SOCIUS BUYS CONSULTING FIRM: Midwest business and technology consulting firm Socius has acquired BC Technology Ltd., the consulting division of Bruner-Cox LLP.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

While flying cars, human transporters and robots that clean your house remain a long way off, palm-scans to get into buildings, fingertip readings to log on to a computer, and voice-recognition applications as a form of identification are already here.Authentication technologies - those that verify that individuals are who they say they are - are starting to advance to near science-fiction levels, turning remote workplaces from Dragnet into Minority Report.

TimePlus Payroll Inc., a provider of payroll, tax filing and benefit services, announced the acquisition of Los Angeles-based Payroll Perfect Inc.Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Many practitioners use the terms "practice management" and "time and billing" interchangeably.While these applications have some features in common, time and billing is actually a subset of the practice management application. Exactly where to draw the line separating the two isn't easy, simply because they have a lot in common. With each new product generation, the line slips even more, as time and billing vendors continue to add features and functionality.

Managers trump firms when it comes to the attraction and retention of people. Are your partners acting as managers?According to Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book, First, Break All the Rules, employees leave managers, not companies. I believe the same is true for CPA firms. Employees leave partner/managers, not the firm.

The man sat cross-legged on the floor outside his room on the fourth floor on the Embassy Suites Hotel, a notebook computer in his lap.

A new report from research firm AMI-Partners, titled "Cashing in on the U.S. Small Business Accounting Market," takes an in-depth look at the prognosis for Microsoft Small Business Accounting.

CCH will hold its second annual user conference in Boca Raton, Fla., from Oct. 29 through Nov. 1.

AccountMate is in an odd position. It's a company that is small in a business that has largely consolidated.

AccountMate kicked off its 2006 partner conference in the North Bay on March 5 with president and chief executive David Dierke highlighting changes within the accounting software company and its products.

Business software provider Sage Software Inc. has acquired non-exclusive rights to data mart patents from Timeline Inc., a Seattle-based business applications developer.

Intuit Inc. announced a new simplified credit card processing solution designed for small businesses that don't need a full accounting package.

Avanquest Software has released the latest version of its small business finance and customer relations management suite, Small Business Pro.

INTUIT BOWS TO BLOCK, WILL CHANGE ADS: Intuit Inc. will alter a $25 million ad campaign for its TurboTax software after H&R Block took the company to court, saying the advertisements were inaccurate.Launched January 9, the television and radio commercials were the centerpiece of the campaign that claimed "more returns were prepared with TurboTax last year than at all the H&R Block stores combined." Intuit agreed to change the commercials after a court ruled that the company could not run ads containing the claim through April 30.

In a move that Microsoft Corp. said is about drawing more attention to the product, and not about weak sales, the company announced that it would offer a $100 instant discount as well as a year of free unlimited support to buyers of its Small Business Accounting 2006 software through April.When Microsoft launched the product in September, it hit retail shelves priced at $179 for a stand-alone copy, and shipped with a $30 mail-in rebate. With the discount and the mail-in rebate still in effect, the software package was offered for as low as $39 on Amazon.com.

CPAs holding the Certified Information Systems Auditor credential from the Information Systems Audit and Control Association are now automatically eligible to receive the Certified Information Technology Professional designation from the American Institute of CPAs, if they are members of the institute.With the CITP credential, CPA/CISA practitioners will have a complementary set of professional credentials that will demonstrate to employers and clients both their business technology orientation and in-depth knowledge of systems, controls and security.

Spreadsheets have become a pervasive villain in the financial world - they are guilty of huge error rates and cataclysmic mistakes, and are a major source of heartburn and heartache when it comes to audit and compliance concerns.Nonetheless, Excel is ubiquitous and is arguably central to the financial operations of many companies. There is no other tool that has contributed so enormously to productivity in the arena of business performance management.

CPAs started installing automated fixed asset management systems decades ago. Todd Blome, a partner at Lincoln, Neb.-based Basso, McClure, Goeglein LLP, first installed BNA Software's fixed assets application over 15 years ago, when DOS was still the No. 1 operating system.But while many features have been added and the ease of use has improved, fixed asset systems are not going online or making any other technological leaps any time soon.

What is your firm's internet strategy?Perhaps you don't have a Web strategy, and your goal has simply been to maintain a respectable Web site. In today's environment, just having a site is no longer a competitive advantage. In many firms, the Web site has been delegated to the marketing department, firm administration or human resources. Little thought has been given to the objectives behind the site and a related economic model.

Karl Grass was named vice president and general manager of Sage Abra HRMS and Sage Payroll Services at Sage Software, a manufactor of accounting software. Grass will be responsible for overseeing the Sage Abra and Payroll Services for Sage throughout North America and will report directly to Ray Jimison, vice president and general manger of Specialized Business Solutions.