Isaac M. O'Bannon is the managing editor and digital content manager for CPA Practice Advisor (www.CPAPracticeAdvisor.com), drawing on two decades of experience covering the areas of professional accounting, taxation, business productivity and consumer technologies. Prior to CPA Practice Advisor, O'Bannon was a consultant at firms in San Francisco, Denver and Tulsa, serving clients that included Logitech, Polycom, Hilti, Microsoft, the Stanford Research Institute, the University of Oklahoma's College of Engineering and other technology leaders. He is a U.S. Navy veteran. Email: isaac.obannon - @ - cpapracticeadvisor.com
June 16, 2010
Thousands of U.S. businesses faced a Wednesday without access to Intuit, QuickBooks and other online programs and services, as almost all of the technology vendor’s SaaS (web-based) programs and other websites remained offline. Intuit’s websites were first reported down around 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15. The offline websites included QuickBooks, QuickBooksOnline, Quicken, Lacerte Software,...…
June 8, 2010
Mobile professional payroll applications, online document storage, SaaS-based accounting and practice management tools and an in-practice knowledge sharing system were among the technologies honored at the 7th Annual Tax and Accounting Technology Innovation Awards.
May 18, 2010
As promised yesterday, here is a list of the various award winners that Sage introduced to their partner peers during yesterday’s keynote at the 2010 Sage Insights Conference in Denver. Most of the announcements were actually released previously, but this was the first time the winners had been presented to the community of Sage partners....…
April 28, 2010
As a result of the recently passed healthcare legislation, effective March 30, 2010, health benefits provided to an employee’s child up to 27 years of age is tax free for most taxpayers. The adult child does not need to be a dependent of the employee taxpayer. The IRS announced on April 27 (www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=222193,00.html) that the...…
April 16, 2010
Congrats on making it through another tax season! I ran into this funny, but pretty intelligent little video on YouTube about automated online backup for accounting professionals. It’s worth three minutes to watch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LJcAy_gfDQ I also wrote about online professional backup systems in our April issue, which just went live today- you can read it...…
April 6, 2010
As technologically reliant as modern tax and accounting professionals are, it is astounding, at least to me, that about half of practices in the U.S. don’t even bother to have a website. Yet, that’s what our annual reader surveys and Productivity Survey continues to show, and both correspond with measurements made by the AICPA and...…
March 4, 2010
For years, many communities in Alaska have laid claim to the highest sales tax rates in the nation. But no longer, according to a report by Vertex, Inc., a provider of sales tax research data and compliance solutions for enterprise businesses. But no longer.
February 20, 2010
Okay, just a little humor as professionals start to really dig into the tax season. Despite the ongoing movement by tax and accounting practices toward paperless processes as a part of modern workflow, print is, of course, still ocassionally necessary. So, let’s try a couple of new terms when referring to the occasional paper functions...…
February 11, 2010
Google has plans to build an experimental broadband system in select communities across the U.S., according to the company. The system would supposedly be able to provide speeds up to 100 times faster than current high-speed Internet capabilities, and as much as 1,000 times faster than the fastest non-high-speed systems. How fast is that? Well,...…
February 8, 2010
While there probably aren’t too many young children dreaming of statistics-driven actuarial analysis, a recent study by online job search engine CareerCast has found that actuaries have the “best job in America.” The accounting profession was cited as the 9th “best job.” The study, onCareerCast’s website, rated professions on several factors, including physical demands, work...…
January 27, 2010
Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate joined an effort to quickly pass legislation that allows U.S. taxpayers to deduct their Haiti aid donations on their 2009 income tax returns.
January 22, 2010
As an update to a blog post a few days ago, both chambers of Congress have now passed legislation enabling taxpayers to claim charitable deductions made for Haiti aid relief efforts on their 2009 tax returns. The Haiti Assistance Income Tax Incentive Act passed through the House of Representatives unanimously yesterday, and quickly moved through...…
