Do not miss our first issue of 2010!

The April/May issue of The CPA Technology Advisor should be in mailboxes this week. Following busy season, I’m sure everyone will enjoy the new issue. Based on our team’s strategic planning sessions this past winter, we have made a few changes. This issue highlights our annual tax compliance software review, but we realize that not every firm is looking for the same things in their software. Some firms are interested in just processing tax returns, doing it efficiently and with accuracy, where a full suite of products from document management to portal integration are not important to their workflow. Other firms are only interested in reading about products that keep them on the cutting edge of technology with a full suite of solutions that addresses the advanced workflow needs of their tax practice. As a result, we split the tax compliance products into the following two groups: products that support traditional workflow and products that support advanced workflow.

We have also changed the approach we take with our reviews. Our new review model will support a much more stringent rating benchmark, which will make it much more difficult for products to receive a five-star rating. You will notice that we have now broken down our reviews into more detailed categories with the addition of subcategories to better outline what we’re looking for in each product.

In addition to the tax compliance reviews, you will see our coverage of the first of our small business accounting products along with a wide variety of topics from our regular all-star team of columnists, from looking at how the concept of thought-leadership can help your firm to exploring the basics of backing up client data, discovering how to get better reporting and investigating some technology tools that are on the horizon. You will also notice some very informative articles on how client portals are the gateway to the future, how Windows 7 can impact your firm, and how to put a business continuity plan together.
We look forward to your feedback. I hope you enjoy this issue.