Nonprofit software vendor Abila has hired Jeff Cross as the company's first chief financial officer. Cross is in charge of the finance, accounting and legal departments for the Austin, Texas-based company and will primarily be responsible for revenue recognition, forecasting, and merger and acquisition activities. Cross was most recently a consultant with DigitalGlobe from September 2014 until taking the Abila job.

The register tape generated at the supermarket checkout detailed how much I had saved on many items. "If I have saved so much," I asked the clerk, "how come my bill is so high?" ... Spotted a raven perched in a tree just over my head as I took a short cut to the convenience store. "Nevermore?" I said. "Nah, sooner or later," it replied. ... Saw a new feature on the AOL Today page: "Eighteen movie stars you didn't care about and still don't'." ... Colorado is junking the "Just Say No" approach to controlling marijuana use, since the state has legalized recreational use.

Hardly surprising in these days of portals, but Avalara is planning a customer portal. The  information comes in a job posting for a  core platform engineer for its cloud connect team by the company's channel chief Patrick Falle. "This role brings together the core products of the Avalara business, and helps provide a coherent experience to our users," Falle wrote. "You will manage the engineering process and deliver value to the customer through development of a streamlined user interface (Customer Portal) and a platform for new content that will launch Avalara in to new markets."

Aktion Associates, a software reseller based in Maumee, Ohio, has begun carrying Acumatica. The parties have not issued an announcement, but Aktion is featuring the product, which has both on-premise and cloud version, on its website. Headed by Scott Irwin, Aktion is already in the cloud with Intacct, and it says, with hosted versions of Sage's construction and real estate applications through its Cloud Services. It also offers Deltek and notes that product, along with Sage and Intacct applications, serves project-based businesses.