Avalara has named Richard Asquith as VP of global tax compliance. The Bainbridge Island, Wash.-based company says Asquith's hiring is part of its plan to develop its transactional tax compliance offerings internationally. Based in the United Kingdom, Asquith founded the TMF Group and led its global VAT practice for 10 years. He began his career at KPMG in the U.K. and later joined Ernst & Young, and assisted companies entering in new markets while working in Russia, Hungary and France.

Whether Microsoft's cloud ERP is real or not, compensation for its named executives was certainly in the cloud for the year ended June 30. The group saw its pay balloon from the value of stock awards granted. At the top, new CEO Satya Nadella had total compensation of $84.3 million, with $79.7 million from the stock grants. Nadella took over the job in February left by founder Steve Ballmer and you'd have to call this a pretty good fiscal 2014 for the new top guy. COO Kevin Turner pulled down $22.7 million, just over $19 million from the stock. General counsel Brad Smith had $19.1 million in compensation; just under $17 million from stock awards.

Exact Macola has signed a new reseller. And while adding one VAR would not be a big deal for most financial software vendors, it has been a long time coming for Macola. For the channel, the salient news is that Baesis, based in Northborough, Mass., is a Sage reseller. More particularly, it handles Sage 100, SageCRM and Quantum and JobOps and MiSys. Apparently this is a homecoming for the company headed by CEO Frank Leonard.

Intacct has opened a development office in Cluj, Romania. It is the second international site for the San Jose, Calif.-based cloud accounting software company. The office will be managed by Marian Crisan, described as having 15 years of experience and as "having developed strong skills in business development and managing complex programs and projects in the Telecom, Media, and Public sectors. Intacct plans rapid expansion in Romania.