New Products

Andersen and after

And You Thought Accountants Were Boring: My Life Inside Arthur Andersen

Larry R. Katzen; hardcover -- $25.95, e-book -- $8.95

It's been over a decade, but the demise of Arthur Andersen continues to affect the profession -- and the lives of its former staff and partners. One of them, former Great Plains regional managing partner Larry Katzen, has penned a memoir that both extols the very real virtues of the firm, which was a pioneer and a model for many others, and gives a fascinating glimpse into what it was like to work there when Andersen was at its height, and as it came crashing down in the aftermath of Enron. And as a lagniappe, he also draws 15 valuable lessons from his life at the firm and outside it.

 

No gnome for you

ACA Decision Support Tool, and Checkpoint Credits and Incentive Pinpointer

Thomson Reuters

www.thomsonreuters.com

There is one person who reads and understands everything that the various levels of government in the U.S. put out -- but he's a gnome with a head the size of a medicine ball who lives in a bunker underneath Mount Rushmore, where the president can consult him from time to time to find out just what, exactly, the government means. Fortunately, in at least two new areas, the rest of us can rely on things like Thomson Reuters' ACA Decision Support Tool, and its Checkpoint Credit and Incentive Pinpointer. The first lets you input data about a particular client and receive an analysis of what the health care reform act means for that company, how they can become compliant, and how it will affect them, while the second helps companies identify statutory credits and incentives that are available for an industry or location. It's basically the gnome's treasure map -- though it only works for users of Thomson Reuters' Checkpoint research platform.

 

Making Outlook useful

TaskCracker for Outlook V. 1.1

TaskCracker

www.taskcracker.com

Since it's Outlook and its constant flow of mostly meaningless e-mails that most commonly distracts us from important tasks, it's only appropriate that TaskCracker should enlist the ubiquitous program to help people better manage their to-do lists. The add-in integrates with Outlook to give individuals and administrators the ability to visually designate the importance and the urgency of a task, so they and their staff (or their clients) know what to do first (which, in most cases, is not to answer that e-mail that just came in). It lets users sort tasks by time and priority, and better manage their teams and their workflow.

 

A strategy for strategies

Stratagem: Simple, Effective Strategic Planning for Your Business and Your Life

Smart Business Network

Anyone can set a strategy -- it's implementing one that's hard. And that often comes down to two things: Applying a static document becomes harder and harder the further you get from the date the document was created, and many firm strategies don't take into account the growing integration of work life and personal life. Stratagem offers a way around those issues, by turning "strategy" from a document into a process, and by showing firm leaders how to align their business and their personal goals. Written by thought leaders Jay Nisberg, Gary Shamis and Sandy Manson, it brings a lot of hands-on expertise and wisdom to an entirely new way of planning your future.

 

New relief

Payroll Relief 2.0

AccountantsWorld

www.accountantsworld.com/pr

AccountantsWorld has released a new version of its cloud-based payroll solution, Payroll Relief. With a streamlined interface for both accountants and clients, the new release is fully compatible with all major browsers and mobile platforms. Among the additions to the solution are a new Payroll Center for managing and monitoring your practice; more flexible payroll processing; easier employer set-up; fully customizable reports; an E-Services Dashboard; and expanded processing and reports for contractors.

 

Mobile Axcess

CCH Axcess apps

CCH, a part of Wolters Kluwer

http://cchgroup.com

CCH has renamed and enhanced its ProSystem fx Mobile app to tie it into its big new CCH Axcess single-platform, single-database tax practice application. The CCH Axcess Apple and Android apps include a new Client Dashboard feature to give users a quick overview in one place, an updated Client Favorites view, and a variety of new functionality for specific modules, including new search, filter and display capabilities for CCH Axcess Document, and much more.

 

Get SaaSy

Paychex SaaS platform

Paychex Inc.

www.paychex.com

Payroll and human resources services provider Paychex has launched a new Software-as-a-Service platform that lets users access all of its services -- payroll, time and attendance, HR, benefits, training, and performance management -- in one place with one sign-on. With all of a company's data in one source, administrators only have to update an employee's record once, and they now have a single place to go for over 140 standard and customizable reports. There's also a mobile app that lets both employees and employers access a customized dashboard of favorite tasks.

 

Think like a thief

A.B.C.'s of Behavioral Forensics: Applying Psychology to Financial Fraud Prevention and Detection

Wiley; $60

Those of us who have never committed fraud often look at those who have and wonder, "How could they do it?" That incomprehension is a serious impediment to fighting fraud, as it prevents us from being able to predict what will drive someone to it, and how they'll act once they've embarked on their crimes. A.B.C.'s of Behavioral Forensics dives deeper into the mental states that drive fraudsters than most books on the subject, using real-life examples to give you a sense of what's going on inside their very messed-up heads - as well as tools and insights to help combat them.

 

Decent haste

SAP Business ByDesign Sunset Migration Program

NetSuite Inc.

www.netsuite.com

While it's ordinarily customary to wait until someone's actually dead before fighting over the inheritance, we'll make an exception here and say that NetSuite isn't acting with indecent haste in beginning to try to poach users of SAP's Business ByDesign before the program has gone away. After all, SAP has confirmed they won't be doing much more to develop it, so companies that have implemented it will definitely want to start looking for an alternative - and they may find NetSuite's offer of a free one-year subscription and free data migration more attractive than the uncertainty they're currently facing.

 

New and improved!

Cloud hosting services provider Cloud9 Real Time has released CP9 Mobile, a new mobile app to let users access all of their desktop software applications on iPads and iPad Minis. ... The American Institute of CPAs' Financial Reporting Executive Committee and Impairment Task Force have released the final version of the new AICPA Accounting and Valuation Guide, Testing Goodwill for Impairment. ... Thomson Reuters has launched an online community for corporate tax professionals who use its products, particularly its ONESOURCE tax platform. ... Billtrust has released EmailPlus, a billing and payment solution that lets companies easily send - and customers easily pay - invoices. ... SmartVault recently announced new integrations with automated expense reporting developer Nexonia, and with Canon's imageFormula document scanners. ... Metafile has released a Fast Track Implementation solution for integrating its Metaviewer paperless technology tool for corporate accounting departments with Microsoft Dynamics ERP platforms.

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