Intuit § accountantsAnd why shouldn't it? Accountants are cuddly, loyal and lovable. But whereas most of us are content to offer the occasional box of chocolates or sappy greeting card, Intuit has proved its love by rolling out a bouquet of new and enhanced support and training programs.
To start, Intuit has doubled the number of cities, from 40 to 80, where it offers free, in-person QuickBooks training on accountant-specific topics. It is also giving accounting associations free access to in-person presentations on everything from using QuickBooks to building a practice.
As if that didn't prove Intuit's devotion, the company has also created a special support staff for its QuickBooks ProAdvisors, as well as a "call-back" program that allows ProAdvisors to schedule a time for support reps to call them back - even at a client's office. It has also developed a new online Accountant Feedback Center to get suggestions and identify critical issues.
Finally, Intuit has come up with a number of ways to help Certified ProAdvisors build their business, with prominent messages and direct links from its various QuickBooks online resources. There's also a new QB Retail Solution Provider Program for ProAdvisors who specialize in retailers.
All of which sounds a lot like love to us.
Intuit Inc.
http://accountant.intuit.com
Nonprofit FAS
Fixed assets aren't just for businesses anymore. Governments have office buildings and parks, nonprofits have museums and hospitals, and schools have, well, schools. It all adds up to a huge quantity of fixed assets that must be accounted for. Enter the Sage FAS Gov and Sage FAS Nonprofit Fixed Assets solutions, the 2005.1 versions of which were recently released.
FAS Gov and FAS Nonprofit Asset Accounting are compatible with Sage's FAS Construction in Progress application, helping organizations better control their capital budgets and streamlining capital asset accounting processes. Both also now have a clear period close feature, an enhanced allocation feature and a new links menu. And the Asset Inventory programs now have a streamlined helper, a new inventory manager, and an enhanced overdue assets alert.
Price: Contact vendor.
Sage Software
www.sagefas.com
(800) 368-2405
Less costly cost basis
Here's just one (admittedly extreme) example of why determining cost basis is so hard: Since 1983, AT&T has spun off the seven Baby Bells, divested two companies, and had both a stock split and a reverse split. You could spend days figuring out that kind of cost basis - or just let Evaluation Services do it for you.
A one-stop solution for securities information, the company can compute the cost basis of any security going back to 1900, in far less time (and with far less swearing) than it would take you to do it yourself.
Price: Per report/security.
Evaluation Services Inc.
www.appraisenj.com
(888) ESI-4706
CCH CertiTax
Sales and use tax is all the rage these days - or, at least, people are raging about sales and use tax, as the Streamlined Sales Tax Program nears and states keep trying to claw back revenue. For companies looking to handle their sales and use tax headaches, CCH has its CertiTax suite, a Web-based calculation solution, the latest release of which integrates with Microsoft's Great Plains, Axapta and Solomon products.
The suite has components for verifying addresses and determining nexus, and for calculating the appropriate rates based on CCH's comprehensive, up-to-date database of rules and rates. It is .Net-compliant, and for those who use other accounting systems than the Microsoft ones noted above, CCH has a software development kit to allow custom integration.
Price: Contact vendor.
CCH Tax and Accounting
www.salestax.com
(800) 630-2218
