Tech news: Schellman becomes first certification body for ISO AI standard

September 27, 2024 11:13 AM

Schellman becomes first certification body for ISO AI standard; AuditBoard announces new analytics features; Airbase launches 'Touchless AP' capacities; and other accounting technology news.

Schellman becomes first certification body for ISO AI standard

Top 50 accounting firm Schellman has become the first ANSI National Accreditation Board accredited International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 42001 certification body, allowing the firm to certify organizations against the world's first Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS) standard. ISO 42001 is the first global standard that provides a certifiable framework for responsibly developing and deploying AI with security, privacy, and quality. Aligning with these standards gives a business's stakeholders — including board members, investors and customers — assurance that these AI systems are as safe and reliable as possible. Schellman is now authorized to audit for and grant certification with ISO 42001 compliance. Organizations seeking certification must align with the standard's requirements for establishing, implementing, maintaining and continually improving their AIMS. Doing so mitigates risk, builds trust, and reassures customers, clients, stakeholders and society of the safe and responsible development and use of these AI systems. This is part of the firm's emphasis on AI governance in 2024 as more enterprises are adopting AI tools.

AuditBoard announces new analytics and analysis features

Audit, risk and compliance platform AuditBoard announced new features that bolster analytics and analysis. Among other things, there are nine new out-of-the-box workflows to automate testing and analysis; precise analysis against set thresholds to inform day-to-day decision-making and help organizations use risk-taking as a strategic advantage; the ability to centralize and roll up risk information by company structure (e.g., country, region, business unit), pinpoint specific locations and identify risk concentrations; as well as enable third-party risk teams to apply a structured approach to automatically calculate residual risk (or another aggregate score) across multiple risk domains to determine more effective, targeted strategies for managing vendor and product risks.

Airbase launches 'Touchless AP' capacities

Procure-to-pay solutions provider Airbase announced its new AI-powered Touchless AP feature. Among other things, the feature can automatically process invoices, handle approvals and schedule payments; monitor multiple data points to detect and prevent fraudulent activities; handle vendor onboarding with automated tax and bank account validation, Office of Foreign Assets Control checks and secure payment processing; and access insights into spending patterns.

Bill announces three new payment options

Payments company Bill added new payment offerings for SMBs and accountants. Local Transfer, a new Bill Accounts Payable option, enables businesses to make same-day international payments to vendors in their local currency without the need to go through intermediary banks and incur the associated fees. Transactions via Bill's Local Transfer option are delivered directly to local banks abroad, enabling businesses to pay overseas vendors "like a local" from anywhere in the world. Further, businesses can now send payments to their vendors in the U.S. within minutes with the new Bill Accounts Payable Instant Payment option, which leverages a real-time payment network between financial institutions. Payments can be sent and received 24/7 and on holidays and weekends. Finally, Bill Accounts Receivable Invoice Financing is a short-term line of credit. Businesses that get paid with Bill can receive an advance against outstanding invoices and improve their cash flow. A new simplified Invoice Financing process allows businesses to access up to $100,000 in financing in as little as five to 10 minutes after completing a one-time credit line approval process that does not affect their credit score. Businesses can avoid waiting over 30 days to get paid, and no additional application is needed for subsequent financing requests. Bill's Local Transfer option for international payments is currently available in 15 countries and will soon become available in 40 countries. Enhancements to Instant Payment and Invoice Financing are available now here.

Bitwave announces account-level cost basis tracking

Digital assets accounting solutions provider Bitwave now supports account-specific cost basis tracking. With the release of final IRS regulations (T.D. 10000), the long-standing "universal wallet accounting" standard will sunset, significantly shifting how many businesses manage and report digital assets across multiple self-custody wallets and addresses. Starting Jan 1, 2025, the cost basis of digital assets must be individually tracked for each account (like a wallet or exchange). While wallet-by-wallet tracking has long been available for Bitwave Advanced Accounting module users, this feature is now included in the Bitwave Core offering for all customers.

Melio announces major product update

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AP/AR platform Melio announced multiple new features for small and medium-sized businesses and accountants to automate processes, boost control of payments, and improve cash flow management. With Melio's new premium features, businesses can streamline W-9 collection and automate 1099 generation, as well as let payors make international payments in leading currencies. Melio users already had the capability of paying vendors globally in dollars. It now supports recurring payments, the ability to forward bills to an email address and sync them to Melio, as well as automatically scan and capture invoices so they appear in the Bills tab. The system handles email syncing, custom approval workflows, flexible user roles, more vendor details, mobile app functionality, instant money transfers, two-day ACH transfers, and offers more live support options.. Users also have the the ability to combine payments, do batch payments, pay over time, set up payments without sharing bank details, do live tracking of payments, and set up a custom payment link.

Other news

Small business platform Xero announced a new partnership with payment network and shopping assistant Klarna to offer a "buy now, pay later" option. For Xero's customers (except in Australia), offering Klarna's alternatives to traditional credit means they can get paid up front while their customers don't have to worry about high interest rates and hidden fees. Klarna checks a consumer's eligibility before approving each purchase and provides an installment plan with reminders to help shoppers keep on top of their payments. … Tax solutions provider Avalara has been positioned in the Leaders Category in the IDC MarketScape: European Compliant e-Invoicing Solutions 2024 Vendor Assessment.