QuickBooks Online Adds Qvinci Financial Reporting Connectivity

Qvinci Software, the leading financial-reporting solution for franchises and multi-unit enterprises, today announced the integration of its cloud platform with QuickBooks Online to combine consolidated reporting and business intelligence with the #1 accounting solution for small business.

The integration will allow QuickBooks Online customers to connect and sync all their financial data with Qvinci. Data within QuickBooks Online will be consolidated and instantly visible in Qvinci, in a format that is clear and usable for better, smarter management.

QuickBooks Online users syncing just one business with Qvinci gain access to a user-friendly management dashboard showing key financial data in a visual format.

Users with multiple locations (including franchisors) can consolidate financials from all their locations in seconds, compare locations side-by-side, and benchmark against the best-performing locations in their ecosystem. All QuickBooks Online users can use Qvinci to run numerous reports, identify operating and financial problems, set early-warning alerts, and receive email reporting on virtually any device.

"Both QuickBooks Online and Qvinci are highly-secure, cloud-based applications that give users anytime, anywhere access through SaaS subscription models," said Charles Nagel, CEO of Qvinci Software. "Our companies are customer-centric. That includes fast and secure access, easy-to-use interfaces, intuitive design and navigation, and reports that are immediately understandable and usable."

Intuit is the biggest name in small business accounting. The QuickBooks Online platform is the next evolution of QuickBooks, and with over 1.3 million users and growing, QuickBooks Online is the clear leader in cloud-based accounting for small business. With Qvinci, those businesses now have an easy, affordable, and automated way to bring data from a few or thousands of locations into a user-friendly dashboard, and immediately see and understand the financial picture for each unit, any group of units, and the whole enterprise.

Before you've finished a cup of coffee and a donut, you'll have an intelligent overview to kick start your action plan for the day. Another click on Qvinci's Reporting tab delivers a plethora of detailed and quickly digestible reports, including ranking, side-by-side P&Ls, benchmarking, and filters that isolate operational subsets (that you define) to allow you to compare and optimize.

Bottom line, with Qvinci and QuickBooks Online, you'll be managing your enterprise more easily, more smartly, and more profitably, at a price that's remarkably affordable.

QuickBooks Online users can now take a Qvinci account (Enterprise, Multi, or free – for one or two financial files), connect to QuickBooks Online, and enjoy automatic syncing of their QuickBooks Online data in Qvinci. There's nothing to download. To get started, simply go to http://www.qvinci.com and click on "Start With a Free Account", or contact Qvinci Customer Support.

The Australia and Asia-Pacific editions of QuickBooks Online will gain connectivity with Qvinci in June 2014, establishing a worldwide footprint for the QuickBooks/Qvinci integrated solution for accounting and reporting.

OpenSync 2.0.5 Released / the most reliable and robust QuickBooks data synchronization solution on the market.

I know we’ve haven’t had an update in a while but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been plugging away at making OpenSync the most reliable and robust QuickBooks data synchronization solution on the market.

With the release of version 2.0.5 we have introduced a slew of performance enhancements, bug fixes, and optimizations that should make OpenSync even more powerful. You can download the latest build via the OpenSync product page

Here is a full list of the changes:

• MySQL ODBC Connector 5.2 has a significant problem but OpenSync did not properly catch the error. It now reports the error but this version of the connector should not be used.
• Statements charges (charge table) will not update properly when selected as a specific table has been fixed
• OtherName table would not update properly when selected as a specific table has been fixed
• OtherName table now supports Notes field
• Quantity on hand and TotalValue can now be set when adding a new inventory item.
• Add, modify, and delete support added for ItemFixedAssets
• Fixed bug where custom fields were not always getting properly set when adding inventory, non-inventory, and service items
• Added option to remove time component from refresh operations. This is needed to address a bug in the Australian version of QB operating in specific time zones.
• Added option to “Add tables to existing database” when adding new database.
• Bug which caused some refresh tasks to invoke full table populate has been fixed
• Address note field now supported for updates

Skirting the New Investment Tax 'Active' business owners can escape the 3.8% investment tax—if they're truly active.

Arden Dale for the Wall St Journal writes: Business owners can avoid paying a new 3.8% investment tax on their profits by taking on an active role in running the enterprise. But they need to be able to document their workload and maintain that work level year after year, experts say.

The additional tax on net investment income, which was enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act, took effect in 2013. It is levied on dividends, capital gains and other investment income for most married joint filers who have more than $250,000 in adjusted gross income. (For most singles, the threshold is $200,000.)

The Internal Revenue Service imposes the tax on individuals who are the ultimate owners of entities such as partnerships and S corporations, whose income passes through directly to the owners, when it determines owners are playing more of a passive “investor” role—a judgment based partly on how much time they spend on the job. Active owners don’t have to pay the tax on income from the business.

Financial advisers discussing the tax with clients report that one question keeps coming up: How hard would it be to go from being a passive owner to an active one?

“This is not easy to do,” says Katherine Dean, managing director of wealth planning at Wells Fargo Private Bank, which has $170 billion under management. “Don’t try to convert passive activities if you are not seriously participating in the ongoing running of the business.”

To be deemed active by the IRS, the agency uses a series of tests: Some business owners have to spend at least 500 hours on the job annually, though the owner of a small business may pass the test because he or she is its sole participant. The IRS says it will look for records that show a person’s work efforts have been “regular, continuous and substantial.”

Ms. Dean recently worked with a client who owns two restaurants—established as S corporations—for which he acts as general manager. The client also owns a food-distribution business set up as a limited liability corporation.

She helped the client take advantage of a two-year window the IRS has allowed for 2013 and 2014 to let those who qualify regroup some activities so they can meet the test of being active. The IRS has approved how the client regrouped his activities in the restaurants, so he is considered as active in both.

A good place to start when thinking about becoming more active is to look at how close your income is to the threshold that triggers the tax, says Stephen A. Baxley, a managing director and director of tax and financial planning at Bessemer Trust in New York.

For someone who is close to the threshold, it could be worth it to spend more time in the business to meet the IRS test for material participation, he says.

Some kinds of businesses—such as those that involve rental real estate—make it harder for an owner to meet the activity test. Rental income is generally considered passive, Ms. Dean says. To be considered otherwise, an active owner also must qualify as a real-estate professional who spends more than 750 hours in services related to real estate, she says.

Cathy Schnaubelt, a wealth adviser in the Houston office of wealth-management firm Atlantic Trust, which oversees $24 billion, says it is important for business owners to maintain scrupulous records to prove that they are active participants in their businesses, in case the IRS issues a challenge. “You need contemporaneous records that show you are really doing these things as they happen, versus making it all up after you get the audit letter,” she says.

The IRS looks for other signs that a business owner may be stretching the truth about how much time he or she spends running it, Ms. Schnaubelt adds. A taxpayer who draws a paycheck for a 40-hour-a-week job in one city but claims to be an active participant in a business in another city may raise a red flag.

“The IRS will ask, is that reasonable?” she says.

Suntico (online account management and collaboration system) Announce Integration with Leading Cloud Accounting Platform Xero

Suntico have announced the integration of its online workplace with Xero, a leading cloud accounting software solution. The Xero integration is being released initially as a beta, with a general release anticipated in coming months.

Suntico is an online account management and collaboration system for small businesses. Unlike any other system, Suntico solves the problem of ad-hoc automation through its unique use of social technologies. The integration takes Xero accounting data from the back office and plants it into the heart of front office conversations and activities. Through Suntico, relevant Xero data can be made available to all members of the company, without having to grant direct access to the Xero software.

Users interested in becoming part of the beta program are invited to Sign Up. Participants will play an integral role in fine-tuning the connector installation for Xero. They will be given first access to the platform and the opportunity to provide feedback directly to Suntico.

According to Suntico's SVP Business Development, Hugh Johnson:

“We are delighted to open up our platform to Xero users. The functionality of these two products complement each other perfectly. Xero will take care of looking after the final business records. Suntico helps people to get the work that creates these accounting records done in the first place.”

About Suntico: 
Suntico is an online workplace for small and medium sized businesses that use Sage 50 Accounting software. It links into a company’s Sage records, transforming them into an online workplace that users can securely access from anywhere using any web-enabled device such as a laptop, iPad, Android tablet or smartphone.

It is currently available for Sage 50 Accounting US (formerly Sage Peachtree), Sage 50 Accounting Canada (formerly Simply Accounting) and Sage 50 Accounts in the UK and Ireland.

About Xero: 
Xero is a cloud based accounting platform for small and medium sized businesses. An emerging leader in online accounting, Xero lets users track and maintain accounts information with features including online invoicing, bank reconciliation and real-time financial reporting.

For more information, see the Suntico website.

Entrepreneurial Visionary, Darren Root, Publishes New Book – The Intentional Accountant

Leaders from RootWorks, LLC, today announced the release of CEO Darren Root's new book--The Intentional Accountant. The book shares Root's personal journey from technician to entrepreneur--offering a clear roadmap for practitioners that wish to transform their firms into thriving profit centers and lead their business as a true entrepreneur.

"My goal in writing the book was to share my own journey along what I call the Intentional Accountant Continuum™--from accounting technician to entrepreneur," explained Darren Root, CPA, CITP, CGMA and CEO of RootWorks. "My hope is that the book will inspire and motivate others to build their own Next Generation Accounting Firm®, lead as a true entrepreneur, and live a balanced life."

Root defines a Next Generation Accounting Firm as:
"A business built on focused intention and with unmitigated entrepreneurial spirit that enables you to have the life you want. It runs on a business model that supports an environment where you can be present in all aspects of your personal and professional lives to have the greatest impact on family, staff, clients, and community."

The Intentional Accountant strives to "empower bean counters to become better entrepreneurs," according to Root. The book maps out a clear pathway for independent accountants to go beyond merely working at a job and to create the vision and organizational structure necessary to build a true enterprise. It offers a practical, end-to-end roadmap of the strategic process and methods that not only transformed Root's CPA firm, but that have also changed the lives and personal fortunes of hundreds of practitioners and shareholders in accounting firms nationwide.

The Intentional Accountant was released May 9, 2014, and is available for purchase on Amazon.

About Darren Root and RootWorks LLC   Darren is CEO of RootWorks (RootWorks.com)--the accounting profession's premier membership-based organization dedicated to educating firms nationwide on building a Next Generation Accounting Firm®. He is also president of Root & Associates CPAs and formerly served as the Executive Editor of CPA Practice Advisor magazine. Darren is a nationally recognized speaker on the subject of practice management and has been honored with numerous awards. In 2011, he co-authored The E-Myth Accountant with business guru Michael Gerber, and in 2013 co-authored YouTility for Accountants with New York Times best-selling author, Jay Baer.

About the Book:
The Intentional Accountant – Your Roadmap for Building a Next Generation Accounting Firm®
By Darren Root, CPA, CITP, CGMA
Publisher: RootWorks LLC
Publication Date: May 9, 2014
Cost: $9.99 – e-book; $19.95 – Paperback
Available in Kindle format