Tech News: Blue J offers accounting professors free access

Published July 17, 2026 11:16 AM

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Updated July 17, 2026 12:01 PM

1 Min Read

Plus, Canopy touts full tax automation with no handoffs; 4impactdata's 4ID Foresight surfaces risks and opportunities for firms; and other accounting tech news and updates.

Blue J offers accounting professors free access

Tax research platform Blue J announced its new Academic Access Program. The program gives full-time faculty at accredited U.S., Canadian and U.K. colleges and universities free access to Blue J. Faculty accepted into the program can also use Blue J for their own research and scholarship, in addition to classroom instruction. The program is open to full-time professors, lecturers and instructors — and their students — at accredited U.S., Canadian and U.K. universities and colleges teaching tax, law or accounting. It excludes practitioners billing client or firm work, commercial users and nonaccredited institutions. Faculty apply with their name, institutional email and job title; Blue J reviews eligibility within a few business days. Approved faculty and their students can begin using Blue J right away, with no added setup. For more details or to apply, visit bluej.com/academic-access. To further support the next generation of accounting talent, CPA.com is also making a donation to the AICPA Foundation in recognition of Blue J's commitment to providing academic access to its platform.

Canopy touts full tax automation with no handoffs

Practice management solutions provider Canopy launched its Tax Workflow Automation solution, which manages the full tax engagement lifecycle from collecting client documents through preparing and delivering the final return as one unified solution without the need for manual handoffs. Built entirely inside the native Canopy platform, the solution is made up of three connected modules that automate different parts of the tax prep cycle. The Smart Intake module automates document collection and client requests by using AI to generate predictive document request lists, recognize uploaded file types, and rename and organize files. The Smart Prep module allows selected documents to flow from Canopy into integrated partners, where AI extracts data and populates returns; and the Smart Delivery module closes the loop by reading the finalized return PDF to auto-populate delivery details, allowing clients to review, sign required forms like the 8879, and pay invoices in a single step-by-step flow inside the Canopy client portal.

4impactdata's 4ID Foresight surfaces risks and opportunities for firms

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4impactdata, a client retention and growth platform for CPA firms, introduced 4ID Foresight, described as a "strategic foresight layer" that examines a firm's book of business to identify important signals like at-risk revenue and new advisory opportunities up to two years in advance. 4ID Foresight is built on 4impactdata's proprietary decision intelligence engine, which automatically surfaces what needs attention and delivers structured next steps using the best practices of top-performing advisory teams encoded directly into the platform. The product is based on two core capabilities: the Portfolio Monitor and the Opportunity Map. The Portfolio Monitor continuously looks at a practice's entire client portfolio and flags developing risks 18 to 24 months before they escalate to help advisors identify at-risk clients and intervene before financial issues arise. The Opportunity Map reveals unrealized revenue opportunities already sitting inside an existing book of business. Using client personality profiles powered by 4impactdata's intelligence engine, 4ID Foresight helps identify which clients are ready for expanded services, deeper engagement or strategic advisory help, and when to act. The platform, which was selected for the AICPA and CPA.com Startup Accelerator program in 2023, gained former AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon as strategic advisor in 2025.

Optro debuts partner program

GRC solutions provider Optro announced the formal launch of Optro Partner Connect, which replaces legacy frameworks with a modular design centered around distinct partner tracks. It is initially launching with Advisory Partners and Solutions Providers, and a transparent tier structure in which benefits grow as partners do. Supporting every partner is a dedicated Partner Center of Excellence: a team solely focused on partner success that guides firms through onboarding and ongoing "everboarding," helping partners reach their first wins sooner and maintain a clear line of sight on their next stage of growth. Optro intends to weave an AI layer throughout the partner experience to automate repeatable manual tasks, surfacing real-time co-sell guidance in the field, and personalizing each partner's onboarding. Partners choose how they go to market across the Advisory and Solutions Provider tracks, referring, selling or servicing with a transparent tier structure. They can also access a benefits suite spanning role-based training and certification, technical and co-sell support, and co-branded marketing resources. Beyond a searchable partner directory that helps customers find them, qualified partners can build their own solutions, integrations and accelerators with Optro. Through continuous feedback loops and a formal Partner Advisory Board, partners can also participate in roadmap and go-to-market strategy discussions, helping to impact the future of connected GRC alongside Optro's leadership. Comprehensive program briefs, regional guides and deal registration resources are now available to active partners via a unified partner portal.

Rational announces self-onboarding AI employees for firms

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Rational, an AI-focused accounting automation solutions company, unveiled AI employees for accounting firms, said to be capable of onboarding themselves through intelligent user interviews, build a shared company "brain," and independently execute real accounting work. Throughout the process, they follow up for documents and loop in the right team members. The company contrasted its agents against software with AI features, saying its agents "actually do the work." There is no new dashboard to adopt, as Rational's AI employees are supposed to act like real hires. Interaction should be intuitive, said the CEO, without even needing a product training guide. The agents live on the company's Teams and Slack channels, have their own email addresses and can even join meetings.

Qvinci adds new API, dashboard, more

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Financial and performance management solutions provider QVinci announced its Summer 2026 Product Launch with a host of new features and capacities. They include expanded API capabilities that connect financial and operational data across systems; a new CFO Dashboard that gives leaders an executive-level view of key financial metrics, including profitability, cash on hand, at-risk entities and more. Vertical-specific reporting with Parish and School Dashboards for Dioceses provide insights on the financial and operational metrics that matter the most to Catholic dioceses. Enhanced reporting capabilities automate how information is delivered and analyzed. With this release, Qvinci also announced an expansion of its Professional Services portfolio, now providing service offerings for every stage and stakeholder. Qvinci also introduced Qvinci Bookkeeping, a service that combines Qvinci's patented technology with its Austin, Texas-based professional services team and vetted bookkeeping partners to improve data accuracy. Qvinci will showcase the release during an upcoming webinar on July 29.

Expensify offers consolidated travel billing

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Travel and expense solutions provider Expensify announced consolidated travel billing, a new payment option for Expensify Travel that enables businesses to centrally manage travel spend without issuing corporate cards to every traveler or rely on employee reimbursements. It offers the ability to get just one monthly bill for all travel spend with no need for out-of-pocket employee expenses or reimbursement delays. It also provides consolidated visibility into travel spend across the organization, flexible settlement options tied to a designated business bank account, detailed travel statements with trip, traveler, merchant, and booking information, accounting integrations for reconciliation and reporting, and automated credit card authorization form handling for hotels.

Perk announces MCP for travel and spend management AI

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Travel and spend management platform Perk introduced its Model Context Protocol (sort of like an API for AI models), which lets AI assistants connect directly to workplace software. Available today, Perk MCP gives finance teams, travel managers and employees the ability to link Perk to Claude, ChatGPT and other MCP-compatible assistants, accessing their data through natural language. It is also the first in its category to give event managers AI access to their full events program. With Perk Events now integrated via MCP, teams can query upcoming sessions, locations, attendee details and RSVP status directly. Perk said that neither capability exists in any competing MCP today.

Form.io embeds e-signatures directly into applications

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Data solutions provider Form.io announced Form.io E-Sign+, which enables certifiable digital signatures to be embedded directly into applications. The digital signature solution operates entirely within the security boundaries of an enterprise, unlike typical third party solutions. E-Sign+ captures signatures directly against submission data inside a self-hosted technology stack and cryptographically verifies that the signed data hasn't changed since signing. Rather than exporting a document to a signing platform and importing the result back, organizations sign where the data already lives — inside their own environment, governed by their own controls. Users maintain control of data, signature records, APIs and cryptographic key strategy. From there, users can continue producing signed PDFs where needed.

iDenfy introduces "Verify Later" feature

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iDenfy , an identity management solutions company, announced the introduction of its new "Verify Later" feature for its Know Your Business onboarding flow. iDenfy's platform allows the person completing verification to choose "Verify Later" and exit the flow without losing any information already entered. Until now, following up with these users required manual outreach from the partner's team, and the partners were forced to complete verification for the first time, which created some obstacles in the past. The new reminder function automates that step directly on iDenfy's Business Verification dashboard. In the configuration section of the business verification dashboard, partners can now enable reminders for each IDV type: director, representative or sole proprietorship, depending on which roles are applied to their onboarding flow. For each type, partners can set one or more reminder send times, ranging from one hour up to 21 days after the user selects the "Verify Later" option. Once the user completes their IDV, all scheduled reminders for that KYB session stop automatically.

Bottomline CFO Suite now supports stablecoins

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Business payments solutions provider Bottomline announced an expansion of its Bottomline CFO Suite that enables finance teams to access and view stablecoin payments within their existing payment and cash management workflows. The new capability helps enterprise and mid-market organizations explore stablecoin payments within the same controls, visibility and governance frameworks they use to run corporate finance operations. This gives finance teams a way to manage stablecoin activity alongside fiat currency and traditional payment methods, while maintaining established controls, approvals and audit processes. The stablecoin capability is available to enterprise and mid-market customers in the U.K. and U.S. in Q3, with broader availability to follow.

Alexandria Ramirez, from Betterment, winner of Numeric Finance Engineer Cup

The winner of accounting close automation platform Numeric's first annual Finance Engineer Cup is Alexandria Ramirez, senior manager of accounting operations at Betterment. She was one of four finalists, all of whom demonstrated their custom finance operations solutions developed with AI. Ramirez built a solution called Four-Eye Check — a segregation of duties governance layer for AI-driven financial reconciliation. She described it as a governance portal that watches every AI-driven reconciliation, guarantees the math is sealed and forces any correction to follow a dual signature audit trail process. For her victory she received a $5,000 prize. Other finalists included Casey Barry, senior accounting manager with Pulumi, who made 18-Day Ramp, which reconstructs transaction flows so people not only can see the numbers but understand, step by step, how they were derived; Leslie Cunnane, senior accountant with Jasper AI, who built Cash Intelligence Dashboard, which has an AI-powered flux analysis showing not only what changed but why; and Matt Atieh, senior accounting manager with ClickUp, who built Argus, an application to automate AP processes by intelligently scanning invoice fields and transferring the data to the system. Chris Gaetano, of Accounting Today, was one of the judges for the competition.

Xero CEO sells all her shares

Xero CEO Sukhinder Singh Cassidy

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, CEO of small business accounting platform Xero, has sold all her shares in the company, according to filings on the Australian Securities Exchange. She sold all 29,608 ordinary shares on July 7. However, she retains 171,381 RSUs as well as over 1 million in unlisted options. The listing says the sale was to manage personal tax obligations. Overall, the sale netted her about $2.1 million.

Partnerships and integrations

Caseware, an AI platform for assurance and financial reporting, announced that Top 25 firm Citrin Cooperman has adopted the Dynamic Assurance Solution Suite, run by Caseware and developed in cooperation with the AICPA and CPA.com. The firm has implemented the full DAS Suite, including DAS Audit, DAS PCR and DAS EBP, providing a unified audit platform across its assurance practice. CPA.com served as a strategic implementation partner throughout the transition, providing guidance on implementation planning, data migration, training and change management. … The Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants and tax research platform Blue J announced a new partnership to give VSCPA members access to its platform. … Lease accounting solutions provider Leaseweb is now a VMware Cloud Service Provider Pinnacle tier partner in the Broadcom Advantage Partner Program in the United States, European Economic Area and Singapore. Leaseweb will help mutual enterprise customers to innovate by adopting VMware Cloud Foundation as their private cloud infrastructure. Leaseweb will offer VMware Cloud Foundation as new managed private or sovereign cloud services, supporting data residency and other jurisdictional controls. … AI-focused audit solutions platform Fieldguide announced a strategic partnership with Grant Thornton Advisors LLC. Through this partnership, Fieldguide's agentic platform will serve as the technology foundation behind CompliAI, Grant Thornton Advisors' AI-enabled controls and risk assessment tool, as well as the firm's additional risk and controls solutions. Fieldguide's technology will support service delivery across the U.S. advisory practice and underpin Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, fraud risk and other risk advisory engagements. … Fresha, an AI-focused bookkeeping and payments platform for beauty and wellness, has launched native integrations with Xero and QuickBooks, bringing automated, end-to-end accounting directly into the operational core of self-care businesses. Businesses can now configure and map financial data as needed, syncing transactions, revenue, taxes, expenses and other accounting data directly with Xero and QuickBooks.

Other News

Crunchafi, a lease accounting and data extraction solutions provider, launched FRS 102 Section 20 lease accounting support for the U.K. and Ireland. Crunchafi's FRS 102 Section 20 release is built around automated lease calculations with audit-ready amortization schedules and journal entries; disclosure reports for medium and large entities, plus Section 1A disclosures for small entities; and right-of-use asset roll-forwards by asset class, ready to drop into statutory accounts; and multi-client architecture with separate reporting entities and consistent calculations across an entire client portfolio. … Oracle Netsuite announced the North American rollout of NetSuite Next, originally introduced last October. It will first be available to customers in the U.S. and Canada, with other countries planned to follow shortly thereafter. … Intapp, a professional service company solutions provider, announced that its Celeste AI, first previewed in February, is now generally available. … Audit and risk solutions provider Mindbridge appointed Mike Maziarz as chief product and marketing officer. The company also announced Rachel Kirkham, who continues as chief technology officer, will now lead MindBridge's integrated AI, engineering and cloud operations organization. As chief product and marketing officer, Maziarz will oversee product strategy and marketing across MindBridge's enterprise, audit and assurance portfolios, including financial close oversight, spend integrity oversight and augmented assurance. In her expanded role, Kirkham will lead technology strategy, engineering execution, platform architecture and AI innovation while continuing to scale MindBridge's engineering organization.