Sparked by a double-digit hikes in payroll service and human resources revenues, payroll and benefits outsourcing provider Paychex Inc. said year-end profits rose 26 percent, to $464.9 million, versus fiscal 2005 for the period ended May 31.

"What do you have against Orlando Ayala?" a reseller wrote.

After a string of embarrassing security lapses, the White House Office of Management and Budget laid out a number of new measures aimed at protecting personal information that agencies hold on millions of employees and citizens.

Accounting and payroll software provider Universal Business Computing Co. has rolled out new features for its Real-Time Accounting & Payroll applications.

There's no secret that the software reseller channel is consolidating. But the move towards bigger and bigger players is gaining steam.

The principal of Information Technology Group Inc., David Cieslak will serve as the chairman of the Sage Accpac Business Partner Advisory Council.

Taxware, a provider of global transaction tax calculation and compliance solutions, announced that its flagship products -- Taxware Enterprise and TaxSolver -- have achieved certification from the states that are members of the Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board.

INTUIT'S 3Q REVENUE GROWS; UNVEILS 2-FOR-1 STOCK SPLIT: Spurred by a double-digit increase in its Consumer Tax unit, accounting software provider Intuit Inc. posted a 14 percent gain in third-quarter revenue, to $956 million, versus the year-ago period. Intuit said that its revenues from its Consumer Tax arm jumped 19 percent versus the 2005 third quarter, to $499 million. Meanwhile, revenue from its QuickBooks arm rose 8 percent, to $212 million.In addition, Intuit's board approved a two-for-one stock split payable July 6, 2006, to stockholders of record on June 21, as well as a stock repurchase plan for up to $500 million over the next three years.

More than two years ago, Diane Yetter, CPA and president of Chicago-based Yetter Consulting Services Inc., had disparate software systems for keeping track of her clients' needs, projects, history, contact information and billing.Then she hired an IT consultant to custom-build her practice an online customer relationship management system so she could find all the information she needed in one location.

Market research firm the Yankee Group announced that Intuit, Sage and Microsoft have reconfirmed their dominance in the small and midsized accounting and enterprise resource planning software markets.The Boston-based firm said that during 2005, several significant events occurred in the accounting and ERP business application segments that changed some of the market dynamics, including Microsoft's entrance into the low-end accounting applications arena, and significant product launches from both Intuit and Sage. Integrated business application suites from NetSuite and SAP also gained increased presence and penetration.

During Sage Software's annual Insights partner conference, resellers such as Kevin Stanton, manager of marketing communications at Winn Technology Group, were especially interested in all the new offerings that the company is poised to launch this year."Lots of things have piqued our interest," said Stanton during the three-day confab, held here. "The most interesting was the broader range of services to partners through all the acquisitions and releases. It's always good to have more options [for customers]."

How do you evaluate your professional information technology staff?Who is responsible for those evaluations and how often do they occur? While these are basic human resources questions, we find that many firms do not have fair and equitable systems in place to ensure the anticipated results, as well as to provide a professional career path for the internal IT professionals. Simply using the tools currently available to evaluate accountants may not be enough. Additionally, we recommend multiple tools and frequent communication with IT personnel.

Creative Solutions Inc., a unit of Thomson Tax & Accounting, has acquired the assets of Dunphy Systems, a Columbus, Ohio-based publisher of tax software. Terms were not disclosed.Creative Solutions said that it will be making a special offer to Dunphy customers to transition to UltraTax CS, part of its CS Professional Suite. Renewal incentives for transitioning users include price protection at Dunphy renewal rates and special training options.

The personal information of up to 2,200 Oregon taxpayers may be in the wrong hands after a former part-time employee downloaded pornography and a hidden spyware program.

At one point, it seemed that shows in the accounting market were like the California condor--still around, but not terribly numerous.

In conjunction with the launch of the Peachtree by Sage Accounting 2007 line, Sage Software has announced a new Peachtree by Sage Quantum - Accountants' Edition, which will be available exclusively to members of the Sage Software Accountants Network.

Intuit Inc. said that its new QuickBooks Merchant Service for Web Stores offers a hassle-free way for small businesses to sell online, accept credit card payments and obtain up-to-the-minute sales reports.

It took High Liner Foods Inc. in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, 10 years to find a viable and affordable business intelligence solution, said chief financial officer Kelly Nelson."What we had was JD Edwards' [enterprise resource planning system] and another sales reporting system. It was OK for people to use, but not so user-friendly," said Nelson. "All the BI applications were very expensive and took too long to install, so you lost cost from the expense of the system and the effort of installing it."

Staffing is one of the biggest concerns facing CPA and IT firms today.And yet, as I shared in the first article in this three-part series on recruiting, very few firms have a written strategic recruiting plan in place. In the previous article (May 1-14, page 24), we explored the importance of identifying your firm's competitive differentiators, defining your open position(s) and developing your recruiting calendar. In this article, we'll explore activities that work when recruiting the best and the brightest to your firm.

NETSUITE UNVEILS VERSION 11.0: NetSuite Inc., an on-demand software provider, unveiled the latest edition of its flagship product, Version 11.0. The upgrade offers a new services vertical for mid-market companies, along with a new Asynchronous JavaScript and XML interface, more customization, and new verticals for wholesalers and distributors.The two new mid-market vertical suites are NetSuite Services Company Edition and the Wholesale/Distribution Edition. The Services Company Edition offers paperless expense reports, project accounting functionality and advanced project tracking. The Wholesale/Distributor application includes industry-specific features like advanced inventory and order fulfillment, demand-based inventory replenishment, and customer relationship management software for distributors.