Tech News: AICPA and CPA.com seeking AI startups

August 4, 2023 11:22 AM

AICPA and CPA.com seeking AI startups for 2024 incubator; Canopy Insights tool uses AI to answer accountants' questions; and other news and updates from the accounting technology arena.

AICPA and CPA.com looking for a few good AI startups

The AICPA and CPA.com are seeking applicants for the 2024 Startup Accelerator program, which promotes the growth of early-stage companies to advance accounting and finance. In recognition of the impact that artificial intelligence is poised to have on the accounting and finance profession, this year's program is exclusively targeting companies that are leveraging AI technology within their solutions. The program is open to pre-Series A startups worldwide, offering participants insights from subject matter experts, executives, firms and financial leaders across the profession. Senior leaders from the AICPA and CPA.com, along with the program's advisory board members, will provide strategic advice bolstered by their backgrounds and skills in entrepreneurship, startup tech companies, accounting and finance. Additionally, selected companies will receive a $25,000 grant. To be eligible, firms must focus on accounting, tax, fintech, regulatory technology or educational solutions; leverage AI in their solution; have a working product with active users; and be at seed or pre-Series A stage (with some exceptions). Applications for the 2024 accelerator program will be accepted through Nov. 30, 2023. The 2024 cohort will be showcased next summer at AICPA & CIMA Engage, the largest U.S.-based conference for CPAs. Later in the year, they will also be featured at the CPA.com Digital CPA Conference.

Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks aim to fight “alert fatigue”

Deloitte Canadian office in Ottawa

Brent Lewin/Bloomberg

Big Four firm Deloitte has partnered with cybersecurity specialist Palo Alto Networks to launch Secure Software Development Lifecycle, a product and service offering aimed at both increasing operational efficiencies and reducing "alert fatigue." The product enables shared clients to reinforce their cloud environments with enhanced security measures to promote a development and deployment lifecycle that adheres to their cloud security and compliance requirements. The platform helps clients address cybersecurity requirements from design to tactical deployment, as well as manage their ongoing cloud observability and optimize their operational efficiency. SSDL can be integrated as an overall solution or into an organization's existing Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) pipeline, cloud security infrastructure and compliance ecosystem — and scales across all major cloud platforms. Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks shared clients can leverage the platform for streamlining account provisioning, enabling secure build and deployment processes, implementing logging and monitoring mechanisms, enforcing custom security guardrails and auto remediation. This is part of a larger strategic alliance between the two companies. The existing alliance between Deloitte and Palo Alto Networks focuses on jointly developing and offering integrated, end-to-end Zero Trust and multi-cloud cybersecurity solutions to their mutual enterprise and government customers.

BluXinga provides employee assessment, mental health monitoring

Newly launched BluXinga says it's providing real-time assessment and feedback on employee performance, as well as monitoring their mental health. It allows for feedback on performance and achievements, goal tracking, independent verification of high performance, with the ability to capture positive progress on individual employee resumes, and resources to assist employees in achieving their target goals quicker. The service allows daily "vibe checks," helping keep open lines of communication and providing knowledge of issues regarding employee mental health and team culture.

AICPA debuts tech-centered learning tool

The AICPA Auditing Standards Board's Technology Working Group has developed a new practice aid, Use of Technology in an Audit of Financial Statements, which emphasizes how technology should be seen as a key enabler, elevating audit effectiveness and efficiency for the future. The practice aid goes over the use of technology in performing risk assessments; the value of obtaining an understanding of the entity's use of technology to help auditors determine their use of technology; and examples of automated tools and techniques for performing risk assessment procedures. Part 1 of the practice aid covers "the benefits of leveraging technology in the auditor's risk assessment and of obtaining an understanding of the entity's use of technology, commonly used automated tools and techniques in the auditor's risk assessment," and provides an "example of the auditor's use of technology when performing risk assessment procedures." Based on feedback received on Part 1, more parts may be added to the practice aid to provide additional examples of how technology may be used.

LeaseCrunch rolls out webinar series

LeaseCrunch, a lease accounting solutions provider, announced an upcoming webinar, "Preparing for the Next Phase: Ensuring Long-Term Lease Accounting Success." The webinar, taking place on Aug. 23 at 1:00 p.m. CDT, will explore the crucial steps to prepare for the next chapter of ASC 842 lease accounting implementation. It is the first in a series of webinars scheduled for the next few months in partnership with various organizations:

AGN International on Aug. 1 on "GASB 96: Understanding SBITAs"
LEA Global on Aug. 8 in "Implementing GASB 96: Best Practices for SBITAs";
CPAmerica on Aug. 15 on "Navigating the Next Stage: Best Practices for Lease Accounting Post-Implementation";
AGN International on Aug. 22 on "The Next Hurdle: Day Two for Lease Accounting";
Moore North America on Aug. 29 on "Navigating GASB 96: Key Insights into Accounting and Reporting for Subscription-Based IT Arrangements"; and
Allinial Global on Sept. 5 on "GASB 96 Compliance: Strategies for Successful SBITA Implementation".

To register for LeaseCrunch's Aug. 23 webinar, visit https://www.leasecrunch.com/preparing-for-the-next-phase/.

Xero announces new products at roadshow

Small business accounting solutions provider Xero made several key product announcements at its most recent roadshow. It is partnering with Avalara to enhance its sales tax capacities, allowing users to do things like automatically calculate appropriate sales tax rates on invoices, based on the details entered, such as location; break down a sales tax report into specific states, jurisdictions and more, all in one place; review how sales tax entries were recorded, or dig deeper into transactions as they're reconciled, to trace any discrepancies; and file across multiple jurisdictions using Avalara's automated e-filing capabilities (users can get a discounted rate of 10% as part of this partnership). Users can access a limited preview of this new experience starting Aug. 28 2023.

The company also unveiled Xero Inventory Plus, its new inventory management solution, which is currently in beta. It will automatically keep stock and products up to date, so users know when they're running low; help users find competitive shipping rates, create labels, and track and manage delivery of orders in one place; and generate insights on the true cost and profit margin, top-selling items, whether users are low on stock and more, with a dashboard that allows for drilling into the details.

Xero also announced a W9 management solution to make handling 1099s easier, and a revised invoicing solutions with more automation and customization features than before.

Firms adding generative AI to their products

Linda Bucklin/AlienCat - Fotolia

Accounting software company Canopy released its new Canopy Insights solution, an AI-guided tool to help professionals develop deeper advisory relationships with their clients, and simplify complex firm data. The generative AI solution lets users directly type questions about individual reports, get answers to firm-specific questions such as, "What were our most profitable service items?", create individual reports or aggregate several into a report dashboard, set alerts and schedule reports to be automatically delivered, and access new dashboards in the Clients, Tasks and Time products. To see Canopy Insights in action, watch this overview and this demo video. ... ADP said its AI-driven mobile app, Roll by ADP, now leverages generative AI to offer more HR and payroll support. Roll now draws on ADP's global data store on all aspects of human capital management, from compliance and compensation to diversity, equity, and inclusion and general HR knowledge. Through this data, Roll can answer questions like "Can you help me with a job description for a truck driver that we are hiring?", "How should I conduct a new hire interview? What are some key questions I should ask?", "When should payroll taxes be filed in the U.S.?", and "What are the advantages of contributing to a 401(k) plan compared to other investments?" It also issues proactive reminders for important HR tasks and deadlines, "remembering" previous interactions, and learning over time. Roll by ADP is available to U.S. small business owners now and will be available in Europe this fall. ... Accounting solutions platform Workiva has added generative AI capacities to its cloud platform. New capabilities include the ability to author, edit and rewrite content across the company's entire suite of solutions, ultimately shifting users from being content producers to content editors, as well as access to a digital thought partner and a productivity enhancer that can answer free-form questions anytime during their workflow. The technology is embedded across Workiva's entire platform, enabling customers to leverage the new capabilities anywhere in their workflow.

Partnerships and integrations

CBIZ, a Top 10 Firm, is entering the exclusive beta test for Propense.ai's SaaS platform, which uses AI to find new revenue streams for businesses via its B2B predictive sales intelligence model, enabling firms to streamline their cross-selling revenue. … Crypto accounting software provider Ledgible announced a partnership with DigiShares, a white-label platform enabling compliant issuance, investor management and peer-to-peer trading of tokenized digital assets. DigiShares delivers subscriber investment, trade, and distribution data to the Ledgible platform, while Ledgible will make its tax prep support available to DigiShares issuers, investors and their accountants. … Grant Thornton UK is partnering with cybersecurity platform provider Cynomi to help the firm scale its virtual chief information security officer services business using Cynomi's vCISO platform, which can provide risk and compliance assessments, tailored security policies, actionable remediation plans with prioritized tasks, task management tools for ongoing management and customer-facing reports.

Other news

SaaS collaborative planning platform Finicast has raised $12.8 million in seed funding, led by Celesta Capital. … Tax compliance platform Avalara announced the appointment of channel leader Meg Higgins as senior vice president of Global Partners. Higgins has been at Avalara for four years and most recently served as vice president and general manager of global partner business development and strategy at Avalara and oversaw the acquisition of new partners and commercial negotiations. Prior to that she was the company's vice president and general manager of e-commerce and global marketplaces and expanded Avalara's presence in the space by establishing partnerships with the world's leading ecommerce and marketplace platforms. In her new expanded role, Higgins will be responsible for growing Avalara's channel and technology partner business … AvidXchange, an AP solutions provider, announced that John Feldman has been elevated to the role of chief operating officer and that Doug Anderson has joined AvidXchange as the chief product officer. Feldman joined AvidXchange in 2019 as senior vice president of operations. He will continue to oversee the transformation of the company's service and fulfillment operations around standardization, sourcing and automation. Meanwhile, with more than 20 years of experience, Anderson brings expertise in product strategy, management, design, analytics and operations at scale and will lead the company's product strategy and innovation. … Business solutions provider Datamatics has launched a brand-new website for its suite of CPA outsourcing services. The website serves as a hub for CPA outsourcing solutions, tailored for CPAs and accounting firms.