Isaac M. O'Bannon

Two prominent accounting firms announced on Wednesday that they are planning to merge. Kennedy and Coe, LLC will merge with Matson and Isom effective January 1, 2015, pending final approvals of negotiations.

Cloud accounting provider Xero is rolling out a new practice management solution that offers job costing, time tracking and invoice management functions. Xero Practice Manager is designed for accountants and bookkeepers who provide services to a variety of business and individual clients.

Private sector employment in the U.S. increased in all nine Census Bureau Divisions during May, according to the monthly ADP Regional Employment Report, which is produced by ADP, a provider of Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions, in collaboration with Moody’s Analytics, Inc. The ADP Regional Employment Report measures monthly changes in regional non-farm private employment on a seasonally adjusted basis.

Improved audit quality is a goal being pursued by the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), and a non-partisan audit advocacy group is supporting its recent efforts.

Cloud accounting and business management developer Intacct has announced the launch of Performance Cards, new dashboard visualizations that provide users with at-a-glance views into critical performance trends. Built directly into the Intacct financial management system, Performance Cards are easy to create, require no custom code development or additional software, and leverage Intacct’s dimensional general ledger to provide a broad range of financial and operational insights for improved decision making.

The Internal Revenue Service has created a "Taxpayer Bill of Rights" that will become a cornerstone document to provide the nation's taxpayers with a better understanding of their rights.

Thomson Reuters has launched its next generation online tax research system, Checkpoint Catalyst, which features multi-jurisdictional content, embedded tools and an enhanced search engine. Catalyst is built on the Checkpoint platform, and is designed to help tax professionals more quickly find research results.

Small businesses are feeling slightly more confident in the economy, but one of the nation's largest organizations representing them says that there is "no sign of a surge."

Sage North America has introduced its new Sage Exchange Payment Management System, which is designed to help small and midsized businesses (SMBs) by consolidating all of their payment activity onto one platform. SMBs can also use Sage Exchange to easily monitor and manage the payments from all their sales environments: on the web, over the phone, through mobile devices, or at their storefront.

Two prominent accounting firms on New York's Long Island will join together beginning June 2, 2014. Combined, the two have more than fifty years of experience and the newly formed firm of CondeBoyce, LLP will unite the small business startup expertise of Mario Conde, CPA, formerly partner in the accounting firm of Ambrico Conde CPA, LLC, with Joseph Boyce, CPA, whose consulting practice specialized in outsourced CFO services for hedge funds. CondeBoyce, LLP is slated to become one of the leading full-service accounting firms in the New York metropolitan area. The company offices are located in Jericho, Long Island and New York City.

Increases in the total compensation that financial executives receive, including salaries, incentives and benefits, may foretell a turning point in the country’s economic recovery, according to the results of a new survey by Grant Thornton LLP and the Financial Executives Research Foundation (FERF).

CCH has launched a new online research tool called “Quick Answers.” The system features more than 2,000 answers to questions most often researched in IntelliConnect, CCH's research platform for tax and accounting professionals. In addition, the company is previewing CCH IntelliConnect Direct, a new universal platform research tool that provides clear and intuitive access to a wide variety of federal, state and international tax and accounting questions right when users need them.