Tech News: A new kind of spreadsheet, and more

January 24, 2022 10:00 AM

SeaTable reinvents a staple of the profession with its new take on the spreadsheet; Vertex goes to the Edge with its new tax tool for global retailers; a new release from Accounting Seed; Surgent offers CPA exam prep on the go; a fresh spate of technology company funding rounds; and other new tools and reports.

A spreadsheet for the 21st century

Cloud-based spreadsheet SeaTable aims to let users capture, organize and analyze every type of data — not just text and numbers, but also images, documents, drop-down lists, emails and more. This lets remote teams share not just the usual types of information you'd expect in a spreadsheet, but all the data they need to collaborate effectively, without having to jump back and forth between a range of systems and applications. It also includes ready-made templates for Kanban boards, Gantt charts and more to help users describe and streamline their workflows.

Edge computing for tax

Tax technology solution provider Vertex has launched its Vertex Indirect Tax O Series Edge cloud solution, which aims to let global omnichannel retailers deploy "containerized tax engines" wherever transactions are being processed, increasing speed and reducing friction and latency for the companies and their users.

Exam prep on the go

Hand-out/Surgent Holdings

Professional education provider Surgent Accounting & Financial Education released the Surgent Study Companion, a mobile app for CPA exam candidates. It creates tailored study plans and materials for "microbursts" of study. Available for Google and Apple devices, it provides access to all the same content as Surgent's desktop experience, and uses the same adaptive learning technology.

Accounting Seed's 'Magnolia' release

Salesforce-powered accounting platform Accounting Seed put out its "Magnolia - Home" release, which focuses on ease of use, and includes updates like amortization enhancements, cloning of standard reports, and changes to cash disbursements and bank reconciliation. Among the specific changes:

Job roles have been reimagined to increase productivity.
Three tabs from the accounting home dashboard help users quickly create entries, run reports, and/or access setup information.
All of the new accounting settings screens are available from selections on the setup tab.
The accounting home dashboard includes a customer’s current accounting period and the last accounting period closed.
Users now have one-click access to the Knowledge Base or Accounting Seed University from the accounting home dashboard.

More products and enhancements

Wiley released its slate of J.K. Lasser 2022 tax guides for individuals, small businesses and tax preparers. (See our story.)

Bloomberg Tax announced enhancements to its tax provision solution. (see our story.)

Cyndx, a platform for data on more than 15 million private companies around the world, has added translation capabilities so users can translate private company information from French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish to English.

Tech company deals and fundraising

"Connected accounting" developer Lockstep announced that it had completed its Series A funding round, which was led by Point 72, with participation from Clocktower Ventures, Revel Partners, and Avid Ventures, and, along with an investment from AMEX Ventures, raised the company's total funding to $17 million.

Construction billing and payment software solution provider Flashtract closed its Series A funding round, which was led by Addition and Shine Capital, and raised $15 million. The company plans to use the money to expand its team, and to scale its network of new contractors.

Subscription management platform Chargebee acquired customer retention platform Brightback. (See our story.)

Reports and surveys

Financial consolidation, close and reporting software developer Fluence Technologies released "The Roadmap to Modern Mid-Market Finance," a new report based on interviews with North American finance executives, which found, among other thingss, that literally 100% of them want to automate their financial close process, but only 21% have done it.

Manual financial reporting processes may cost U.S. businesses as much as $7.8 billion, according to a new study from financial planning and reporting software company DataRails. (See our story.)

Cloud-based finance and HR application developer Workday's latest Global CFO Indicator reported that. among other things, 58% of CFOs rate their ability to transform data into insights as "excellent."