The FINANCIAL -- The Tax & Accounting business of Thomson Reuters has released Accounting CS Client Access, providing a new way for firms and their business clients to work together online.

Client Access is an extension of the recently introduced Accounting CS platform, and is the first tax and accounting software that allows clients and firms to collaborate online in real time, with no importing or exporting and no purchase of third-party software necessary.

Client Access will initially offer clients check writing and calculating payroll capabilities, with the addition of accounts receivable and accounts payable over the coming year. Tax and accounting firms will have the ability to choose which functions within the software to deploy on a client-by-client basis.

According to Thomson Reuters, while the new architecture removes barriers between firms and clients, it also allows the firm to maintain complete control over how clients can interact with data and execute their day-to-day bookkeeping functions. Clients access the software through a secure, private portal on the firm’s website with customizable permissions that the firm can tailor to each client. Firm employees can set up each client directly from the firm’s computer systems, with no client visit required.

“This is a groundbreaking new technology, both for our users and for their clients,” said Teresa Mackintosh, senior vice president and general manager, Americas—Professional, Tax & Accounting. “It’s exciting to see the technology becoming more and more transparent so that accountants can spend less time resolving client errors and collecting source documents and more time serving their clients. It delivers on the promise of online collaboration in a way that the profession hasn’t seen before.”

The first accounting application designed from the ground up to take full advantage of the web, Accounting CS marks an entirely new approach to professional accounting software by combining write-up, live and after-the-fact payroll, trial balance, financial reporting, and client accounting into a single unified platform, creating the profession’s most advanced accounting system. Its single-database architecture eliminates imports and exports between multiple applications by using a single set of data.

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