Dan Meyer has mentioned the CPA Firm Tech Blog in his update to the 12 Blogs of Christmas (see http://tickmarks.blogspot.com/2006/11/revisiting-2005-twelve-blogs-of_29.html). Dan writes a great blog, and is a professor at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN.

Sorry the postings have been so thin lately. I just made Platinum Medallion with Delta and Diamond VIP in the Hilton Honors program, so the travel has been nuts. I’m returning from a three day swing through Seattle, Spokane, and am now headed for Nashville, and a much needed office day on Friday.
I’m counting down until the cessation of 2006 travel on December 15th. The next two weeks will see me in Nashville, Knoxville, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Fargo, Indianapolis, D.C., Greensboro, Louisville, and Milwaukee- definitely a record for me.

I have a forthcoming post on the free accounting software revolution- the war between Peachtree, Office Accounting 2007 (SBA), and QuickBooks has heated up to the point that there are free versions of all three products targeted at new businesses. Smart CPA firms may make the decision to favor one or two of the products over another, but you should be thinking now about what your strategy is going to be for dealing with each of the ‘Big Three’ small business financial management applications.

I am also working on a comparison of the big three partner programs. Each has strengths and weaknesses, and I’ll be discussing how you can use these programs to reduce your total cost of application software. Sage, Microsoft, and Intuit all throw huge benefits to members of their partner programs, which are priced comparably to retail versions of software, and include training materials, technical support, reference materials, and copies of software for your firm’s internal use. Good stuff, Maynard.