The temptation to take a camera to the event marking the opening of the Sports Museum of America was just too great. The event was held on Tuesday between our publications’ offices and the Wall Street bull. The institution, just across Broadway, is the result of a nearly seven-year effort of CEO Philip Schwalb, who once worked with two accounting software VARs, and whose former boss, Doug Weintraub of Socius (when reselling operation was part of Centerprise Information Solutions), based in Cleveland, not surprisingly sold Dynamics GP as the accounting package for the new Wall Street area institution, which is expected to draw 1 million visitors a year.

A new software add-in allows users to edit data directly in a Microsoft Excel pivot table.

Coda Financials introduced Coda2Go, the company's first accounting application to run on demand over the Web.

Up until the beginning of 2008, the trends for nonprofit accounting software were simple and predictable — accountability, efficiency and better utilization of resources.But the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market and the ensuing slip toward recession will change that landscape for the worse, in three ways:

IMAGINETIME EXPANDS E-INVOICINGTime and billing software developer ImagineTime has beefed up its paperless invoicing capabilities through alliances with Wells Fargo, ComData and GoToBilling to process payments from credit cards and automated clearing houses.

The confidence of many has been shaken recently by terrorism, election-year politics and the media’s attention to a possible recession. Establishing priorities along with a strategic plan for your firm will become even more advantageous as we move into less predictable times.My experience suggests that good decisions are made during periods of high confidence, and poor decisions when confidence is low. Firms must be careful over the next year not to lose vision and — just as important — confidence.

Orrtax Software Solutions has renamed itself IntelliTax to reinforce its current software line.

There was nothing unusual about the announcement of the first North American CaseWare Idea User Conference. That September conference appears typical of the user conferences that have started in the last five years—shows from CCH, Intuit (for QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions), Open Systems and Sage. In fact, after the consolidation in the early part of the decade eliminated many reseller conferences, the spread of user conferences probably means there are more conferences in the financial software business than ever.

Sales performance management provider Xactly Corp. has launched Xactly Analytics, a software tool for analyzing sales data.

Document management and workflow provider Cabinet NG has unveiled the latest version of CNG-Books 6.0, its document management system designed for Intuit's QuickBooks.

The Association of Government Accountants has introduced a blog aimed at fostering discussions among state, local and federal government financial managers.

Sage Software has introduced Sage Accpac Extended Enterprise Suite, combining the company's enterprise resource planning with customer relationship management software.

There’s no need to understand the reference to the 1960’s “Steal This Book,” to understand what’s going on in the world of computer security.

The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has introduced an Enterprise Suite containing a set of software for large tax and accounting firms.

Software developer NetSuite released NetSuite OneWorld, an online accounting, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and e-commerce software system aimed at multinational and multi-subsidiary companies for managing their global business operations in real-time.

Alight is getting set to release the latest version of its corporate budgeting and strategic planning software next week.

As the invitations arrived, it was difficult to know what the response should be? Accept all or be selective?

Accounting firms and consulting practices have different priorities when it comes to what applications are considered mission-critical. For some practices, the management aspect — knowing how firm resources are being applied to service clients and maintain and build the practice — is a prime concern. For others, especially smaller or more directed practices, this aspect of practice management is of less concern.Revenue management, however, is one aspect of practice management that’s of primary concern in any firm, large or small. It doesn’t much matter whether you are billing your clients on an hourly basis, or whether you have been able to switch over to value billing. If clients aren’t billed in an accurate and timely manner, there’s little chance that they will pay in a timely (and hopefully accurate) manner. And without that cash flow, it doesn’t much matter how efficiently your practice is being managed. You still have to pay the rent, salaries and other ongoing bills.

TIW UNVEILS ALERE VERSION 5.2TIW Technology, parent to the Alere accounting products, has released Alere Version 5.2, an upgrade that includes a number of enhancements affecting ordering, inspection, expiration and the general ledger.

Firms that have recently completed or plan to develop a strategic plan should be concerned about implementation, accountability, discipline and commitment. Expectations should be dealt with now, rather than later, to ensure success.Each firm is different when it comes to execution, but most firms and their members know what they should do in order to be successful.