* PLANTE TAPS TECHNOLOGY VET DICKSON: Top-ranked accounting firm Plante & Moran has tapped technology veteran Michael Dickson, CPA, CITP, as manager with the firm's technology consulting and solutions practice.In his new role, Dickson will focus on providing information technology strategy and planning, risk assessments, systems assurance, HIPAA Security Rule assessments, and Sarbanes-Oxley 404 compliance services to P&M clients.
A 25-year IT veteran, Dickson was most recently president and founder of Business Technology Group LLC, a company specializing in IT risk assessment and assurance. He is a former partner at Crowe Chizek. He also serves on the American Institute of CPAs' Information Technology Executive Committee, where he chaired the CITP credential committee.
* SERENIC SEALS RESELLER PACT: Financial software provider Serenic Corp. has entered into a reselling pact with the Public Sector Partner Group, a six-VAR consortium, for its proprietary Serenic Navigator not-for-profit solution.
Under the agreement, each of the six firms will promote Serenic Navigator as the enterprise-level public sector accounting solution of choice. Terms were not disclosed.
The six members that comprise the PSPG are: New York-based S. Hellman Co.; Shawnee, Okla.-based Finley & Cook; San Dimas, Calif.-based ComputerWorks NFP Solutions; San Diego-based NFP Accounting Technologies; Anchorage, Alaska-based Dudley Consulting; and SVK Consulting, in Indianapolis. The firms have an aggregate client base of more than 1,000.
* AVALARA AND OPEN SYSTEMS PARTNER: Avalara, an on-demand sales and use tax software company, and Open Systems Inc., a business software provider, announced a partnership to incorporate Avalara's on-demand sales tax automation services as an optional feature for enterprise resource planning applications OSAS and Traverse.
With the partnership, OSAS and Traverse will now have Avalara's Web-service-based sales tax solution, AvaTax, which performs address validation, jurisdiction and rate research, and tax calculation, among other features.
Open System OSAS and Traverse users will also have access to Avalara's AutoForms feature, a tool that automatically pre-populates and generates returns for any of the 8,000 taxing authorities in North America.
* CCH DATABASE OFFERS SEC COMMENT LETTERS: Tax and accounting software provider CCH has added Securities and Exchange Commission comment letters to its Accounting Research Manager 10-K Lookup tool.
CCH's ARM - a search engine of accounting, auditing and governmental literature and interpretive guidance materials - will offer the SEC comment letters in addition to current offerings such as Edgar filings, detail on financial statements, management's discussion and analysis, legal and financial agreements, financial data, directors and executives, insider transactions, and SEC news.
"Users can move from real-world filings to SEC staff comments on those filings to SEC accounting rules and regulations and back again," explained product manager Cynthia Kaplan. "They can target specific types of filings and issues to find documents relevant to their own situations."
* INTACCT RELEASES ON-DEMAND PLATFORM: Intacct Corp., an on-demand business applications provider, announced three new on-demand services integrating with their online enterprise resource planning software - CustomERP, ConnectERP and ManageERP.
When a customer updates something, like an address, in their ERP system, the new CustomERP will automatically update other applications that need the new information, like the customer's CRM application, for an address change. ConnectERP is a Web Services integration platform that connects CustomERP to the customer's applications so that the updates can be made. ManageERP is a Web portal for deploying and managing applications, customizations and integrations.
Separately, president and CEO Robert J. Jurkowski has been appointed to the Software Division board of the Software & Information Industry Association.
Consisting of 19 executives from the SIIA's 750-company membership, the SIIA Software Division manages the strategic direction, work and activities of SIIA software programs.
