2024

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Choosing the Right Accounting Software

SMBAccountant

Beyond the mere transition in dates, New Year's marks a universal opportunity for change. It can serve as a catalyst for reflection, inspiring individuals to set resolutions, for themselves and their businesses. The beginning of a new year also means a fresh start for your Income Statement; which is why now is the perfect time to review your accounting software needs.

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How to Turn a Shortage of Accountants Into an Opportunity for Businesses

CPA Practice

By Mike Varney, Vice President, Finance and Operations at Extend. The alarm bells in accounting have been ringing for years: fewer people want to join – or stay – in the profession. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) said in its “2023 Trends” report that the percentage of accounting graduates fell 7.8% between 2021 and 2022, after steady decreases of 1-3% since 2015-16.

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4 questions to ask yourself before choosing a sales tax calculation engine

TaxConnex

Getting the right sales tax on your invoice is a pivotal step in managing your sales and use tax obligation. Sales and use tax is a tax imposed on the use or consumption of a product or service and meant to be paid by the end consumer. In certain situations (when you have sales tax nexus), it is your obligation to collect and remit it. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done.

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AI in FP&A: The Future of Financial Decision-Making

Acterys

If the term “AI” catches your eye, it’s highly likely that ChatGPT comes to mind. And you would be absolutely correct in making that association. The launch of ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Its success has kickstarted an AI race that has compelled almost every company to embed artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms into their software architecture to mirror the same level of agility and productivity.

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AI In Accounting: A Practical Roadmap For Smarter AP

Speaker: Gerald Ratigan

The accounts payable (AP) function is evolving and AI is leading the charge. As finance teams face rising invoice volumes and expectations for speed and accuracy, AI-powered automation has shifted from a futuristic concept to the most practical solution. But for finance leaders, success isn’t just about selecting the right tools, it’s about implementing the right strategy.

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Are Your Job Candidates Honest? A Look at Resumé Fraud

RogerRossmeisl

Job applicants must work hard to stand out in a crowded marketplace. For some, that means bending the truth or outright lying about their experience, skills and education. According to a survey performed by resum-writing service StandOut CV, a staggering 64.2% of Americans have lied on their resum at least once. Bad hires can generate direct and indirect costs, including lost productivity, customer dissatisfaction and wasted training time.

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Accounting Software Vulnerabilities: A Wake-up Call for Construction Companies

Withum

A recent alert from Maryland-based cybersecurity firm Huntress highlights a concerning vulnerability for construction companies using on-premise accounting and project management software with default login credentials. According to their report last month, a brute-force attack targeted users of a major construction accounting software vendor, exposing sensitive data due to default usernames and passwords being left unchanged.

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The Current State of Managing Sales Tax Obligations

TaxConnex

To help financial leaders better understand what their peers are doing when it comes to sales and use tax in 2024, TaxConnex® conducted its fourth annual sales tax survey in November of 2023. More than 100 financial leaders from different industries and from a wide range of sizes responded. Their responses are included in the following blog. For the vast majority of organizations, managing the minutia of sales tax obligations can be described as clunky, cumbersome, and risky, with each state hav

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How Forensic Accountants Use a Lifestyle Analysis to Find Hidden Assets

RogerRossmeisl

Sometimes divorcing spouses or sparring former business partners illegally hide assets to prevent their fair division. And fraud perpetrators almost always try to hide their ill-gotten gains. In such cases, sociological information — gathered as part of a lifestyle analysis — can be almost as revealing as financial data. Here’s what forensic accountants examine when they’re on the hunt for hidden assets.

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Demystifying Government Contract Requirements: A Guide for New Businesses.

SMBAccountant

Understanding the basics of government contracts is essential when engaging in contractual agreements with government entities. When reviewing such contracts, key considerations include a thorough examination of the scope of work, payment terms, performance metrics, and compliance with regulations. Utilizing tools like Suppl-O contract briefs can significantly aid in the efficient review process by highlighting changes, facilitating quick reference, and ensuring transparency.

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Are you ready? Prepare for tax season with these essential resources for accountants

ThomsonReuters

Jump to ↓ Why tax season resources matter How to make the most of these resources Tax season success starts here Tax season is here, and with it comes the familiar rush of deadlines, complex returns, and endless questions from clients. You know the drill all too well. But what if you had a comprehensive place with tools, guides, and expertise to help you navigate the chaos and stay ahead of the curve?

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Stop Budget Burnout: A Better Way to Grow Your Nonprofit in 2026

Speaker: Sean Yoder

Nonprofits are under more pressure than ever to demonstrate financial accountability while continuing to expand their impact. Traditional budgeting models often fall short, reinforcing silos, limiting flexibility, and stalling growth. Enter collaborative budgeting: a dynamic, team-driven process that enables smarter resource allocation and builds financial resilience at scale.

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Friday Footnotes: PwC Scandal Somehow Gets More Scandalous; Deloitte Denied in Court; Withum Embiggens in Florida | 11.8.24

Going Concern

Footnotes is a collection of stories from around the accounting profession curated by actual humans and published every Friday at 5pm Eastern. While you’re here, subscribe to our newsletter to get the week’s top stories in your inbox every Tuesday and Friday. Comments are closed on Friday Footnotes and the Monday Morning Accounting News Brief by default.

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Nominations Open for 2025 “Most Powerful Women in Accounting” Awards

CPA Practice

CPA Practice Advisor has opened the nomination period for one of its most prestigious awards. The Most Powerful Women in Accounting Awards , now in their 12th year, were created by CPA Practice Advisor to promote and support the success of women leaders as part of its broader mission of sustaining the profession. There are no costs associated with nominations or award recognition.

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How to Simplify HR Processes When Compliance Feels Impossible 

Patriot Software

HR compliance can be a nightmare for overwhelmed small business owners. You need buttoned-up HR processes to avoid compliance-related penalties and lawsuits. This takes time—a commodity most business owners don’t have. Is it possible to streamline your HR processes to stay compliant with federal, state, and local regulations? Yes.

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FP&A Software: An Introduction to Essential Features and Benefits

Acterys

Excel is a powerful, flexible tool, but for growing companies, it’s no substitute for robust FFP&A software. The drawbacks of spreadsheets are numerous and can lead to tremendous financial losses for an organization. Take, for example, the Excel-related Value-at-Risk (VaR) model error that caused JP Morgan to lose $2 billion. The model couldn’t help the bank accurately predict potential losses, masking the true risk exposure of their synthetic credit portfolio.

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Why Tech-Forward Tax and Accounting Firms Have the Inside Track to the Future

Speaker: Joe Wroblewski, Sales Engineer Manager

Automating time-consuming manual tasks can save your firm hundreds of hours–and thousands of dollars. But it can also have longer-lasting benefits, like helping you attract and retain the next generation of CPAs, and we don’t need to tell you how important that is amid the current generational staffing crisis in the tax and accounting profession. You'll want to save your seat for this new webinar with industry expert Joe Wroblewski, where we'll explore how to: Maximize ROI with Cost-Effective Te

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Climate reporting legislation: What it means for small businesses and accountants

Xero

From January 2025, new climate reporting legislation will be introduced. It will require big businesses in Australia to track their carbon emissions and include the results in sustainability reports , which they’ll need to submit alongside their other annual reporting obligations. While this law directly targets businesses with more than 100 employees, the impact will inevitably trickle down to their suppliers, who may need to provide emissions data to them.

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Understanding Cash vs. Accrual Accounting

Withum

When it comes to accounting methods, businesses primarily choose between two approaches: cash basis accounting and accrual basis accounting. Understanding the key differences between cash vs. accrual accounting is essential as this decision impacts financial reporting, cash flow management and long-term planning. What Is Cash Basis Accounting? Cash basis accounting is a straightforward method in which revenue and expenses are recorded only when cash is exchanged.

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S Corporations: Tax Preparation, Tax Planning, and the Benefits of Professional Tax Help

MyIRSRelief

S Corporations: Tax Preparation, Tax Planning, and the Benefits of Professional Tax Help S Corporations , often referred to as S Corps, are a popular business structure in the United States, particularly among small to medium-sized businesses. They offer a unique blend of benefits, including pass-through taxation and limited liability protection. However, navigating the tax landscape for S Corps can be complex.

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Capital Expenditure vs. Operational Expenditure: Key Differences for CEOs

GrowthForceBlog

7 min read October 15th, 2024 All business expenses represent money out the door, but the way you categorize these expenses has greater implications than reduced net income. Key Takeaways How to Calculate and Identify a Capital Expenditure: CapEx = (Prior Period PP&E - Current Period PP&E) + Current Period Depreciation. The Key Differences Between CapEx and OpEx: For most businesses, both capital expenditures and operational expenditures are necessary for success, and finding the right b

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Live Demo - Supercharge your Month End Close

Automation generally supercharges any process and brings its value to the forefront. See how infusing automation such as ART (our month-end close solution), into your close can get you to the next level of closing. We will share a live demo of SkyStem's solution, ART and share the key elements of month-end close automation. Through ART, we'll take a look at: What month-end close automation entails Which process steps can and should be automated Benefits of achieving process automation, and Why i

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From Flights to Meals: A Guide to Business Travel Tax Deductions

RogerRossmeisl

As a business owner, you may travel to visit customers, attend conferences, check on vendors and for other purposes. Understanding which travel expenses are tax deductible can significantly affect your bottom line. Properly managing travel costs can help ensure compliance and maximize your tax savings. Your tax home Eligible taxpayers can deduct the ordinary and necessary expenses of business travel when away from their tax homes.

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Budgeting for Startups: Investor-Ready Financial Planning

inDinero Tax Tips

Founders usually know how much runway they have, but may not be budgeting for their startup with an explicit system. While this can work for a time, investors want to see clear, data-backed strategies for how their money will be or is being used to deliver returns. This guide will walk you through the essential steps to develop a budget that supports growth and helps make a strong business case for prospective investors.

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4 things tax and audit professionals to know about agentic AI

ThomsonReuters

Blog home As artificial intelligence continues to rapidly evolve , a new concept is emerging that tax and accounting professionals need to be aware of: agentic AI. This type of AI advances from basic automation or content generation to developing systems capable of autonomously performing complex tasks and making decisions. For tax and accounting firms, agentic AI has the potential to dramatically transform workflows, client services, and the nature of professional work itself.

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Should Tax Planners Work with Family Offices? Tax Benefits of Establishing a Family Office

CTP

Established, wealthy families have long leveraged the concept of a “family office” to preserve their wealth, ensure business succession, establish governance and control, and foster their family legacy. This type of specialized company has been gaining popularity—and many of them have been on the lookout for a tax planner to complete their financial advisory teams.

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Mid-Year Review: How to Ignite Employee Potential Through Meaningful Feedback

Mid-year performance reviews aren’t just boxes for HR to check. Paycor’s toolkit empowers leaders to: Identify high-potential team members. Boost engagement with meaningful feedback. Support struggling employees. Nurture top talent to drive results. Learn how to ignite employee potential through meaningful feedback. When you nurture top talent, everybody wins.

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Acumatica Launches Cloud ERP Solution for Professional Services Firms

CPA Practice

Acumatica has launched its new Professional Services Edition , built to enable small and midsized professional services firms to increase efficiency and accelerate growth. This new solution marks an important expansion of the company’s industry-specific product line, delivering tailored features and capabilities designed to enhance collaboration and boost operational efficiency for firms in architecture, engineering, IT and beyond.

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How to Track Employee Hours Without Going Crazy 

Patriot Software

Tracking your employees’ time worked ensures you pay them accurately and comply with labor laws. Although you can use whatever method you want, you need a dependable and organized system, especially as your business grows. Learn how to track employee hours with time and attendance software and other alternatives. Why does tracking employee hours matter?

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ESG Reporting Tools: A Unified Approach

Acterys

As ESG considerations become more integral to business strategy, companies face significant challenges in collecting, managing, and reporting ESG data. That’s why ESG reporting tools are becoming an increasingly important piece of the enterprise tech stack. Fragmented data sources, evolving regulatory requirements, and rising stakeholder expectations are just a few of the obstacles that can make ESG reporting a complex endeavor — and one that many executives don’t feel prepared for.

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Malaysia’s National E-invoicing Initiative: What SMEs need to know

Xero

With the Malaysian government’s push towards a digital economy, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) must adapt to new requirements. One key development is the National E-invoicing Initiative. This initiative aims to modernize how businesses manage invoices, helping to streamline operations, improve compliance, and enhance efficiency across industries.

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Your Accounting Expertise Will Only Get You So Far: What Really Matters

Speaker: Victor C. Barnes, CPA, MBA

In the climb from contributor to leader, the rules quietly change. If you’re aiming for the summit, the air gets thinner—and what got you here won’t be enough to get you to the top (a concept first popularized by Marshall Goldsmith in his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There ). What made you successful early in your finance career—technical accuracy, sharp analysis, flawless execution—won’t be what carries you to the next level.

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Leverage FP&A for Smarter Financial Planning

AccountingDepartment

For any business owner, prioritizing the company’s future is essential. Financial planning plays a crucial role in this, enabling business owners to drive growth and broaden their operations. If a business owner hasn’t focused on this aspect, they need to understand what it is, what it does, and how it differs from regular accounting. What Is FP&A?

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Layoff Watch ’24: KPMG Shrinks Audit By a Few Hundred People

Going Concern

You’ve likely heard of people in audit getting disappeared from KPMG in recent days, we certainly have. Anyone who tried to cope with a “they must have been low performers” might want to season their hat before they eat it. WSJ reports today that KPMG is laying off a few hundred people in audit “as it works to make up for lower levels of voluntary turnover.” Meaning attrition is still too low.

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Sales tax risk: What to ask (part 1)

TaxConnex

Whether you’re a consultant working with companies or you run your own company. whether you’re just looking to clean up your own operation or you’re doing homework for an M&A. sales tax risks and exposure should be an important topic. And getting to the bottom of that topic means knowing what questions to ask. Our recent webinar “What to Ask Your Clients to Identify & Manage Their Sales & Use Tax Risk” addressed many of these questions – along with what to do once you find out the an

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Help Protect Your Employees’ 401(k) Plan Savings from Fraud

RogerRossmeisl

Recently, a 401(k) plan participant was defrauded of approximately $740,000 when he fell victim to an elaborate scheme perpetrated by overseas criminals. However, even friends, family members and employers have been discovered stealing from 401(k) accounts, adding up to millions of dollars in losses every year. Heres what your organization can do to help keep your employees retirement savings safe from theft.

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How To Overcome Change Fatigue In Finance With Neuroscience-Backed Strategies

Speaker: Kim Beynon, CPA, CGMA, PMP

The most overlooked, yet most critical, element of transformation is preparing people for change. Automation and AI aren't just technical upgrades, they’re cultural shifts which can challenge identities. That’s why change management isn’t a side project—it’s the foundation. In finance, where precision and process rule, navigating change can feel especially disruptive.