CPE exams online
Having survived the remote train wreck, and the 20-day trek through the unforgiving desert, you stumble home in the middle of the night only to realize that you need to get some continuing professional education credits before the next day. Fortunately, help is at hand. CCH now lets you get instant CPE credit by completing its print self-study course exams online at its Testing Center.
Users can now take and submit print course exams at the Testing Center, and receive their results and CPE credits immediately, with no extra grading fee. The Testing Center also makes PDF files of the courses available, in case you don't have your printed materials available. They may not be able to help you during the train wreck or in the desert, but when it comes to last-minute CPE, CCH is a lifesaver.
Price: Free with courses. Courses range from $21-$79.
CCH Tax and Accounting
http://cchtestingcenter.com
Counting IT assets
We stumbled upon the closet where our information technology department stores old equipment, and as we were looting it of dusty treasures, we got thinking about our company's IT assets. Centennial Software has been thinking about them too, and the result is Discovery 2005, a network inventory and IT asset management solution that finds, identifies and audits all hardware and software on a network.
That would be valuable enough (though it leaves out all those dusty TRS-80s in the storage closet), but Discovery 2005 also provides a number of analysis and reporting tools, including a configurable dashboard that allow users to determine, for instance, how many licenses for a particular application are actually being used, or whether the software they're using is licensed at all.
Price: Starts at $22 per seat; decreases as number of seats increases.
Centennial Software
www.centennial-software.com
Checkpoint abroad
Checkpoint, RIA's online tax and accounting research platform, is busy proving that it is, after all, a small world, with the recent addition of Worldwide Tax Law for Europe and Mexico. The English-language translations of foreign statutes cover a wide range of tax law, and will prove invaluable to those with clients who have dealings abroad. Also newly added to Checkpoint are more primary state source material, more literature from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and new functionality and an interface upgrade for greater ease of use and speed of access.
Price: Contact vendor.
RIA
http://ria.thomson.com
(800) 950-1216
Epicor for hotels
Epicor has released a new version of its ERP software that is designed specifically for the global hospitality industry. Epicor iScala Hospitality is an end-to-end enterprise software suite built on Microsoft .Net and Web Services technology; the new release offers improved inventory management, secure control of requisitions, an enhanced view of customer information, more efficient purchase invoice management, and straightforward upgrades. In addition to the 34 languages iScala already supports, the new release is now available in Thai; it also covers a number of new European and Latin American tax types.
Price: Contact vendor.
Epicor Software
www.epicor.com
The audit store
Since the Eyeshade Emporium and Abaci R Us closed their doors, there haven't been many stores that cater exclusively to accountants and auditors. One outlet that still does, of course, is the American Institute of CPAs' online portal, CPA2Biz, which recently unveiled its Audit & Control Technology Store, a section of the site that focuses on tools for audits, fraud detection and prevention, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and internal controls. With categories for audit management, data analysis and risk management products, the Store has many of the tools you'll need to handle these hot subjects. It also features reviews, case studies and best practices for free.
AICPA
www.cpa2biz.com
