Nomination Period Opens for 2011 Innovation Awards

OKLAHOMA CITY – January 28, 2011 – The nomination period has opened for the eighth annual Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards. Sponsored by The CPA Technology Advisor, the leading independent technology information resource for tax and accounting professionals, the highly coveted awards honor new or improved technologies that promote increased efficiency and productivity for accounting firms. Nominations can be made at www.CPATechAdvisor.com/award.

The nomination period will remain open until March 31, and those nominating products before February 28 will receive a discounted nomination fee. The Awards will be presented in Los Angeles on June 6, 2011, during a special reception at the California Accounting and Business Show & Conference.

"The role of technology in the modern tax and accounting practice continues to dramatically evolve, giving professionals the ability to more effectively manage larger client bases and provide more services to those clients, while also streamlining workflow processes and reducing tedious tasks,” said M. Darren Root, CPA.CITP, the Executive Editor of The CPA Technology Advisor.

“The firms that will be the most successful today, tomorrow and into the future, will be those that actively evaluate and implement new technologies and processes, and the Innovation Awards are designed to help spotlight technologies that hold significant potential for helping professionals achieve this success.”

A total of five awards are presented each year based upon nominations received from vendors, academics and the professional community. The awards are not ranked or divided into categories. This means that all nominated products and services that meet the submission requirements have the opportunity to be selected for any of the five awards. Award recipients are selected by an awards committee comprised of the editorial staff at The CPA Technology Advisor, thought leaders in the profession, and the publication's Editorial Advisory Board, which includes accounting and tax professionals from various sized firms across the country who are engaged in a variety of practice areas.

Previous Innovation Award winners have included: Microsoft, Intuit, Maxtor, DoubleSight Displays, Thomson Reuters, SurePrep, Copanion, SmartVault and BankServ.

Any type of technology or service can be nominated for the Innovation Awards, whether they are specific to the accounting and tax profession, aid in client-professional communication and collaboration, or are for general business purposes. To qualify for consideration for an Innovation Award, products or services must meet all of the following conditions:

• Commercially available (no Beta versions), with verifiable user base
• New Technologies must be within two years since introduction; Existing Technologies must have significant new modules, features, major revisions or version changes within the previous two years.
• Directly marketed to tax and accounting profession, although product/service need not be exclusively marketed to this profession.
• If selected, a representative of the vendor must be available to receive the award in person at the California Accounting and Business Show & Conference.

Nominations for the Tax & Accounting Technology Innovation Awards can be made by vendors or other parties by completing the online nomination form. For nominations made before February 28, the nomination fee is $200; nominations thereafter have a fee of $275.

More information on the Awards is available at www.CPATechAdvisor.com/award, along with the secure nomination form.