Reuters in its Future of Professionals report.

The survey of 22,000 respondents found 77 percent will have a high or transformational impact on their careers, up from 67 percent in the first study.

Thomson’s report takes consistently optimistic tone about the Impact of AI and at one point noted, “there seemed to be a general ebbing of the initial fears around AI, especially around job loss and the technology’s potential for malicious use.”

Overall, 78 percent of respondents believe AI is a force for good in their profession. Within the tax and accounting and global trading segment, 84 percent see the impact of AI positive. The average was pulled down by the 72 percent of legal professionals who held the same view

North American respondents had the lowest rate of optimism, but still 74 percent had a positive view of AI. The high rate was from the 94 percent of Latin American respondents who voice that opinion.

 It is impossible to escape the phrases AI and generative AI. So what does artificial intelligence and genAI mean for providing payroll service>. Is genAI something for processing payroll today or is it something for the future, changes that will come to improve the system? Or is it a little bit of both? Payroll Meets AI takes a look at what providers are offering the market and what will come.

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There seemed only one choice in discussing major trends among Mid-Market resellers—the impact of artificial intelligence. At times, it seems the only topic in technology and the Special Report, The Mid-Market Faces the AI Revolution, covers the trend impacting VARs. But there is more than AI going on as private equity investments have an increasing impact in the reselling and accounting firm space. Of course, there is the selection of Bob Scott’s Top 100 VARs itself and this year’s list honors a lot of family names, but also reflects the changing nature of the list.

 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.

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.

The Internal Revenue Service says it has received $172 million from 21,000 wealthy taxpayers who have not filed tax returns since 2017..

The money was received in the first six months of the program targeting well-to-do delinquents. The IRS is targeting those with more than $1 million in income and more than $250,000 in recognized tax debt.

Last fall, the IRS targeted 1,600 high-income individuals and had received $1 billion by July with another $100 million received since.

A Virginia Beach, Va., woman has been sentenced to four years in prison for stealing more than $1 million from a small business client. Maria Gene Reich, 45 was convicted of writing checks on the accounts of a company she served.

Reich was president of ASOC. Inc., which did business as On Call Accountants, which offered a variety of business services to clients, including preparing checks and scheduling payments for the unnamed client. She was convicted of two counts of wire fraud because although she had no signature authority for the company butt used a stamp with the owner's signature to write checks and had online access to its accounts.

Given the agreement between Reich and her client, she should have earned a maximum of $98,400 for services rendered between January 2015 and December 2018. Instead, she made 366 payments to her Capital One person and business credit card counts of about $629,265 in client funds.

In addition, she applied to the Small Business Administration for a $150,000 Economic Injury Disaster Loan on the client’s behalf. The loan was received in May 2020 and in April $2021, she asked for a total $500,000, which was also approved by the SBA.

However, Reich immediately transferred $150,000 to her own accounts and on Sept. 27, 2020, withdrew about $93,416 from her savings account for a home in Virginia Beach, where she and her family live.

Reich deposited EIDL funds in her children’s bank accounts and also made payments for her mortgages, credit cards, personal loan, and life insurance policy. She used the remaining $350,00 of the loan to pay for a variety of personal expenses.

 The Internal Revenue Service reports that it has made significant progress in services stemming from increase funding provided by the Inflation Reduction Act.

Among these improvements is a customer callback option, which the agency says is now available to up to 97 percent of callers seeking lave assistance, The IRS said the service was offered to more than 11 million taxpayers during the tax season through July. 

The IRS is also rolling out conversational voice technology, available in English and Spanish, which can route calls based on the words used by calling taxpayerw,

In addition, this year, the IRS added extended hours at 242 Taxpayer Assistance Center and also offered Saturday services in more than 70 locations. The report says that the centers experienced a 37-percent increase in face-to-face contacts.

Additional improvements are expected to stem from implementation of a new tool and improved workforce management processes for the call center operations which will offer on improved call volume forecasting and dynamic scheduling to roll out in 2025 and 2026.

 A Connecticut accountant has pleaded guilty to failing to report more than $1.4 million in business income.

Sixty-year old Mark Legowski of Farmington pleaded guilty last month to filing false tax returns.

A self-employed accountant and tax return preparer, he operated under the name Legowski and Co. Court records showed that he reported returns for from 400 to 500 individual clients and 50 to 60 businesses.

For the tax years, 2015 to 2017, Legowski under-reported the firm’s gross receipts by excluding some customer payment checks from the firm’s bookkeeping system, and applying that false amount to his business returns

The Internal Revenue Service said it had a tax loss of $499,289.

 BerryDunn, a CPA firm based in Portland, Maine, has named new practice group leaders, directors and principals.

The practice leaders include CPA and principal, Dave Erp, who has served as tax practice group leader, and was promoted to commercial practice group leader. principal and PMP Dan Vogt was named management and IT consulting practice group leader.

Those promoted to director were CPA Tyler Waldrupe, who was made director of tax services, will lead the technical development of the tax team and recruitment efforts Lindsay Doak, an MBA, was selected as director of healthcare research and education.

Individuals promoted to principal were the following:  Katharine Balukas, CPA, in the not-for-profit practice group; Mary Dowes, CPA, in the healthcare practice group; Chris Mouradian, CPA, in the healthcare practice group; Jodi Reynolds, CPA, in the commercial practice group; Ryan Warren, CPA, in the commercial practice group.

BerryDunn also promoted Julie Sullivan, CCP to principal of the state government consulting practice group, and Tucker Cutter, COBIT, to principal of the management and IT consulting practice group.

CBIz has named Donna Mirandola as its chief marketing officer. She replaces Mark Waxman, who retired at the end of 2023, after more than 22 years with the firm.

Mirandola joined the firm from Aon, where she worked for nearly nine years. She was most recently Aon’s CMO, growth marketing, a title she held for two years 10 months.

Her experience there included three global VP roles, including global external communications, global content and digital marketing and field marketing and communications.

The Pun Group, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based accounting firm has added two professional Bernard Gallagher, MBA and Sophia Kuo, CPA, MBA, to its staff.

The Pun Group, a Santa Rosa, Calif.-based accounting firm has added two professional Gallagher, MBA and Sophia Kuo, CPA, MBA, to its staff, according to a press release last month.

 His background includes extensive work in SOCS, HIPAA compliance, IT security assessments and enterprise risk management. 

Gallagher joined the firm as director of advisory services in April, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he was with IS Partners from December 2009 until taking the job with the accounting firm. At IS Partners, he was a principal in the IT Advisory and Security Services.

Prior to that, Gallagher spent two years in the IT Audit practice of KPMG and almost five years in the same field with PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Kuo, who was promoted, in April and has extensive experience in auditing with advanced certifications in Single Audits and is serving as Engagement/Project Director, overseeing audit team operations and ensuring seamless service delivery within specified timelines. 

She was in CLA in between her tenures. Kuo was previously with the Pun Group from April 2014 to May 2021 moving from audit staff to audit manager.

 Accounting firm Anchin has made Brian Sackstein a partner in the firm’s Services Group and Leader of Anchin’s Not-for-Profit and Healthcare practice this month.

Sackstein provides audit, accounting, and management advisory services for a wide range of the NFP sector including social service organizations, permanency and adoption services, residential group care, drug treatment programs, community & migrant programs, and federally qualified health centers.

He was previously a partner with accounting firm Armanino from June 2022 until taking the new position this month. Before that, he was a partner with Prager Metis CPAs from June 2019 through June 2022.

He was previously a partner with Berdon for almost two years; with Marcum for four-and-a-half years and was a director with RSM McGladrey for six years four months.

 Avalara has introduced Avi, a generative AI chatbot, available on the Avalara Global Support Portal and the Avalara Portal product interface.

“Avi provides conversational support to help customers and partners find answers and resolve issues faster and easier,” the sales tax software company said in prepared statement.

Avalara trains Avi on its knowledge base and the chatbot constantly learns from its experiences, which Avalara said enables Avi to provide faster answers to product questions, assist in troubleshooting common issues, and offer direction to additional resources.

Avalara said additional new AI-driven products will be available soon.

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.