Tech news: KPMG announces dynamic Audit Quality Report

KPMG announces new dynamic Audit Quality Report

Florida Governor Rick Scott and KPMG CEO Lynn Doughtie break ground on KPMG's new training facility in Orlando

Jim Hobart

Big Four firm KPMG has modernized its Audit Quality Report, transitioning it from a static document, released once a year, to a dynamic, data-driven platform that will be updated to respond to market developments. The new platform, the first of its kind among the Big Four according to KPMG, features the full report, a dynamic data dashboard that will be updated frequently, and blogs and data graphics aligned with the five pillars of KPMG's "Audit Story." The most recent report highlights the firm's efforts with next-generation auditors, its growing use of technology, the progress of the Engagement Management Lifecycle program, and the recent accomplishments of KPMG Audit's service delivery model and the firm's multidisciplinary model.

Wolters Kluwer launches solution for shortened securities settlement cycle

Wolters Kluwer HQ

In response to a new, automation-focused mandate for brokers from the Securities and Exchange Commission that takes effect this month, accounting solutions provider Wolters Kluwer announced an extension of its Capital Changes product to specifically account for the shortened securities settlement cycle from two business days after the trade date of a securities transaction to one day. The solution, called Cap Data Now, provides corporate action taxability information for publicly traded stocks as well as early announcement information, structured as XML data, which helps in processing corporate actions tax details.

Caseware announces new AI assistant "Ai-DA"

Accounting solutions provider Caseware announced the pre-launch availability of its artificial intelligence digital assistant Caseware AiDA, an addition to the Caseware Cloud platform named for Ada Lovelace, believed to be the world's first computer programmer. AiDA is designed to provide context-aware responses to profession-specific inquiries regarding accounting, auditing and other matters ranging from methodology or compliance questions to the processing and analysis of audit evidence. Beyond that, it's also capable of summarizing documents as well as provide answers regarding specific tasks, like analyzing a specific set of leases. Danielle Supkis Cheek, head of analytics and AI at Caseware International, cited an example related to fraud controls. When AiDA was asked to elaborate on fraud control procedures, rather than speak of the topic generally, it was able to discuss the matter in relation to specific audit engagements. Supkis Cheek added that this is just the beginning, and Caseware plans more features and capacities in the future. Caseware noted there has been rising demand for secure AI solutions that can protect user data. In response, AiDA was designed so no prompts are stored or fed back into the model. User controls also allow people to designate who does and does not have access to the bot. Right now AiDA is available to Caseware customers in the U.S. for early access. The company will make the tool available in Australia, Canada and Europe later this year.

Sovos, via TINCheck, announces solution to manage tax risk

Tax solutions provider Sovos has released a solution via TINCheck to manage tax and compliance risk. With TINCheck, businesses can conduct compliance checks on individuals and business partners by verifying names and TIN/EIN tax IDs with the IRS database. Global organizations can also protect their business from the risk of fraud and potential sanctions by verifying against the Office of Foreign Assets Control, the Death Master File and nearly 30 additional government databases and global watchlists. These compliance checks can be run in real-time individually or automated with the TINCheck API as part of an onboarding process. People can use the product to proactively verify customer and vendor data through government databases and watchlists. The product is an improved version of a product originally developed by 1099 Pro that was acquired by Sovos. Both 1099 Pro and TINCheck are owned by Sovos.

QuickFee adds engagement letter automation, announces U.S. expansion plans

Professional service firm payment solutions provider Quickfee announced its integration with Knuula, an end-to-end engagement letter solution provider that allows firms to customize and automate their engagement letter process. The integration allows accounting firms to standardize and automate the engagement-to-cash workflow with the capability to automate engagement letters, proposals, invoices and reminders, while enabling online payments and reconciling back to the practice management system. Meanwhile, clients can use personalized payment links to pay at the start of the engagement, choosing from a range of digital payment methods. All payment fields are prepopulated for convenience and the firm retains total control over the displayed payment options. Through QuickFee, accounting firms can accept payments by ACH/EFT, card or a proprietary finance option, allowing clients to spread payments over three, six, nine or 12 months. QuickFee integrates with practice management solutions like Wolters Kluwer CCH AxcessTM Practice and CCH ProSystem fx Practice Management, Thomson Reuters Practice CS, and IRIS Practice Engine. The Australian company also announced plans to expand into the U.S. market, supported by the successful capital raise of $3.75 million AUD and a $500,000 AUD share purchase plan announced late last week, that will enable the business to fund lending growth in the U.S. and Australia.

Everything Billing unifies invoicing models

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Revenue lifecycle platform Nue released its Everything Billing product, providing solutions across various B2B revenue models, whether subscription, usage-based, direct sale or others. Integrated into Nue's Salesforce-native CPQ, Everything Billing can handle the Configure, Price, Quote process when a quote is generated. The software offers unified invoices for subscriptions, usage consumption, physical goods and milestone-based services, with an instant preview of the invoice the minute a quote is generated; real-time usage quoting, rating and billing visible in Salesforce CRM; automatic adjustment of invoices with a full audit trail to reflect expansion revenue, midterm changes to subscriptions, and usage consumption; billing runs across subscriptions, usage billing, milestone-based billing and one-time billing; the ability for finance teams to split quotes into multiple orders that can be fulfilled and billed separately; complete ASC 606 compliance; integration with Stripe, Taxations and ERPs; and real-time revenue analytics across pipeline, bookings, ARR momentum, billing and collections.

Corvee adds AI to Instead and Instead Pro

Катерина Євтехова - stock.adobe.com

Tax solutions provider Corvee released nine new strategies and two updated strategies to Instead and Instead Pro. Newly released strategies center around business meal deductions, business vehicle expense deductions, eco-friendly vehicle purchase credits, transitioning to an S corporation even after deadline, transitioning to a C corporation even after deadline, and navigating through a compliant, qualified educational assistance program. Corvee also upgraded its home office strategy to include bolstered bank integration. The Augusta Rule strategy was also upgraded with new e-sign capacity. Both updated strategies are said to have AI at the center of the experience. Corvee said the solution now integrates with QuickBooks accounts; has the ability to integrate with bank, investment and retirement accounts; offers upgraded AI document creation and storage as well as upgraded e-sign capacity.

ShareFile announces new templates, automations and integrations

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Client collaboration solutions provider ShareFile announced new capabilities to help manage and automate document and client-centric workflows. New features include ready-to-use or custom templates to speed up engagements and prepared by client (PBC) lists; the ability to templatize repetitive agreements with automation that fills out client information for documents like engagement letters; and integrations with accounting tools like QuickBooks, FreshBooks, Xero and Pipedrive. ShareFile also announced its first accounting solution, U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, which handles client document management for federal individual tax processes, from onboarding clients to compiling the documents for the return. It also announced an enhanced client portal experience. The new features are now available to users of ShareFile Premium.

New partnerships and integrations

Field service solutions provider Zuper integrated with Avalara. Avalara verifies customer addresses across 12,000+ tax jurisdictions in the U.S. and syncs with Zuper to improve tax compliance and management. … Kinrock, a U.K.-based business solutions provider, acquired Red IT Solutions for an undisclosed sum. Red IT has been providing software solutions for the Sage accounting software ecosystem for the last 20 years. … AP automation solutions provider AvidXchange announced a strategic partnership with MIP Fund Accounting by Community Brands in combination with a new invoice-to-pay application programming interface integration. This partnership grants MIP — a cloud-based, SaaS fund accounting solution purpose-built for nonprofits and government organizations — the ability to market and offer AvidXchange as an AP automation solution to its 6,000 customers across the country.

Other news

B2B blockchain-enabled payments company Paystand appointed Allison Grieb as chief sales officer. Grieb brings her years of sales roles at high-growth tech companies to the new position. Most recently, Grieb was senior vice president of global sales at Recurly, a subscription management software company. … Fintech startup Kintsugi AI announced a $6 million funding round (and $40 million valuation) for its tax automation platform. The Series A funding round at Kintsugi AI was led by Link Ventures, with participation from Venture Highway, KyberKnight, Plug and Play and DeVC, along with a lineup of angel investors. The team will use the fresh funds to drive Kintsugi AI's development of automated VAT solutions for Canada and Europe, supporting customers selling internationally. … Digital asset solutions provider Ledgible added a new feature for Specific Identification tax calculations. Ledgible's Specific Identification support enables users to identify and mark digital assets of noted sales to calculate tax based on the designated tax lots. Ledgible's SpecID support is now generally available for production use.