Members of the the ICAEW's practice software suppliers forum have finally endorsed the eXtensible Practice Standard (xPS) to ease the exchange of data between different systems.
As reported on IT Zone last month, the standard was agreed in principle at the end of May, but it has taken several weeks for the institute's IT Faculty to extract formal approvals from all of the forum members.
Conceived by Mike Francis of Practice Engine and developed by Digita with input from companies that included Sage, Star Computer, APS, MYOB, PTP and IRIS, xPS is an XML-based scheme that defines data tags for client and contact details. These tags mean that the same data can be recognised (and transferred) between applications.
Members of th forum will continue to meet to consider how they can extend the scope of the standard, the ICAEW IT faculty said.
For more technical information on xPS, visit the IT Faculty website.