One year after announcing major rebranding plans for all of its products, Sage North America executives are now touting innovation -- particularly around cloud and mobile offerings -- all while still recognizing some partner discontent.

Top Sage North America partner Net@Work has formed a new program geared toward accounting firms, Sage value-added resellers and other professional service firms looking to partner with the company, share resources and possibly align for a future merger or acquisition if applicable.

The tax preparation software industry experienced minimal overall growth over the past five years, averaging only 0.1 percent annually to reach an estimated $2.4 billion in 2012, according to new research.

Top Sage North America partner Blytheco plans to roll out bly:Mobile for Sage 100, a branded version of its mobile app that will allow access to components of the enterprise resource planning software from any mobile device.

Accounting and business software provider Open Systems Inc. has released Dashboard, a business intelligence and analytics tool for application for its Traverse Version 11 accounting and business software.

Outsourced billing services provider Billtrust released Online Billing & Payment Version 10, the newest release of its online billing platform, which features over a dozen enhancements focused on ease of use, better response time and more flexibility in the accounts receivable process.

The American Institute of CPAs has published a new book that offers advice to CPA firms on how to use cloud computing.

Sage North America has partnered with manufacturing resource planning systems maker MISys Inc. to create Sage Simply Accounting Manufacturing by MISys, a specialized manufacturing resource planning tool that integrates with Sage Simply Accounting.

Cougar Mountain Software released CMS Professional 2013, the latest version of its business and nonprofit accounting software, which includes a long list of new features and enhancements requested by existing customers.

Inventory control software provider Fishbowl plans to release Fishbowl Inventory 2012+ on Aug. 9, which will make some of the software’s inventory features accessible for the first time from the cloud.

The Professional Segment of the Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters saw sales growth of 22 percent this year in its accounting and practice management product lines compared to the same period last year.

Audit and compliance technology maker ACL Services Ltd. and global information optimization software and service provider Datawatch Corporation formed a strategic alliance that will help provide audit, risk and compliance professionals with the ability to analyze data trapped in PDFs, HTML files, print files and other content-rich data sources.

Mobile trends drive opportunities and responsibilities for CPAs

Highlights of the previous month's news in accounting technology

Time & billing systems have evolved into a rich set of utilities that enable accountants to manage workflow, assign tasks and review roles, capture information about costs in a dozen different ways, and produce meaningful reports.

Top stories of the previous month from the world of accounting resellers

Intuit has laid off 226 employees from its Consumer Group, which includes TurboTax, many of them in the San Diego area.

XBRL US launched on Wednesday its second annual XBRL Challenge, a contest to discover the top open source analytical tools that can mine XBRL-formatted corporate financial data from the SEC’s EDGAR database.

Cloud-based enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software provider Acumatica has formalized its channel partner program, offering partnership levels, new certification requirements and improved training.

LBMC Technologies, the technology arm of Tennessee CPA firm Lattimore, Black, Morgan & Cain, has developed IntegraterPlus, an application that integrates Intacct’s cloud financial management and accounting applications with Microsoft Dynamics CRM.