Tech news: Grant Thornton launches enterprise assurance practice

Grant Thornton launches enterprise assurance practice; Canopy rolls out external API support; Finsider launches with automated deal support; and other accounting tech news.

Grant Thornton launches enterprise assurance practice

Top 10 firm Grant Thornton announced the launch of Enterprise Assurance Services practice, intended to address growing client demand for third-party assurance across emerging areas such as risk, technology, sustainability and trust. The practice unites several capabilities within a dedicated organization focused exclusively on specialized assurance offerings, including SOC services, employee benefit plan audits, sustainability reporting and assurance, and finance and transaction-focused attestation. Overall, the new practice is designed to simplify the delivery of non-financial statement assurance services while providing clients with access to a full array of specialized capabilities through a unified delivery model. Grant Thornton's full slate of Enterprise Assurance Services offerings includes Strategic Assurance & SOC Services, including SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, SOC for supply chain, cybersecurity and other attestation services, along with HITRUST certifications; Employee Benefit Plan Audits, delivered through a nationally coordinated team with experience across all plan types; Sustainability Assurance & Advisory, including assurance over voluntary environmental, social and governance (ESG) and statutory sustainability requirements such as the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and support for evolving regulatory and reporting requirements; Structured Finance & Transaction-focused Attestation, providing investor-focused assurance over structured products and compliance services; AIUC-1 certification services, helping organizations demonstrate third-party validation of controls governing agentic AI risks and enhance confidence in AI-enabled operations; and ISO certification services, providing third-party certification that helps organizations demonstrate compliance, strengthen management systems and reinforce credibility with customers and stakeholders.

Canopy

Accounting practice management solutions provider Canopy announced the launch of its new external API platform, which helps firms that want to integrate with canopy securely share core data and workflows with other internal systems. The new Canopy external API lets firms read, create, and update core records directly from their own systems. Firms can now power internal portals, reporting dashboards, and custom automations with live Canopy data. That replaces the manual exports, rigid workarounds, and duplicate data entry that have long kept technically capable firms from connecting their practice management platform to the rest of their tech stack. The live endpoints support comprehensive access to clients, contacts, custom fields, tasks, and client requests, alongside document creation and full file organization capabilities. Versus restricting users to read-only access for many features, Canopy provides write access for critical objects like client requests, freeing trapped workflow data. Canopy is also looking ahead to how firms will use AI by building an MCP (Model Context Protocol) server, which will let AI assistants like Claude connect directly to Canopy. Once released, firms will be able to ask an AI assistant to look up client information or complete tasks inside Canopy for them. Firms can start exploring the API today. Canopy's new developer portal at portal.dev.canopytax.com has everything a firm's tech team or IT partner needs to get started. Firms on Canopy's Plus plan can connect their client and contact information, and the Premium plan unlocks the full API. Canopy also continues to offer ready-made integrations with popular tools like Filed, Juno, Google Calendar, and Zapier.

Finsider launches with automated deal support

Mitch Petracca, CPA Founder and Managing Partner, Finsider

Financial due diligence solutions provider Finsider announced its public launch this week with a platform for automating Financial Due Diligence, Valuations, CFO Board Reporting and more. The user connects it to QuickBooks Online read-only and to bank accounts through Plaid, or accepts a general ledger export from any accounting system such as CSV or Excel. From there, it maps every account into one standard structure, so two companies on different charts of accounts compare line for line, and tests 100% of transactions for duplicates, out-of-period entries, related-party names, statistical outliers against the company's own history, diligence keywords, and accounts that historically carry adjustments. It proposes Quality of Earnings adjustments for a reviewer to accept, reject or edit, and books each one as an overlay so the client's original ledger never changes; runs an automated proof of cash and checks the books against filed tax returns; produces the Quality of Earnings report with the adjusted EBITDA bridge, net working capital and customer concentration, and exports the full diligence package to Excel; values the company against Damodaran market multiples and BizMiner industry benchmarks, and builds the three-statement forecast, LBO model with debt covenants, and opening balance sheet from the same reviewed numbers; and consolidates multiple entities with intercompany eliminations. People can upload bank statements, tax returns, payroll registers and the CIM into the Data Room, where every file is versioned, summarized and searchable by question, check the tie-out pages, which show whether the books tie to the source before any analysis starts, work the diligence queue, accepting, rejecting or editing each proposed adjustment, review the proof of cash and the tax return comparison, then send management the generated question list and run the valuation and the deal model on the adjusted figures, deliver the Quality of Earnings report, and export the Excel workbook, with sign-off always staying with a person. Finsider holds SOC 2 Type I controls, encrypts data in transit and at rest, and walls off each company's data on the server. They are actively undergoing testing for SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001, as well as other security frameworks. Finsider is available now at signup.finsider.ai, and users can navigate the platform for free with a sandbox, or try a free QofE scan through it's Addback tool.

Trintech launches AI agents for Data Access, Intelligence, Exception Management

Wanan - stock.adobe.com

Reconciliation and financial close solutions provider Trintech unveiled three new AI agents at Trintech Connect 2026, extending its portfolio of purpose-built agents designed to execute critical work across the financial close. The Trintech Data Access Agent connects to, retrieves, cleans, reshapes and delivers financial data from a wide range of sources, including systems that are notoriously hard to reach through traditional integrations, so instead of finance and IT teams pulling exports by hand or reconciling formats themselves, the agent builds a governed pipeline that does it for them. The Trintech Accruals Intelligence Agent reviews historical activity and prior period patterns to recommend accrual amounts, rather than repeating a fixed number from a template, and it catches true-ups and reversals before they turn into a problem while also tracking its own accuracy over time by preparer, account and methodology, so the estimates get sharper every period instead of staying static. Finally, the Trintech Exception Management Agent identifies, classifies and prioritizes exceptions as they surface, then investigates each one, names a likely root cause, attaches a confidence score to that finding, and gathers its own supporting evidence, so a person opens the case already knowing why it happened rather than just that it did, as well as grouping related exceptions under a shared root cause instead of leaving a team to work through them one line at a time.

Mastercard touts B2B analytics capacity

Mastercard announced the launch of Mastercard Advanced B2B Analytics, a card acceptance analytics platform that provides data-driven supplier payment insights in minutes. It allows people to do things such as identify suppliers most likely to accept card payments using dynamic acceptance propensity scoring enabled by an underlying AI-powered infrastructure; gain actionable insights from accounts payable intel through interactive dashboards and analytics; optimize working capital with greater visibility into payment flows; scale commercial card adoption and improve supplier engagement through more targeted outreach; and access Mastercard expertise and recommendations to support supplier prioritization and growth strategies. Mastercard will further extend intelligence and insights to the supplier and acquirer side of the ecosystem, progressively scaling across the commercial payments journey to create more connected, proactive and personalized experiences.

American Express announces new Amex Corporate capacities

American Express Co. chip credit cards are arranged for a photograph in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, Oct. 24, 2016. American Express surged the most in more than seven years after posting third-quarter profit that beat analysts' estimates and raising its full-year profit forecast. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

American Express announced the launch of the next generation of Amex Corporate, with new capabilities that bring together the new American Express Corporate Cashback Cards, integrated Expense Management software and new Amex Expense mobile app. Amex Corporate now provides new Corporate Cashback Card customers expense Management software that automatically captures transaction data from Corporate Cashback® Card purchases; the Amex Expense app, designed to reduce friction for employees by automatically generating submission-ready expenses as purchases are made; Additional planned enhancements include new AI agents and Accounts Payable workflows to further automate and simplify financial operations; and support by American Express' global service, from onboarding and account management support to financial tools to meet businesses' needs as they grow.

Integrations and partnerships and M&A

Spend management software company Expensify announced a direct integration with DualEntry, the AI-native ERP built for multi-entity, multi-currency finance teams.With the integration, businesses running DualEntry can connect Expensify in minutes for an automatic, two-way sync. DualEntry's chart of accounts syncs into Expensify as categories, classifications as tags, and tax rates if available; Out-of-pocket expenses post back to DualEntry as vendor bills; Company card spend posts as direct expenses to the right accounts; and reimbursements and card transactions stay in sync automatically. … Datarails, an AI financial operations platform, announced native integration with Google Sheets, extending its platform beyond Excel. Inside Google Sheets, finance teams can now build financial documents using Datarails formulas directly in the sheet, with a full formula-building panel for managing functions and conditions. Teams can also create Datarails tables and reports natively, add their own custom columns that persist through every data refresh, and apply global filters so that only authorized data appears in a given sheet. … Intuit announced that it is joining Meta's Muse for Small Business, where QuickBooks will be included as a launch partner. Muse for Small Business will offer customers a new set of skills and connectors allowing users to connect to the tools that their business already runs on. Through Muse's QuickBooks connector, QuickBooks customers will be able to ask Muse to help with select financial workflows to help them manage invoices, get paid, and get critical insights on their business performance. An owner can simply ask, "Create invoices for my approval for all jobs completed this week, then summarize my cash flow," and Muse pulls from their QuickBooks data to show what came in, what went out and what might need a closer look. Other key tools allow businesses to review profit and loss as well as cash flow for any period, check their balance sheet and compare against industry peers, see which customers and products drive the most revenue, create and send payment-enabled invoices directly to customers and track overdue invoices and send payment reminders. … Crowe BGK, a full-service accounting and advisory firm with offices in Montreal and Ottawa, has selected Fieldguide as its AI transformation partner. Separately, CPA Canada will embed its trusted Professional Engagement Guide (PEG) forms throughout the Fieldguide platform. …

SimpleClosure, a company shutdown solutions specialist, announced a partnership with Intuit to help QuickBooks Workforce customers properly close state payroll tax accounts when they stop running payroll. For customers who are shutting down their business entirely, the partnership also provides access to SimpleClosure dissolution services, which includes handling the 95+ moving parts of a shutdown. Through this partnership, QuickBooks Workforce customers will have access to SimpleClosure's guided experience and can securely transfer their company and state payroll tax account details from QuickBooks to SimpleClosure, so they don't have to start from scratch. SimpleClosure then collects any necessary additional information from the customer and manages the state-specific closure process, typically in under 10 minutes. … Payment solutions provider Bill and Blackbaud, a finance solutions provider for social impact organizations, today announced a new strategic partnership to simplify the accounts payable process for nonprofit and education finance teams. Payment Assistant, powered by BILL, the new experience for Blackbaud Financial Edge NXT® customers, will embed BILL's business payments network and payment-processing capabilities into Blackbaud's automated accounts payable workflow. This will support nonprofit finance teams from invoice and approval through payment and reconciliation, all in one connected system, built on Blackbaud's Platform for Good. … Professional service automation platform Kantata announced a partnership with Pine Services Group, a long term holding company, to bring Kantata's Expertise Engine™ to Pine's global community of ERP and technology-enabled services companies. … Tax compliance automation solutions provider Sovos announced the acquisition of Flowie, the agentic finance orchestration platform. The combination of Sovos and Flowie will launch the Sovos Graph. The Graph sits beneath all Sovos applications and agents, mapping all the critical connections between business processes, systems, data sources, and the pertinent mandates and compliance rules that govern every transaction across a business. The Graph consists of three core components Entity Network, a complete view of the suppliers, contractors, customers, and employees a business interacts with, and how they relate to one another across its ecosystem; Transaction Intelligence, a unified view of a business's buy-side and sell-side transactions, letting agents automate downstream work and catch upstream errors before they compound; and content & Regulatory Knowledge, Sovos' proprietary dataset of tax rules, schemas, mandates, and jurisdictional requirements, kept current by hundreds of regulatory experts working alongside Sovi, Sovos' AI, and connected directly to tax authorities.Flowie's agents, combined with the Sovos Graph, are designed to change how companies run their finance, tax, and compliance processes. Flowie is immediately available to all Sovos customers and will work alongside its core tax compliance platform. … Accounting ERP solutions provider Sage announced it has acquired Paperless Environments, a long-standing Sage partner and specialist provider of technology for accounts payable automation, document workflows and subcontractor compliance in the construction industry. The acquisition forms part of Sage's ongoing investment in its construction offering, giving contractors greater control over the information and approvals they need to keep projects on track.

Other News

Accounting ERP solutions provider Sage announced the Financial Symphony, a musical composition derived from real, anonymised financial data from businesses in the UK, U.S., South Africa and France, turning it into an original classical electro-acoustic track, bringing the hidden rhythms of finance to life. Created in partnership with data sonification experts Loud Numbers and performed by a live string quartet. … SignWell, an eSignature platform, announced the successful completion of its fifth consecutive SOC 2 Type II audit. The audit, conducted by an independent third-party auditor, confirms that SignWell's systems and processes meet the rigorous security, availability, and confidentiality standards established by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). … Corporate finance solutions provider Maximor is announcing name change to Hyphenate (http://hyphenate.ai/), reflecting its expansion across the full office of the CFO following 86x revenue growth over the past year. This rebranding signifies Hyphenate's ambition to streamline and connect finance workflows, addressing the fragmentation seen in traditional finance software. Finance teams have been juggling multiple disconnected systems, but Hyphenate aims to consolidate these into a single, autonomous platform… Agentic accounting platform Finlens announced it has raised $2.5 million in funding and launched a suite of AI agents designed to automate the month-end close. Finlens is backed by Y Combinator, Global Brains, Goodwater Capital, Frontier Ventures, AngelList and the Accel Partners Scout Fund. Angel investors include operators from Xiaomi, Robinhood, Jar and Lob, along with more than 20 other founders and technology executives. Finlens agents continuously reconcile the general ledger against supporting schedules, surface discrepancies and prepare future journal entries, helping finance teams catch errors before they reach the audit process. … Governance, risk and compliance platform Logicgate named Mike Zinne (most recently he was Chief Revenue & Experience Officer at Quiq) as Chief Customer Officer and Ram Venkat (most recently he was Head of Platform Product at Highspot) as Senior Vice President, Product. The appointments follow Diego Panama's elevation to CEO and Matt Kunkel's transition to Executive Chairman, and deepen LogicGate's leadership bench as the company accelerates its investment in agentic AI across enterprise risk and compliance teams.