Adrian G. Simmons

Some useful tips on cold outreach – Not that it’s the first go-to, but there can be occasions where it’s the right fit

And some of the tips are useful even if it’s not cold outreach: good reminders on how to be respectful and genuine in sales/ biz dev

by Jim Ries

Xero to acquire Syft to enhance reporting and insights capability

Following the acquisition, we plan that Syft will continue to be available as a standalone offering to small businesses and their accountants and bookkeepers – no matter who their accounting software provider is.

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We’ll also work to embed Syft’s functionality within Xero over time, to provide powerful visualisations, analytics and reporting capabilities for new and existing customers.

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Current customers love Syft for its custom reporting, visualisations, benchmarking, live analysis views with drill down, ability to consolidate across financial data sources, budgeting and forecasting, reporting automation and data quality assurance.

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I was positively impressed when I looked at Syft 2-3 years back, and this appears to be a smart move for Xero – Looking forward to seeing this enhance the platform.

Xero announces new features at the recent Xerocon Nashville conference, including:

• More direct bank feeds
• Bank feed monitoring notifications
• Accept payment via the Xero mobile app
• Sending invoices via text
• Paying bills within Xero site using embedded BILL service
• Automated W-9 collection from subcontractors
• Easy sales tax preparation for every state
• Inventory Plus feature with Amazon & Shopify integration
• & more

More details via Xero’s blog post.

“The D.C. Office Market Is in Trouble” via WSJ

“A Government Accountability Office review of 24 federal agencies last year estimated that 17 of them used on average one-quarter or less of the capacity of their headquarters buildings during a three-week sample period.

The district’s office vacancy rate rose to a new high of 22.4% in the second quarter from less than 14% in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to CBRE Group”

The amount of occupied space declined by more than 500,000 square feet in the second quarter, “with the federal government accounting for nearly half of the occupancy loss,” CBRE said in a recent report.

Bars, restaurants and other small businesses that depend on federal workers have struggled. Last year the district projected a budget gap of close to $500 million in its fiscal plan partly because of a drop in real-estate tax collection.

As the Maryland budget crunch becomes an increasingly reality, Gov. Moore proposes cutting $150m from budget already enacted for this year.

He continues to emphasize reticence to raise taxes in the state, my guess since he suspects it may further push away the very economic growth the state needs to fund its current spending commitments.

Also more from his guest commentary piece in The Baltimore Sun.

Although our company doesn’t specialize in non-profits anymore, we do come across tools & tips unique to non-profits that we can share:

One that’s been around for a bit but may be unknown to new non-profits is TechSoup -> Through them, non-profits can:

• Get discounted or even free software to help run your organization
• Courses, articles, & knowledgebase around non-profit information
• Connections with other non-profit leaders with whom to learn and grow

If you run a non-profit, check them out!

In the ongoing unfolding of interpretations around the federal Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), the Maryland AG weighed in on 8 May 2024 to say that it depends on the facts & circumstances whether CPA assistance with Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) filings could be considered “unauthorized practice of law”.

Essentially, simple guidance & completing the form based on customer inputs IS NOT, while customer circumstances that involve judgement that requires legal interpretations IS.

Seems reasonable middle ground as most CPAs I know aren’t interested to wade deep into the BOI waters to begin with, only to be a help to our small businesses customers who now need to jump through yet one more compliance filing in the course of their year.

(via AICPA Town Hall)

Folks coming over from X/Twitter may be interested to know I’ve exported my Tweet history on that platform (Oct 2010 - Jun 2024) into a searchable page here on my microblog titled Tweets.

(Sometimes I like to scroll back thru and remind myself of nuggets found & shared.) :)

IRS' National Taxpayer Advocate (IRS watchdog) reported that identity theft cases are taking 22 months to resolve & have a backlog of 500,000 cases.

May be worth getting an IP PIN to save future hassle (tho, as it stands, you can never undo the request).

There’s a balance between having good tools and tool overload that’s not always easily navigated.

I think I’m seeing Confluence emerging as a tool our company wants to go deeper in for team collaboration that isn’t customer Project/Task oriented. Part of this is that I think while the Microsoft 365 platform has a lot going for it, the design, features, and ease-of-use aren’t quite there, at least currently.

One contributor to the evolution of this thought: Confluence’s new whiteboard feature looks well designed. (You’d think a tool like this would have been nailed by Microsoft.)