Intuit is expected to announce this week, QuickBooks Connect, a first-time major conference that will draw accountants and small business owners. The event is scheduled to begin on October 21 through 23 in San Jose, Calif., and the company is reportedly talking about attendance of between 4,000 and 7,000, expected to include developers and entrerepeneurs getting ready to start businesses.

Intuit Practice Management, which was supposed to be an important online product for the CPA market, is no longer being displayed on the company's website. It is the latest development in the convoluted history of a product that ad trouble getting to market.

Intuit will spend $360 million to purchase Check, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that makes payment application for mobile users. This is the third acquisition Intuit has announced since the beginning of May. It  has acquired Lettuce, an inventory management application, and Invitco, whose software handles accounts payable processing. The Check deal is expected to close by July 31, Intuit said this week.

The number of North American users of online accounting software vendor Xero tripled over the last year. But the company’s penetration of the market on this continent remained under one percent, Xero said this month in its report of financial results for the year ended March 31. And overall, the company’s loss also grew.