Tech news: SmartVault plans release of AI document management solution

Tech news: SmartVault plans AI document management tool

July 25, 2025 11:00 AM

SmartVault plans release of AI document management solution; Pipe launches AI agents for small biz; Wolters Kluwer divests its Finance, Risk and Regulatory Reporting unit; and other accounting tech news.

SmartVault plans release of AI document management solution

Document management

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Document management solutions provider SmartVault announced the upcoming release of SmartRequestAI, a new tool designed to transform the way firms collect client information and documents during tax season. The software sports an AI-powered questionnaire and document request list unique to each client; bulk creation of client requests to save time; a dashboard to monitor status; organized workpapers generated from a completed request, ready for import to the user's tax software; and SOC 2 Type 2 compliance to help meet industry requirements around the protection of client data. SmartRequestAI is built directly into the SmartVault platform and leverages prior-year returns stored in SmartVault, minimizing risk to the firm of exposing client tax information to additional third-party systems. Firms can fully automate the client intake process, communication, review, delivery and archive workflow in one secure platform. SmartRequestAI will be available to all SmartVault customers later this year.

Pipe introduces AI agents for small business

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Embedded finance solutions provider Pipe introduced new AI agents designed to automate key operational tasks, reduce complexity, and support rapid scale without significant headcount growth. They now include a Fraud and Compliance Agent, which accelerates capital decisions when an application is flagged for further review as well as analyzes business data to differentiate between manual data errors and genuine compliance or fraud risks. The Recovery Agent streamlines the manual process of restarting payments with small businesses who have failed debits, doing deep research on the status of business operations and payment processors. The Sales Agent delivers around-the-clock support across all geographic areas and time zones to small businesses applying for capital and proactively engages with businesses that abandoned an application. The Treasury Agent provides recommendations between investment decisions and the portfolio of cash across global operations, and flags and directs actions on surplus cash that can be redeployed directly to small businesses globally.

Wolters Kluwer divests its Finance, Risk and Regulatory Reporting unit

Wolters Kluwer HQ

Wolters Kluwer has signed a binding agreement to sell its Finance, Risk and Regulatory Reporting unit to Regnology Group GmbH, a regulatory reporting solutions provider, for an enterprise value of approximately €450 million, subject to closing conditions and contractual adjustments. The transaction is expected to be completed in the fall. Wolters Kluwer expects to record a (non-benchmark) capital gain upon completion. The use of net after-tax proceeds from the divestment will be determined after closing. The entities to be divested will continue to be consolidated with Wolters Kluwer Financial & Corporate Compliance until completion. Wolters Kluwer said the planned divestment will allow FCC to concentrate its efforts and investments on developing its existing positions in U.S. banking compliance and corporate legal and compliance services.

Vanilla announces patent for estate planning system

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Vanilla, an estate planning platform, has been granted a U.S. patent for its event-based resource allocation system. This proprietary technology underpins many of the platform's most advanced capabilities, including report automation, waterfall calculations, estate visualizations and abstractions, and AI-powered opportunity discovery. The newly issued patent broadly covers methods and systems for dynamically processing, allocating and visualizing resources through rule-based and machine learning models. It enables real-time estate modeling and recalculation in response to document-driven inputs, streamlining previously manual and error-prone processes. Core elements of the patented system allow Vanilla to automate highly complex estate planning operations, including the transformation of static estate documents into interactive visualizations, and the dynamic computation of asset transfers across beneficiary structures.

Partnerships and integrations

iDenfy, an identity verification and fraud prevention service provider, announced it has partnered with crypto-focused digital wealth management platform Okazio. This partnership showcases iDenfy's Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering services that will now be used to onboard Okazio's users and support the latest compliance requirements with the EU's new crypto-assets (MiCA) regulations while helping reduce fraud risks in the digital asset sector…. MarginEdge, a restaurant management and bill payment platform, announced its partnership with FIXE, a full‑service restaurant bookkeeping and accounting firm. Through the partnership, all FIXE clients will transition onto the MarginEdge platform, gaining access to automation, AI-powered forecasting, daily financial visibility and enhanced reporting tailored to the needs of today's restaurant operators. MarginEdge is also now FIXE's preferred restaurant management system, their exclusive platform partner for invoice processing and the preferred solution for inventory and recipe management and food-costing.

New funding

april, a tax program that leverages artificial intelligence, closed a $38 million Series B raise (see story for more details. The funding round for the New York-based company was led by QED Investors, with participation from Nyca Partners and Team8, bringing April's total funding to $78 million. The company, whose full name is April Tax Solutions, was founded in 2021 and raised $40 million in venture capital in 2022. … London-based AP software provider Xelix announced a $160 million Series B funding round led by global software investor Insight Partners, with follow-on investments from Passion Capital and LocalGlobe. This funding will enable Xelix to accelerate platform development and support more organizations in adopting AI for their finance operations.

Other news

Vena, an FP&A platform powered by agentic AI, has been named an Overall Leader in both the Customer Experience and Vendor Credibility models in the 2025 Dresner Wisdom of Crowds Enterprise Performance Management Market Study. Vena was also recognized for delivering high value with low total cost of ownership and received a perfect recommendation score from customers. … Accounting practice management software provider Sage announced that its charitable Sage Foundation, over the past 10 years, has raised $5 million and facilitated 1.3 million hours of volunteering globally for causes crucial to the many places Sage operates in — ranging from Vancouver, Canada and Atlanta, Georgia, to Cape Town, South Africa, and Bengaluru, India. … Ben Richmond, managing director for small business platform Xero in North America, announced he is leaving the company and joining Wagepoint a SaaS payroll provider in Canada, as president, CEO and member of the board. He said Xero North America is in great hands with Andrew Kanzer, who will be the new managing director.