Accounting Software Features

Are you buried in reports? "Can't see the wood for the trees." Every Salesforce admin has been there: → Endless lists of reports → No idea what's still relevant → Wasted time searching for that one critical report The solution? Create a "Report on Reports". Here's how: Set up a custom report type (Setup > Report Types > New) → Primary Object - Reports → Secondary Object - Dashboard Components Save and run a new report. ↳ Show all reports ↳ Include valuable columns like 'Report Name', 'Folder Name', 'Created Date' and 'Last Run' Now you can: → Filter by "Last Run" to identify reports that haven't been touched in years → Group by Report Type to see which custom types are not being used → Add Dashboard Component field to see if it's used by a dashboard What other report-ception tricks do you know? --- Found this helpful? Like 👍 | Comment ✍ | Repost ♻️

This is something I’ve seen time and again. Entrepreneurs fall in love with their business — they see it as a story. Investors? They look at numbers. Cold. Rational. Measurable. - One sees emotion - The other sees value But transcend both, and that’s where good becomes great. I’ve worked with dozens of founders who had grit and perseverance. But grit alone isn’t enough. You have to understand the monetary side of your business — - What do you own? - What do you owe? - What’s actually making you money? - What’s bleeding your margins? If you can’t quantify this, you can’t manage! That’s where accounting/bookkeeping comes in — not just as a compliance, but as a decision-making framework. This is Sankalp, and welcome to week 18/52 of value accounting! Part 1: The Chart of Accounts (COA) Think of a COA as your business’s financial architecture. It’s the foundation on which everything else is built — from tracking revenue to preparing investor decks to calculating taxes. As a systems architect, your COA should achieve 3 things: [1] The COA is designed in a manner that even if the company scales to different lines of services (LOS), it can accommodate all the requirements. Eg. Zomato started with food delivery, then tried 10-minute grocery delivery. A malleable COA can accommodate both without chaos. [2] Sometimes, a holding company has multiple entities with different legal structures. Can you extend the basic COA structure to other companies? This will help in the consolidation of the holding company. Not only that, it should also accommodate the GAAP requirements of different countries. Eg. Infosys has subsidiaries across India, US, Mexico, Australia, Germany, and the UK. Their COA supports different legal entities and accounting standards (US GAAP, IFRS, IGAAP) — yet still rolls up for group-level reporting. [3] There should be some intelligence to the COA numbering system. Let me give you the example of a basic account heads codification: Assets (1XXX) -> 1010 – Checking Account -> 1100 – Accounts Receivables -> 1200 – Inventory -> 1500 – Fixed Assets -> 1600 – Prepaid Insurance Liabilities (2XXX) -> 2000 – Accounts Payable -> 2100 – Sales Tax Payable -> 2200 – Wages Payable -> 2300 – Notes Payable -> 2400 – Accrued Expenses Equity (3XXX) -> 3000 – Owner’s Capital -> 3100 – Retained Earnings -> 3300 – Partner Capital Revenue/Income (4XXX) -> 4000 – Sales Revenue -> 4100 – Consulting Income -> 4200 – Subscription Income -> 4300 – Interest Income Expenses (5XXX-6XXX) -> 5000 – Rent -> 5100 – Salaries -> 5200 – Marketing -> 5300 – Office Supplies -> 5400 – Software/Subscriptions -> 6000s+ – Depreciation, Insurance, Professional Fees This is me 10 years ago (Ghibli-style) — when I was still in SAP consulting, building systems for businesses. That image brought back memories of where it all began. Let’s build from there. Next week, we’ll go deeper. Regards, Sankalp #linkedin #finance #accountingandaccountants Parth Verma

➡️ KPMG journey to build an agentic tax advisory system is a benchmark for technical transformation in consulting. After rigorous risk analysis (including securing sensitive PII), they moved all tax advisory knowledge often scattered across partners’ laptops and documents into a centralized, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architecture. Their platform (KPMG Workbench) uses a federated approach, integrating multiple LLMs (OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Anthropic, Meta) for future-proof model flexibility. To construct “TaxBot,” KPMG’s team engineered an extensive 100-page instruction prompt, refined over months. This prompt defines operational context, intake structure, workflow, compliance guidance, and directs interaction between human experts and the agent. TaxBot ingests four to five key client parameters, then prompts iterative expert input before auto-generating a robust 25-page draft, synthesizing internal tax advice and Australia’s entire tax code. The agent sits behind strict access controls (usable only by accredited tax professionals), maximizing safety and accuracy. 👉🏼 It slashed advisory delivery from two weeks to one day. KPMG’s technical leadership also built agent runtime services, enabling multi-agent workflows writers, editors, and credential managers collaborate in an asynchronous framework to automate document production and knowledge management. Their story is not just about speed, but how a technical prompt engineering discipline, retrieval-augmented architectures, and federated LLM selection can reshape high-impact professional services for resilient innovation. If you’re thinking about agentic automation in highly regulated domains, KPMG’s approach deep prompt engineering, multi-model orchestration, RAG, human-in-the-loop should be your blueprint. #genai #ai #RAG #LLM #KPMG

Excel spreadsheets can be transformed into secure apps, letting analysts extend formulas into personalized, user-driven reporting. Dynamic reporting often means building multiple pivot tables or filters. With Copilot, analysts can produce natural language summaries directly. In Excel, you might use =COPILOT("Summarize sales by region", Sales!A2:C200) to generate a text summary. Run another formula like =COPILOT("Highlight top 5 products", Sales!B2:B200) for rankings. Combine outputs into a dashboard sheet. This creates value, but requires analysts to manage every formula variation. In Sheetcast, reporting prompts can be user-driven. Builders define a text input field where visitors enter a reporting question. That field links to the formula: =COPILOT(UserPrompt, Sales!A2:C200). The result displays in a report page, automatically aligned to the dataset. Permissions ensure visitors only see fields relevant to them, even while running their own prompts. Instead of maintaining many static views, the app enables dynamic reports generated by Copilot on demand. Analysts keep control of data security, while users explore insights with natural language. #sheetcastpartner

7 logins. Endless tabs. And somehow we’re meant to deliver “advisory” on top of that. If you run an accounting firm, you know the joke. That’s why I’m genuinely buzzing about the launch of Intuit Accountant Suite - because this actually fixes a real problem. Not another bolt-on. Not another dashboard nobody uses. One AI-native platform that brings client management, team oversight and workflows into a single sign-in. The bits that actually matter AI-powered Client Insights Instant visibility across the firm - who’s profitable, who’s stretched, and where the risks are. No exporting. No spreadsheet gymnastics. Books Close at scale A proper, standardised close process with progress tracking. Less chaos at month end. Fewer bottlenecks. Less chasing. Built for firms that want to grow Role-based access, custom dashboards, and tools that feel designed for scaling firms - not just ticking compliance boxes. This feels like the next proper shift for our industry. Less “toggle tax”. More time running the firm properly and helping clients make better decisions. If you’re serious about growth, this is worth your attention. Details here: https://lnkd.in/eh_Mp3cY

Without Intuit Accountant Suite, I wouldn’t have made my recent acquisition 🧡 That’s not hype, it’s because this isn’t just a fresh coat of paint on QuickBooks Online Accountant. It’s a fundamental shift in how we can run, scale, and proactively manage an accounting practice. If, like me, you’ve got clients on QuickBooks and you find it really tricky to stay proactive with them and keep on top of what’s going on, then Intuit Accountant Suite (IAS) is going to solve a lot of those problems for you. I’ve already been using IAS, and the difference is night and day. Instead of reacting when work lands, we can now see what’s happening across the practice before issues arise.   Here’s what’s made the biggest impact for me: Client Insights 👍 Firm-wide client analytics and benchmarking 👍 A holistic view of what’s going on across all clients 👍 Choose exactly what to monitor by client group 👍 For example: track clients nearing the VAT threshold without opening individual files Custom Dashboard 👏 A personalised home base for each team member 👏 Critical tasks, reminders, and AI-powered insights surfaced clearly 👏 No more just a list of clients, you see the data that matters to your role 👏 Helps ensure nothing falls through the cracks across the team The best part is that this is just the start. When we first moved from desktop to cloud, we were excited by the fact that we could access client data without visiting clients, collecting USB sticks, or relying on physical files. Being able to jump into multiple clients with the click of a button felt like a huge step forward for the profession. But slowly, that stopped being enough. Now, with IAS, we don’t just access client data; we’re presented with it. We get insights without needing to go into individual clients. We can work at a firm-wide level, not just client by client. That means we can spot issues faster, put processes in place sooner, and make changes across multiple clients from a single, holistic view. We can even start running bookkeeping activity at a firm-wide level. Moving from desktop to cloud was huge. Having holistic, always available client data takes things even further. It allows us to be better advisors, more proactive, and ultimately better partners to our clients. For me, Intuit Accountant Suite isn’t just about making QuickBooks Online Accountant look more in line with what our clients see. It’s a platform we can actually have confidence in to grow our practice. I’ll also be sharing more walkthroughs and videos on my channel (Aaron Patrick The QuickBooks Chap) because I genuinely believe the future of accounting belongs to integrated, all-in-one platforms that actually work for firms! 👉 Learn more about Intuit Accountant Suite here: https://lnkd.in/eW4_Yi7p #AD #Accounting #Bookkeeping Intuit Accountants

Tax AI - A Tool or the Next Team Member? For decades, tax functions have been built around two constants: a. Interpreting ever-changing regulations b. Managing data and compliance with precision Now comes AI - not just automating, but reimagining how tax is delivered. a. A tool makes your job faster. b. A team member changes how you think, plan, and decide. Tax AI is moving beyond automation. Imagine a system that: a. Predicts risks before a tax officer raises a query b. Designs alternative structures for cross-border flows in seconds c. Learns from historic disputes and simulates outcomes d. Reads global policy shifts and tells you what they mean for tomorrow’s deal e. This isn’t science fiction - it’s the direction we’re heading. But here’s the real question: Are we, as tax leaders, ready to treat AI as a strategic colleague rather than a back-office tool? Because the future tax team may not just be humans using AI - it may be humans + AI, co-creating decisions. The role of the professional? Judgment, ethics, storytelling, and empathy. The role of AI? Scale, speed, and relentless accuracy. The winning tax function of tomorrow will know how to blend the two. So, when you picture your tax team five years from now - do you see AI sitting at that table? #Tax #AI #Leadership #FutureOfWork #TaxTechnology

I had a multi entity client call last week to discuss their Finance Function options as they have outgrown Xero based on some functionality criteria but also from significant volumes of transactions. They had a basic tech stack that could work and scale aside from the transaction volumes almost a standstill with Dext, ApprovalMax and Xero along with Airwallex the only thing they were missing from a multi entity perspective was Mayday and a reporting tool such as Syft Analytics for their multi entity consolidations. Their first port of call was to look at the jump to Netsuite as this was the jump most were used to in the past if they scaled out of the smaller cloud accounting tools into a full on enterprise level ERP solution. We discussed the evolution of the tech space which i summarised for them in this visual, highlighting the price and functionality gap between small business cloud solutions and enterprise level ERPs - this gap was an obvious hole in the market and one that has since been serviced by Mid-Tier solutions such as AccountsIQ Xledger UK and iplicit as well as the app add on space growing and allowing the likes of Xero, Sage and Intuit QuickBooks to grow their tech stacks to service business as they evolve. I've seen many business owners dropping down into these solutions from the Enterprise level solutions given the functionality and price points seen at this level. FreeAgent have done a great job establishing themselves as the choice for individual business owners and have grown into the small space with functionality encroaching that of the other 3 providers mentioned, but this client is not a FreeAgent type of client. The result..... the client has a firm requirements criteria to benchmark each option against. Xero, Sage and QBO have been discounted as a result of multiple licensing being required as well as multiple add on apps complicating the overall set up but also pricing ramped up fast. Mid-Tier was the way forward! The client has since had demos with AccountsIQ, iplicit and also Sage Intacct and is now following up with detailed requirements but has been super impressed by the functionality offered in these platforms which they thought they could only get from the Enterprise solutions. Q - What solutions have i missed? 🎙️ Ryan Pearcy (Waiting for John Toon to mention Zoho) Q - App vendors, let me have your elevator pitch you use to position your product and i'll overlay on this visual FreeAgent Xero Intuit QuickBooks Sage AccountsIQ iplicit Xledger UK NetSuite Dynamics 365 Business Central ™ SAP #TechStack #CloudAccounting #DigitalTransformation

🛠️ 𝗠𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗘𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗼𝗹𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗧𝗼𝗼𝗹𝘀- 𝗔𝗻 𝗨𝗻𝗯𝗶𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗿𝘃𝗲𝘆 🛠️ Just spent last weekend (yes, I need a life!) diving deep into consolidation software after watching one too many finance teams still wrestling with Excel for multi-entity reporting. The results were eye-opening. Some platforms that look impressive in demos completely fall apart when you hit them with real-world complexity. Others that seem basic actually handle sophisticated scenarios beautifully. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗜 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱:  • 𝗢𝗻𝗲𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗺 really is the 𝗴𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 for enterprise complexity, but you better have 6+ months and serious technical resources  • 𝗦𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗰𝘁 keeps winning 𝗺𝗶𝗱-𝗺𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 deals for good reason – it just works without the drama  • 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗥𝗮𝗱𝗶𝘂𝘀 is doing some genuinely interesting things with AI, though I'd want to see more regulatory compliance depth.  • Several "leaders" couldn't handle basic minority interest calculations (seriously?) 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗺𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶-𝗰𝘂𝗿𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗽𝗶𝗲𝗰𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴. Most platforms claim they do it, but when you dig into the actual translation methodologies and audit trail capabilities, the differences are stark. If you're still doing consolidations in excel or your current platform makes month-end feel like root canal surgery, this analysis breaks down what actually matters vs. what's just marketing fluff. I provide a full breakdown with technical details and letter grades in the article. 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 analysis – no vendor paid for this review or for any of my articles. What's your experience been with consolidation tools? The horror stories are always the most educational. #CFO #Consolidation #FinancialReporting #MultiEntity

The 6th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD6), adopted in 2024, introduces significant updates to the EU’s framework for combating money laundering and terrorist financing. Here’s what you need to know: 📌 Key Highlights: • Beneficial Ownership Transparency: AMLD6 standardizes the definition and identification of beneficial owners, focusing on both ownership (25% threshold, reduced to 15% in high-risk sectors) and control. • Centralized Registers: Member states must maintain interconnected beneficial ownership registers accessible to competent authorities and entities with a legitimate interest. • Access Rules: While public access to some registers was restricted following a 2022 court ruling, AMLD6 ensures structured access for compliance professionals, journalists, and NGOs. • Enhanced Data Verification: Authorities are required to validate the accuracy of beneficial ownership data, ensuring historical records are maintained for up to 15 years. 📌 Broader Scope: • Expanded Obliged Entities: New sectors, including crypto-asset providers, art traders, and professional football clubs, are now subject to compliance. • Customer Due Diligence (CDD): Obliged entities must identify and verify both clients and their beneficial owners, monitor relationships, and assess risks. These measures aim to bolster transparency, streamline compliance across the EU, and prevent illicit financial activities. Organizations operating in affected sectors should prioritize aligning their compliance frameworks with the directive’s requirements. #AMLD6 #Compliance #LegalUpdates #AML