Technology news June 2007

Technology

New debt collection software helps small businesses

Invoice management and chasing down late payers is a time-consuming and frustrating aspect of running a small or medium-size business. For these business owners or their office managers, the effort and expense associated with convincing delinquent accounts to settle past-due invoices can outweigh the returns.
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Technology

The business intelligence debate: Who has the right skills?

Consultant editor David Carter recently published a tirade about business intelligence (BI) tools that produced summary totals, but wouldn't let him drill down to the underlying transactions that made up the figures.His argument, triggered by a series of frustrating product demonstrations, touched on technology tools such as online analytical processing (OLAP), but took on a political hue as he called on accountants to rise up and ta
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A&A

Polish your online profile: CFOs race into executive MySpace

Prompted by the online networking of the MySpace and Facebook generations, top managers in big companies are rushing to join the online business networks once frequented by client-starved consultants and lonely entrepreneurs. Posting a profile on networks such as LinkedIn could soon be as routine as handing round your business card. The future of financial knowledge-gathering, marketing and recruitment may also lie online.
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Technology

Turn off computers! Reduce energy costs!

A new report issued by the Alliance to Save Energy, a Washington, D.C.-based not-for-profit organization that promotes energy efficiency worldwide, and 1E, a British provider of Windows management solutions, provides some interesting insights into the relationship between typical computer usage and energy costs.For example, did you know that a company with 10,000 PCs wastes more than $165,000 a year in electricity costs if 60 percent of computers are left on overnight?Here are some other interesting points noted in the PC Energy Report 2007:Out of 104 million office PCs in th
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Technology

New RSS Link from AccountingWEB

AccountingWEB’s RSS area has been updated. If you are using this feature you will need to replace the link you are now using in your RSS reader with the link below. If you have any questions, or need help, please contact us at service@accountingweb.com.Please update your link with this one: http://www.accountingweb.com/rss/feeds/news.xml
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Technology

Excel 2007 tip #1: Make your data visible to other Excel users by saving in Excel 97-2003 format

Files produced by Excel 2007 are in the new .xlsx format. No other version of Excel can read them unless a special compatibility pack has been installed. If you plan to share your Excel 2007 files with other Excel users, you can set Excel 2007 to save your files automatically in Excel 97-2003 format. This will allow other Excel users who have not upgraded to Excel 2007 to read your files.How to set Excel 2007 to automatically save files in Excel 97-2003 format: Start up Excel 2007. Open an empty worksheet.
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Technology

Excel tips! Two-minute tips from David Carter

Here are four quick Excel tips, each of which you can master in two minutes or less! These tips are courtesy of Excel guru David Carter and our sister site, Accountingweb.co.uk.Excel 2min Tip #1: Sort data with the =RIGHT function: by David CarterWhen Excel sorts a column of items, it looks at the initial character of each item, that is, the characters to the LEFT. But suppose you want to sort according to characters on the right? For this you need to use the =RIGHT function.
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Technology

Microsoft releases new security patch, as do scammers

Microsoft released its new security patch this week, and scammers were quick to get on the bandwagon, releasing a patch of their own via e-mail messages that are sure to confuse computer users.Microsoft's update was the June entry in the company's regular monthly set of security patches. This month, the patches include repairs that protect Windows users who visit web sites infected with malicious code and users who open infected e-mail messages with Outlook Express or Windows Mail.
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Technology

ADP Taxware announces details of Annual Educational Conference

Summit 12 marks first conference since ADP's acquisition of Taxware; Agenda set to bring Taxware and ADP communities together to discuss transaction taxes WHO:ADP Taxware, a leading provider of global transaction tax calculation and compliance solutions, has announced details of Summit 12, its annual conference for tax, IT, and business process professionals.
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Technology

An accountant's guide to remote work

by Kevin SalterRemote working will mean different things to different people. “Remote” can mean accessing data from practically anywhere in the world. It could also be simply taking data from the main office systems onto a laptop and working on it at another office or at the client’s premises. “Working” could be simply dealing with emails, writing notes or reports or actually working on or looking at client data held in the office whilst out on site.
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Technology

Microsoft launches new online conference feature

Microsoft unveiled the 2007 release of Office Live Meeting, a version designed to improve online meetings, events and training, at its annual TechEd conference.The new version of Office Live Meeting, scheduled to be available in Fall 2007, is designed for organizations of all sizes to experience the benefits of Web conferencing, whether people are conducting simple ad-hoc collaboration sessions, formal Web-based meetings, advanced online training or large communication events.The enhancements included in the 2007 release of Microsoft Office Live Meeting resulted from more than 10 years o
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Technology

Telework security a challenge for federal agencies

Fifty eight percent of government employees work from home without permission according to a survey released by Telework Exchange, a public-private partnership that supports telework. These unofficial teleworkers are much less likely to be security-conscious than teleworking employees, Computerworld.com reports.
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Technology

So you want a new desktop accounting package?

By David CarterChoosing a mid- or upper-range accounts package is straight forward - work out the list of features you need, then find out which package has them. But with entry-level it's not just a matter of features, but also of the user - most entry-level systems are run by people who do not understand accounting.Poor package designThe real problem is not that users don't understand debits and credits: it's that the standard design of a computerised accounting system - sales ledger, purchase ledger, nominal ledger - makes the payments side so difficult.
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Technology

Beware phony IRS e-mail warnings

The Internal Revenue Service warned computer users about phony e-mails designed to scare people into believing they are under tax investigation in order to give scammers access to their computer hard drives. The tax agency said that the e-mail claiming to be from IRS Criminal Investigation falsely states that the person is under a criminal probe for submitting a false tax return to the California Franchise Board. Opening up an attachment to learn more about the complaint allows those behind the scam to gain remote access to the computer.
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Technology

QuickBooks Online reaches 100K customer milestone

Intuit Inc. announced that QuickBooks®: Online Edition has 110,000 subscribed companies, with more than 270,000 individual users. This more than 400 percent increase, from 21,000 companies in 2004, makes QuickBooks Online the leading software-as-a-service financial management tool for small business.
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Voice of the Editor

What would you do if one of your clients won the lottery? We asked several accountants to weigh in with their advice for the lucky Powerball winner, and the tips we received are useful for anyone who receives a windfall, whether it's a lottery win, an inheritance, a big bonus on the job, or a killing in the stock market.
Read more
Gail Perry, CPA
Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, AccountingWEB
editor@accountingweb.com
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This Week on AccountingWEB

CPAs Mira Finé, Scott Hitchcock, Rob Keasal, Kathy Scorcio, and Ken Travis offer ten pieces of financial advice for the newest Powerball winner.
Hang Bower of BDO USA and Dan Black of Ernst & Young share their perspectives on why their firms made the Best Places to Work for Recent Grads 2013 list.
Herbein + Company, Inc. firm members talked with AccountingWEB about their year-round employee wellness program.
Bill Walter of Gross, Mendelsohn & Associates and Harold Gaar of TravisWolff LLP weigh in on mobile technology use while employees are at work.
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