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Cloud watch: QBO releases CIS automation feature

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31st May 2017
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AccountingWEB’s May Cloud Watch springs back into action after a winter break with news from IRIS about its latest acquisition. Elsewhere, a certain annual accounting trade show rolled into town. Like Christmas morning, Accountex brought a number of goodies to keep the cloud watch desk happy. 

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QBO releases CIS automation feature

Quickbooks Online has released an automation feature that calculates and reports CIS deductions.

The QuickBooks CIS module integrates into QuickBooks Online and is available for free to QBO users. The auto-calculation aspect of the feature determines how much contractors should deduct or pay HMRC. Contractors can also use this module to invoice and bill, create automated custom reports and has a bank feed integration.

 Dominic Allon, vice president and managing director of Intuit Europe said QuickBooks CIS was borne out of seeing the frustration their construction customers felt when manually calculating and reporting their monthly CIS deductions.

“Not one contractor we met got into this business because they loved taxes, deductions, and compliance," Allon said. "We knew we could help revolutionise this process, saving them time and increasing accuracy and confidence, so they could get back to doing what they love - running their business.”

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IRIS goes back to school

IRIS has added software Results Squared to its expanding portfolio of education software tools.

Joining the acquisitions of PS Financials and SAAF Software, the Results Squared acquisition plays into the software house’s strategic move into the education sector. IRIS expects the need for integrated education solutions will become vital as more schools convert to academies.

Results Squared will integrate with IRIS’s other education acquisitions. Kevin Dady, CEO of IRIS Software Group, said: “This is another stepping stone in our strategic plan to grow the business and our mission to deliver outstanding service and innovation for our customers”

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Arthur debuts at Accountex

Accountex is a good place to discover newcomers and fresh add-ons. One which caught our attention was the property management, maintenance and communication tool, Arthur.

With landlords being caught in the first wave of MTD, this property CRM system could be a solution. Occupying a small booth, Arthur decided to debut at this year’s event after accountants were credited as being one of the newcomer’s top reseller. This shift in interest from the accounting world has come about since integrating with Xero.  

Landlords and property managers can use Arthur to share documents, communicate and track issues and charges with tenants. Arthur then feeds these expenses and invoices into Xero. Somewhat aware of the sweeping changes MTD will have on landlords, Arthur is planning a bigger presence at next year’s Accountex.

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IRIS reveals Xero tag team

Appearing once again in this month’s Cloud Watch, IRIS Software revealed at Accountex its integration with Xero.

IRIS’s Sion Lewis, CEO of the software company’s accountancy division, hatched the partnership with Xero’s Gary Turner a couple of months ago. While the collaboration was spurred on in part by Making Tax Digital, Lewis told AccountingWEB it was also driven by what their customers want.

“The customer wants to use Xero, wants to use Kashflow and wants to use FreeAgent. And we need to allow that,” Lewis said.

The integration allows users to pull trial balance information from Xero into IRIS’s Accountancy Suite. Other software companies have struck similar co-operative deals. Last year Xero announced an integration with Thomsen Reuters, and IRIS has already partnered with FreeAgent.

 

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MTD-compliant software showcased at Accountex

A number of software companies used Accountex to unveil their MTD-compliant software.

While much of the legislation underpinning Making Tax Digital was dropped from the Finance Bill following the announcement of the snap election, it was one of the main topics of conversation among the delegates and vendors at Accountex.  

Over on the BTCSoftware stand the team demonstrated how the “digital tax return” section would look when Making Tax Digital is eventually rolled out. Rob Ellis, BTC Software’s CEO, told Cloud Watch that its users have “gone home happy” from the event after seeing how the digital tax interface works and how it’s been implemented into the software.  

Meanwhile, as reported on the Industry Update section of the site, TaxCalc showcased its MTD solution: TaxCalc MTD and MyFirmsApp announced its entry into the MTD market with Collect. 

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Tornado
By Tornado
25th May 2017 15:30

"This is another stepping stone in our strategic plan to grow the business and our mission to deliver outstanding service and innovation for our customers”

Try telling that to OpenTax users who have been badly let down by IRIS.

EDIT : I have noticed the irony in the heading of this article as IRIS are unable to offer a Cloud based alternative to OpenTax and there is a remarkably small amount of IRIS software that is actually Cloud based.

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avatar
By mabzden
26th May 2017 10:55

After the OpenTax debacle, Iris said cloud technology isn't very good and you can only do things properly with their trusty, 20-year old desktop software.

So how come they're still buying cloud-based systems? Did the CEO not get the memo?

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