Honoring Innovation: 2009

A wise philosopher who once said “change is good” was obviously ahead of his time. How could he have known the impact technology would have on improving efficiency, especially within the tax and accounting profession?

Handed out during the California Accounting and Business Show & Conference on June 1 in Los Angeles, the 2009 Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards honored a wide array of vendors offering products that went way beyond tried-and-true solutions. In fact, this year’s awards may feature the most diverse set of vendors in the six-year history of the awards.

“The CPA Technology Advisor's annual Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards are the pinnacle of achievement for technology vendors serving the profession,” says M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP, executive editor. “This year’s winners and honorable mentions rose to the top of the nominations because they do more than just provide workable solutions. Through ingenuity and fresh approaches to providing solutions, they are front and center in helping accountants energize their deliverables through product, service and training.”

This year’s winners included Bill.com; Capital Confirmation, Inc. – CONFIRM service; Copanion, Inc. – GruntWorx Pro; CCH, a Wolters Kluwer business – IntelliConnect; and SmartVault Corporation – SmartVault. Honorable mentions went to LeapFILE – LeapFILE Secure File Delivery and Storage; Alocet Incorporated – Method Integration; ShareFile – ShareFile for Accountants; and XCM Solutions, LLC – XCM Version 6.0 Workflow Management Software.

The Innovation Awards honor the developers of technologies who create solutions for tax and accounting professionals, and are selected by the Awards Committee of The CPA Technology Advisor based on their innovation and the potential benefit the products or services are likely to deliver to the profession. The Awards Committee includes the magazine’s editorial staff, thoughtleaders in the profession and the publication’s Editorial Advisory Board, which includes accounting and tax professionals working in public practice, from sole practitioners to major, multi-office regional practices.

Nominated products or services must be less than two years old or have undergone a significant revision or addition during the past two years. Only five awards are presented each year without categories or rankings.

Bill.com — Bill.com (www.bill.com)
Bill.com is a paperless, collaborative bill management and payment service designed to digitize and file all client financial documents, allow collaboration with clients via a web-based interface that supports various accounting services, and manage client cash flow and payment timing more effectively.

“Bill.com is the only bill management solution that weaves accounts payables, document management, collaboration and payments together in a simple, affordable service,” says René Lacerte, CEO and founder. “We have a proprietary two-way synch with QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Intacct that complements the GL software and allows accountants to offer sophisticated services while giving clients a simple user interface.”

Using Bill.com, Lacerte says accountants and their clients can now pay bills quickly and easily, while performing other tasks such as tax preparation and write-up more efficiently, all through improved collaboration, better record keeping and better controls.
“Ultimately, we want to see bill presentment and payment for small and mid-size businesses go 100 percent paperless,” he says.

“To that end, we are working on developing a shared network of large and small vendors so that our customers will be able pay anyone electronically and improve communication between vendors and customers. Our ePayment capability was recently released, and very soon any business will be able to register on our payment network so they can more easily accept payment directly into a bank account, avoiding trips to the bank to deposit checks or paying credit card merchant fees.”