New Products

No metaphors

Wave Accounting

www.waveaccounting.com

It's called Wave, but it's based in the cloud, so you can see how we started getting our metaphors all mixed up. Rather than try to untangle them, we're going to declare this a metaphor-free item, and simply tell you that Wave Accounting is free online accounting and bookkeeping software aimed at individuals and small businesses. It's free because it hosts unobtrusive ads, not because it's cheap: It offers full double-entry accounting, with reports for the balance sheet, general ledger, income statement, aged payables and receivables, and more. It also lets users upload bank and credit card info so they don't have to manually input expenses, and also allows "guest collaborators," to let users give their accountants access. The Toronto-based developer recently launched Wave Payroll in Canada, and expects to expand it to the U.S. later this year. Phew - no metaphors!

 

No more miney mo

Decision Lens 3

Decision Lens

www.decisionlens.com

At a certain point, decisions become so complex or range so far beyond our experience that even the smartest of us mentally resort to catching a tiger by the toe. When it works, it's fine; when it doesn't, though, bosses, spouses, law enforcement officials and shareholders rarely accept, "He hollered, so I let him go" as a defense. Decision Lens aims to make complex operational decisions easier for large organizations, streamlining the process and making it easier to incorporate relevant data in ways that actually improve the final decision. The latest version, Decision Lens 3, includes detailed visualizations, easy-to-use voting navigation, and analytics to help determine the impact of changing organizational priorities. You can rock-paper-scissors to see if it's right for you.

 

Creditworthy

Bectran

Bectran Apps

www.bectran.com

Your manufacturing and supplier clients may well be interested in the new Bectran trade credit transactions processing platform, a cloud-based system that automates and streamlines the entire credit application, analysis and approval process, so they can extend trade credits without all the paperwork, back-and-forth and hassles. Now, if only we could convince your bank clients to extend more credit.

 

All sizes of nonprofit

Serenic NOL

Serenic Corp.

www.serenic.com

Serenic Corp., a developer of software for nonprofits, has expanded its Serenic Navigator Online product suite into three different subscription offerings: Serenic NOL Basic, Serenic NOL BE (Business Essentials), and Serenic NOL AM (Advanced Management). They should help nonprofits with different needs benefit from the cloud.

 

Break the stranglehold

Internet Marketing Bible for Accountants: The Complete Guide to Using Social Media and Online Advertising including Facebook, Twitter, Google and LinkedIn for CPAs and Accounting Firms

Informer Books; $24.99

From the wheel and the printing press to the Web and social media, every great breakthrough seems doomed to be accompanied by a pack of twentysomethings who will attempt to make it as incomprehensible as possible, so that they can sneer condescendingly at your attempts to use it. In the past, the only consolation was that their children would, someday, mete out the same treatment to them. In an attempt to break their stranglehold on explaining new technology, however, we recommend Internet Marketing Bible for Accountants, which offers a step-by-step guide to harnessing the enormous potential of the Internet and social media for promoting your business - in clear, plain language even you can understand. No longer will the youngest intern at your firm be able to scoff at your ignorance - or if they do, you can fire them without worrying that it will leave no one who understands your marketing strategy.

 

Not to the bone

Managing Indirect Spend: Enhancing Profitability Through Strategic Sourcing

Wiley; $95

Many managers look at areas of indirect spending like marketing, human resources, insurance and office supplies, and think, "Aha! Savings!" They're cost centers, after all, and so it's morally right to pare them to the bone, isn't it? The fact is that there are savings to achieve in these areas - often significant savings - but simply mandating swingeing cuts isn't the way to do it. Managing Indirect Spend lays out the right way - with careful data gathering and analysis, and proper handling of the sourcing process. The book offers a host of best practices and insightful tips on everything from saving on telecommunications to what not to do with your RFPs.

 

Rich enough

Wave Theory for Alternative Investments: Riding the Wave with Hedge Funds, Commodities and Venture Capital

McGraw Hill; $50

It used to be that one goal for financial planning clients would be to grow rich enough to be able to start playing around with "alternative" investments like hedge funds, commodities and venture capital that are usually reserved for the super-wealthy. Nowadays, though, the thresholds for entry are getting lower, which means that more and more of your clients can get into them. Before they do, it would behoove them (or you) to read Wave Theory for Alternative Investments, which offers a valuable primer on each class of investment, with a particular focus on the recurring market patterns each has displayed to help investors minimize risk.

 

Never a sidekick

Make Your Own Rules: A Renegade Guide to Unconventional Success

Amacom; $23

When we realized that Make Your Own Rules was by Wayne Rogers, the actor who played Trapper John on M*A*S*H, we naturally hoped that it would be full of vicious gossip about Alan Alda. Sadly, this is not the case - Rogers left the show because he didn't want to be a sidekick, and he's not going to be a sidekick in his own book. (Besides, he and Alda are apparently friends.) Instead, Rogers talks about an area where he took the lead role - his incredibly diverse and extremely successful career as a serial entrepreneur. He has gleaned valuable general lessons, as well as fascinatingly specific tips from businesses as wide-ranging as building homes and running a convenience store chain, to managing barge fleets and selling wedding dresses. There are a few instances of vaporous politico-economic philosophizing (which we would have swapped out for a couple of embarrassing Gary Burghoff anecdotes), but mostly Make Your Own Rules is the distillation of the business wisdom Rogers has accumulated, and worth a look.

 

New and improved!

AccuFund Inc. has launched a new version of its Employee Portal with the release of a Web-based version of its Employee Time Entry Module. ... The Tax and Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has released Version 9.5 of its Web-based ONESOURCE Property Tax. ... CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business, has added a number of titles to its Expert Treatise Library, including Tax Practice & Procedure; Federal Taxation of Subchapter S Corporations; Tax Accounting in Mergers and Acquisitions: Transactional Analysis; and Limited Liability Companies: Federal & State Taxation. ... Perceptive Software has released Perceptive Reflect, a process mining and visualization product.

 

 

Send your new products for consideration to Daniel.Hood@SourceMedia.com.

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