2012 Form 940 Schedule A Updated Inside Payroll Software from PayrollMate.com

Real Business Solutions (PayrollMate.com), a nationwide developer of payroll and 1099 preparation software, is helping small businesses, accounting professionals and payroll service providers file form 940 and 940 Schedule A with the IRS. Payroll Mate 2012 prepares and prints ready-to-sign 2012 form 940 (Employer's Annual Federal Unemployment FUTA Tax Return) and 2012 940 Schedule A (Multi-State Employer and Credit Reduction Information).

All users of Payroll Mate 2012 will get the new form 940 Schedule A update for free. The software maker is also advising small businesses that are still doing payroll by hand to start using a payroll software solution, which offers serious benefits, from increased payroll preparation efficiency to tangible cost savings.

Payroll Mate is always one of the first payroll preparation solutions to implement payroll updates and new government regulations. Year after year, thousands of businesses and accounting professionals trust Payroll Mate to do payroll and prepare payroll taxes.

Payroll Mate makes doing payroll easy, smooth, predictable, and of course affordable through a set of powerful and flexible payroll management capabilities that allow small businesses to operate smarter and save money.

Below is a short list of what Payroll Mate can do: 

• Automatically calculates federal payroll tax and state payroll tax withholding.
• Supports different types of pay periods.
• Supports customizable income, tax and deductions categories.
• Supports income per mile and per piece.
• Supports the following federal payroll forms: 941, 940, 944, W-2, W-3.
• Supports California DE 9 , DE 9C, Texas C-3 , Texas C-4, New York NYS-45, IL 941 and IL UI-3/40.
• Supports fringe benefits.
• Supports payroll vacation accrual and sick pay accrual.
• Exports Payroll Data to QuickBooks software.
• Exports Payroll checks to Quicken and accounting software like Microsoft Office accounting.
• Generates comprehensive payroll reports.
• Supports non-employee (1099 contractor payroll) with the ability to print 1099 MISC and 1096 tax forms.
• Handles payroll deductions.
• Exports payroll reports to Excel, CSV and PDF.
• Prints on Laser and Inkjet checks.
• Prints on preprinted red scannable W2 forms and W3 forms.
• Free updates during the tax year.
• One step backup and restore.
• Runs over a network.
• Supports payroll direct deposit.
• Ability to print MICR checks on blank check stock.

ExactCPA Comment:  For those of you who file payroll tax information on behalf of your clients, PayrollMate.com has updated some of its 2012 tax forms in its Payroll Mate 21012 program.

Wave Accounting Launches Integrated Small Business Tools, Rebrands Simply as ‘Wave’

From Christine Dobby  @ Financial Post.com:  It started with free online accounting, but Toronto’s Wave Accounting Inc. is moving to position itself as a comprehensive tool for small businesses with everything from payroll management to invoicing and to — of course — accounting, all in one package.

The startup, which has raised more than $19-million in venture funding and grown to almost 80 employees, is rebranding itself as simply ‘Wave’ and angling to take on larger competitors like Intuit’s QuickBooks.

It is launching an integrated portfolio of all of its tools on Monday — all housed at a new site: Waveapps.com — and adding new features including a payment processing tool aimed at reducing the hassle and expense of credit card transactions for small businesses.

“We started the company as Wave Accounting three years ago and had a vision for doing that aspect of the back office better,” said Kirk Simpson, co-founder and CEO. “The vision has expanded just based on customer feedback about what they were looking for us to tackle. With that has come this new focus on expanding the horizon and quite frankly getting accounting out of the name of the company and the URL for that reason.”

Previously its online accounting tool and payroll product (which it charges a fee for) were related but separate apps.   “The big thing here is a simplified, unified application that handles the back office,” Mr. Simpson said.   Everything will remain free (its business model is based on small-business-related brands like American Express and Grand & Toy offering targeted deals to its users) except for its payroll app and the payment processing, for which there will be a fee of 2.9% per transaction.

Wave now has almost 500,000 customers and is adding new ones at a rate of about 1,300 per day, Mr. Simpson said.    Its head office is in Toronto and it also has employees in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Rochester, New York (the New York-based employees work primarily on the U.S. payroll side of the business).   It raised US$12-million in May, in a series B round led by the Social+Capital Partnership, a venture fund based in Palo Alto, Calif. In August Wave acquired Montreal stock analysis startup Vuru.co.

ExactCPA Comment:  Wave is positioning itself to take on accounting software giant Intuit.  Like Intuit, it is expanding into markets outside of its core accounting application.  Unlike Intuit, most of its applications are free.

It's great to see small companies like Wave and Xero giving Intuit and its Quickbooks platform a run for its money.  According to the Intuit website, they claim to have over 85% of the retail marketshare for business accounting software.  This will prove to be an uphill battle for any competitor.  However, with the technological advances related to cloud applications, I believe that the playing field is a little more level.