2006 Technology Innovation Awards

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• August 2006 Issue
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From the Aug. 2006 Issue

The 2006 Tax and Accounting Technology Innovation Awards were announced in June, recognizing recent advances in technologies that benefit accounting and tax professionals. This year’s five award winners included long-standing heavyweights in the accounting technology field such as CCH, Intuit and PayCycle; relative newcomer Colligo Networks; and the formidable Microsoft, which recently reintroduced itself to the accounting market.

Winners of the Tax and Accounting Technology Awards are selected by this magazine’s editorial advisory board, contributing writers and editorial staff for their innovation as well as for the potential benefits their products or services are likely to deliver to the profession. The advisory board is comprised of accounting and tax professionals from across the country who are engaged in public practice in firms ranging from sole practitioners to major, multi-office regional practices. This year’s nominees included software, hardware, services and web-based products geared toward increasing the productivity and profitability of a professional practice, or toward enhancing the relationship between a firm and its clients.

The awards were announced at a reception ceremony at the California Accounting and Business Show & Conference in Los Angeles, and during a lunch general session at the AICPA TECH 2006 conference in Austin, Texas. Executive Editor Gregory L. LaFollette, CPA.CITP presented the awards.

“I am excited by the continued evolution of technologies designed to assist tax and accounting professionals,” said LaFollette. “These technologies help us better meet the everyday challenges we face in providing a valuable and trustworthy service to our clients, enabling greater productivity, efficiency and profitability.” Mr. LaFollette remains in professional practice with the top-100 firm of Eide Bailly, LLP.

Any technology that benefits the tax and accounting professions may be nominated for an award, whether software, hardware or technology service. To be considered for an award, the nominee must be commercially available at the time of judging, and be either less than two years old or have undergone a significant redevelopment or addition within that timeframe. Products or services previously winning an award are not eligible. All award recipients were selected on an “at-large” basis — there are no categories represented by the winners, nor are the winners ranked against each other. Nominations can be made by any person, including vendor representatives, resellers and end users.

You can jump directly to specific winners:
CCH Tax & Accounting | TaxAlmanac.org | Microsoft Small Business Accounting
PayCycle Inc. | Colligo Networks | Honorable Mentions

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CCH Tax and Accounting (www.tax.CCHGroup.com) received an award for ProSystem fx Scan, formerly known as BOCDIP. The system is an automated document identification tool that supports the paperless process for accountants, quickly completing what previously were several expensive and time-consuming tasks, freeing professional staff to engage in more profitable activities. The system includes PDFlyer, a powerful and user-friendly Adobe Acrobat plug-in that facilitates working with multiple *.PDF files in a paperless, dual-screen environment. Together, BOCDIP and PDFlyer provide an extremely efficient system for preparing paperless 1040s.