* INTUIT LAUNCHES TAX RESEARCH SITE: Intuit has launched an online tax research Web site called TaxAlmanac, in which it is enabling practitioners to post questions and answers.

Marc Einbinder, a CPA and founder of his own accounting practice in Miami, believes that traditional write-up practice - where a client comes in with a shoebox full of receipts - is becoming a "thing of the past."

Tax prep software maker Drake Software has named company veteran Tim Hubbs, CPA, as its president and chief executive. He replaces company founder Phil Drake, who will continue to serve as chairman of the board and as a technical consultant and software architectural advisor.

Just as time and billing software can be considered a subset of practice management, trial balance is often thought of as a subset of write-up. That's because the ultimate product of these two applications, a set of financial statements, is the same. The intent of trial balance software, however, is usually very different from that of a write-up package.Write-up software is designed to allow an accounting practice to perform detailed data collection from their clients. In many cases, this will consist of bookkeeping as well as accounting in the form of preparing adjusting and correcting journal entries. While financial statements may be generated frequently for client use, the real goal of write-up is generally to produce the original books of record, including a general ledger and subsidiary journals, for the client.

It's the 15th of February and your firm is just going into the heart of tax season. The managing partner learns that the document management implementation is not going as planned. In fact, people - including partners - have lost their commitment to the project and are saying that the change is too difficult (among other excuses). You have to make a decision: Pull the plug on the project or figure out a way to make the project succeed.

Microsoft announced the upcoming release of their newest customer relationship management module, CRM 3.0, at the Microsoft Tech·Ed 2005 Europe conference in Amsterdam this week, and plans on making a U.S. announcement at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in Minneapolis later this month.

A partnership between software makers SysPro and Business Objects will result in the integration of Crystal Reports XI with the SysPro 6.0 business software as early as the end of this year.

Serenic Corp., a provider of financial and nonprofit software, recently unveiled Serenic DonorVision -- a new fundraising tool.The new application is designed to streamline fundraising efforts by nonprofit groups, integrating a variety of functions with Serenic's Navigator programs. DonorVision allows users to manage gifts and gift-matching information; manage pledges; track affiliations and relationships; manage mailing groups; and organize ongoing communications with donors.The software can be integrated with both Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word, making it easier for groups to analyze the success of their fundraising campaigns. Serenic DonorVision can be used as stand-alone software or be integrated with the financial ledger capabilities of the Navigator suite.Aimed at midsized and large nonprofit organizations and government agencies, the cost of DonorVision will typically range from $15,000 to $50,000, depending on the number of users, according to the company."Fundraising is the lifeblood of most not-for-profit organizations," said Serenic president and chief executive Jay Malik, in a statement. "Because we are a leading technology solutions vendor for the NFP community, it was essential that we develop a tool that eases the fundraising burden for our clients."

National CPA and business advisory firm RSM McGladrey, headquartered here, has teamed with document management provider Immediatech for Immediatech's proprietary GoFileRoom. Terms were not disclosed. Under the pact, members of the RSM McGladrey Network can subscribe to GoFileRoom, a Web-based document management service. RSM Network personnel will work with member firms to analyze their respective document management needs and subsequently assist with GoFileRoom implementation. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.-based Immediatech will provide RSM McGladrey Network firms with a discount on its GoFileRoom services.

Sage Software (formerly Best Software) announced a new name for its Best Software Accountants Network program. The new program will be called the Sage Software Accountants Network, and will expand its libraries for accountants to include Timberline and Accpac. The Accountants Network offers resources for accountants. Accounting professionals have access to software libraries for Sage products that include accounting and business management software, support services, and automatic upgrades and updates, including tax tables, when applicable. Two additional companies will join the Accountants Network as Value Partners in July. First Research will allow accountants access to industry profiles from more than 170 target markets, as well as industry trends and call prep sheets, which are one-page executive summaries of the industry profiles. ILumen offers private-company trending, monitoring and benchmarking services that firms can use to monitor and benchmark their private-company business clients. Also new are the Sage Payroll Services offerings for mid-market companies. The new outsourced payroll services join the company's existing Peachtree Payroll Service for small businesses. The Web-native Sage Payroll Services include Sage Payroll Services - Abra Edition, which integrates with the Sage Abra Human Resources Management System solution; Sage Payroll Services - MAS Edition, which integrates with the company's Sage MAS 90 and Sage MAS 200 accounting products; and a stand-alone Sage Payroll Services offering, which can be used in conjunction with any in-house accounting system. Furthermore, in conjunction with its corporate rebranding, Sage will be changing the names of its MIP Fund Accounting and Fundraising software. The new product names are Sage MIP Fund Accounting, formerly MIP Fund Accounting; Sage Fundraising 50, formerly MIP Fundraising Paradigm; Sage Fundraising 100, formerly MIP Fundraising GT Pro; Millennium, formerly MIP Fundraising Millennium; and Sage Endowment Management, formerly MIP Endowment Management.

Last week business software provider Oracle announced that Gregory B. Maffei will be their new president and chief financial officer, starting in July. Maffei comes to Oracle from 360networks, a fiber optics communication company based in Seattle, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer. Previously, Maffei was chairman of Expedia, a travel Web site, and the CFO of Microsoft from 1997 to early 2000. He will succeed Harry You, who left the position in March to become chief executive officer at BearingPoint, a business consulting and services enterprise near Boston. Safra Catz, co-president at Oracle, will continue to act as interim CFO until Maffei takes over.

Three years after it purchased the consulting unit of Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for $3.5 billion in cash and stock, IBM Corp. said that it would launch a new supply chain consulting arm specializing in global logistics. The Armonk, N.Y.-based concern has tapped veteran Bob Moffat to head the new unit, which will bundle consulting services, software automation technology and its proprietary global computer logistics. IBM projected supply chain services -- which constitute a $23 billion market, according to IT industry researchers -- as its next new growth area.

Denali, a new product line from business applications developer Cougar Mountain, was unveiled this week and the company said that many of the modules will be ready for shipment in late July. The Denali product family is based on .Net and SQL technology from Microsoft, and is geared toward those companies looking to grow in size, location and data volume. The remainder of the products will be released in the fall."This new family of products provides features of the high-end accounting programs at a very reasonable price," said chief executive officer Jim Stone. "The product allows organizations to tailor functionality while following generally accepted accounting practices." Scheduled for the July release will be the Denali Point of Sale, Inventory, Specialty Shop, and Multi-location Inventory solutions. In the fall, Cougar Mountain will unveil its Denali General Ledger, Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable applications. Denali products will be available for multiple-location environments with unlimited transaction volumes, and provide multi-level security. The Denali POS system being released this July accepts multiple currencies and different tenders (checks, credit/debit cards and cash) in one transaction, updates in real-time to let users know if an item is out of stock, and has automated vendor pricing information, among other features.

The Compliance Consortium, an international group that promotes effective governance, risk and compliance management, has merged with the Open Compliance and Ethics Group, a nonprofit organization specializing in compliance and risk-management strategies. The merger is effective immediately. Members of the Compliance Consortium will serve as the initial members of the newly created OCEG Technology Council. Ted Frank, chairman of the Compliance Consortium advisory council and president of governance software provider Axentis, will join the OCEG's overall Leadership Council and head the newly formed Technology Council. Sebastian Holst, president of the Compliance Consortium, said that one of the OCEG Technology Council's first objectives will be to expand its membership to include commercial organizations and other technology providers.

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 an Intacct customer updates something, like an address, in their ERP system, the new CustomERP will then automatically update any other application needing the new information, such as the customer's CRM application, for an address change. ConnectERP is a Web Services integration platform that connects the CustomERP to the customer's applications so the updates can be made. ManageERP is a Web portal for deploying and managing applications, customizations and integrations."Normally, you would need a middleware application and you need a lot of complex computer code [to transfer data between the ERP and other applications]," said Alf Abuhajleh, an Intacct representative."We've taken all that away. Using simple Web Services, not only can you integrate other applications into our system, but you can share real-time data between them as well." 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 SIIA's 750-company membership, the SIIA Software Division manages strategic direction, work and activities of SIIA software programs.

Microsoft Unveils Accountants' Network: Microsoft Corp. has launched the Microsoft Professional Accountants' Network to offer training and technical support on its upcoming Microsoft Office Small Business Accounting 2006 application.Program participants will have free business-critical and installation support on the SBA application. Another support program is also available for $300 a year; it includes five free incident calls for accountants outside the two free support services, 10 free licenses for SBA and 10 free licenses for Microsoft Office Small Business Management Edition 2006, software with SBA embedded into Microsoft Office.

Despite its size, Germany-based SAP sometimes toils in relative obscurity in the United States. For instance, many remain unaware that SAP, known primarily for larger enterprise applications like Strategic Enterprise Management, makes a small business accounting software solution - Business One.

At last month's Sage Software partner conference here, chief executive Ron Verni spoke to the 3,000 attending partners about freedom of choice for Sage customers.

In our last article on the topic of leadership, we explored the first dimension of leadership influence, which is who you are being, or the behavioral attributes that you should strive to exhibit, as a leader. In that article, we established that leadership in business is the art of influencing others to do the things you need them to do to meet their objectives, which should translate to meeting your organization's objectives.

The alarm clock is going off for the third time. It's time that you get up and go to work, even if you don't want to. If you don't pay attention, you will lose.