Christmas and New Year's Day are both on Fridays this year. Figuring that readers don't want to read that day and I don't want to work that day, there will be one issue of the Bob Scott's Insights newsletter published on Wednesday, December 30. Items will continued to be posted to the website as warranted by events. So here's hoping that Santa includes M&A activity for the year-end to help keeping that issue from being too dreary. Happy Holidays from me and the gang at Progressive Media Group.

SimPro, which owns Gem Accounts, is recruiting a reseller channel in the United States. It has hired Ken Del Gobbo, who has been president of Gem Accounts since October 2013, as VP of partnerships for North America to enlist VARs for simPro's job management software. That leaves the question of what is going on with Gem Accounts, which launched small business and mid-market versions of its accounting software two years ago?

Before new management came to town, there was no new version of Macola released in 10 years. Now, Exact has gone from introducing Version 10 last year to Exact Macola 10.3 this month. Features include integration with Avalara's sales tax software, AvaTax. Exact has added Windows 10 support and Spanish language support throughout the product. The company says this bolsters its recent focus and expansion within Latin America.