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Oracle NetSuite boosts AI capacity across product suite, announced at SuitWorld

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Business solutions provider Oracle NetSuite announced a cavalcade of new AI product offerings across its entire suite, providing capacities for automation, analytics, project management and more.

“We are embedding AI-powered capabilities across the suite so customers are benefiting from it as soon as they log in. By ensuring AI is built into existing business processes and not bolted on, we are helping our customers achieve immediate value from the latest AI innovations at no additional cost,” said Evan Goldberg, founder and executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, during the SuiteWorld conference in Las Vegas on Monday. “The latest updates build on the hundreds of new generative AI use cases we have added in the last year and will help our customers further increase productivity and gain more value from the suite.”

These AI updates give users the ability to automatically detect financial exceptions (NetSuite Financial Exception Management), query data via a generative AI interface (NetSuite Suite Analytics Assistant), gain more control over generative AI prompt configuration along the lines of format, tone and creativity (NetSuite Prompt Studio), embed generative AI capabilities into NetSuite extensions and customizations, build extensions and customizations through an AI code compassion (Oracle Code Assist SuiteScript optimization), and configure, optimize and create new AI-powered capacities throughout the suite. 

Oracle noted that no customer data is shared with large language model providers or seen by other customers. To further protect sensitive information, role-based security is embedded directly into NetSuite workflows and only recommends content that end users are entitled to view.

NetSuite Analytics Warehouse updates

Oracle NetSuite also announced a bevy of AI-related updates for its Analytics Warehouse solution. The latest updates provide new AI tools and models to help customers analyze data more efficiently and gain predictive insights to improve forecasting. Customers can now generate data visualizations and natural language insights based on a dataset’s attributes, measures and other points of interest; identify meaningful business drivers, contextual insights, and data anomalies through AI; directly query data through conversational interactions to produce insights and data visualizations; automate analysis through no-code models built for specific use cases that can predict scenarios, such as customer churn and inventory stockouts; automate algorithm selection and customizing modeling workflows; and access a collaborative interface to explore data visually and tailor machine learning models to address unique business needs.

“For growing businesses, making sense of data can be a time-consuming process that may require advanced data science and coding skills. With limited resources, many businesses are not able to invest in these skills and miss out on valuable data insights,” said Goldberg. “We’re dedicated to helping businesses of all sizes unlock the full potential of their data. The latest updates to NetSuite Analytics Warehouse will help customers automate data analysis and leverage AI to produce fast and meaningful insights that can help improve decision-making.”

Most of these new capacities are now available. The no-code AI models to automate analysis are planned to be available within the next 12 months.

NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) updates

Oracle NetSuite also announced new AI-powered updates to NetSuite Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), intended to help finance teams streamline reporting, expand insights, improve decision-making and steer their business toward new growth opportunities.

Users can create AI-powered narratives, explanations and visuals from financial and transactional data; identify patterns, trends, and anomalies and deliver detailed AI-generated commentary and narratives with the Intelligent Performance Management (IPM) Insights feature; quickly and easily understand the key factors behind AI-generated forecasts; and accomplish a variety of tasks using natural language conversations via an AI-driven interface.

“Finance teams often spend a significant amount of time gathering data and creating narratives to explain financial results, justify important decisions and forecast future growth. This can be a labor-intensive process that often diverts time away from more strategic analysis and slows down decision-making,” said Goldberg. “To address this challenge, the latest updates to NetSuite EPM help finance teams leverage powerful AI innovations to help increase efficiency, expand insights and enable more time to be spent on value-added activities.”

NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro planned updates

In addition, Oracle NetSuite plans to deliver a new AI-powered extension to its project management solution, NetSuite SuiteProjects. NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro — previously called NetSuite OpenAir. 

Aimed mainly at project managers, the new capacities will include the ability to monitor the health of projects, anticipate and mitigate issues, and prevent delays by proactively calculating and analyzing project risks based on historical data and key metrics; access AI-powered staffing recommendations; use global search, role-specific and actionable task lists, and a visually engaging home page for key metrics, KPIs and charts; and provide a complete project-focused solution and per-user pricing.

“As businesses expand, their needs become more complex, and projects require more intentional monitoring and resourcing to maintain project profitability and meet key milestones,” said Goldberg. “NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro enables project-based businesses to take advantage of the latest advancements in AI to improve the speed of workflows and increase efficiency by automating staffing, scheduling, budget tracking, and billing.”

NetSuite SuiteProjects Pro enhancements are planned to be available within the next 12 months. Current OpenAir customers will automatically experience the benefits of SuiteProjects Pro.

Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite updates

Finally, Oracle NetSuite outlined major new AI capacities to the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite which are intended to help organizations optimize finance, supply chain, HR, sales, marketing and service. Oracle Cloud ERP now features predictive cash forecasting capabilities using AI models to create prescriptive and continuous daily, weekly or monthly cash forecasts; new narrative reporting capabilities through AI-generated financial performance narratives, variance explanations and commentary on trends impacting the business; and new automated transaction records in Oracle Fusion Cloud Sustainability which enable business leaders to use AI, classification rules, and sustainability metadata attributes to automatically create activity records and add transactions to a sustainability ledger.

Oracle Cloud HCM now features a “bespoke skills inventory” that lets users gain a complete catalog of their organization’s skills that is always kept up to date and can be modified or refined. HR leaders can also combine enriched skills data with data from across the enterprise and third-party sources.

Oracle Cloud SCM features a new smart operations workbench that helps organizations focus on issues impacting production goals by providing real-time insight into work orders and generative AI-powered shift reporting. In addition, new assisted authoring in Oracle Order Management enables users to leverage generative AI to develop order acknowledgement emails and order change history notes. 

Finally, the new AI innovations in Oracle Cloud CX includes assisted authoring capabilities in Oracle Cloud CX, which helps sales teams efficiently engage with buyers by providing AI-generated answers to contract-related questions, emails and activity summaries, and executive summaries for quotes and proposals. In addition, new AI capabilities in Oracle CX Unity detect signals, based on role, title, and aggregated topic engagement, and provide next best action recommendations. 

“We are the only enterprise vendor to offer a complete suite of business applications on a fully integrated technology stack — from hardware to database to applications — and an infrastructure that is trusted by leading AI providers and the world’s leading large language models,” said Steve Miranda, executive vice president of applications development, Oracle. “This puts us in unique position to help our customers quickly and easily take advantage of the latest AI innovations. The new AI capabilities in Fusion Applications, embedded at no extra cost, will help our customers increase the speed and accuracy of business processes, accelerate decision-making and drive more revenue.”

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Senate unveils plan to fast-track tax cuts, debt limit hike

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Senate Republicans unveiled a budget blueprint designed to fast-track a renewal of President Donald Trump’s tax cuts and an increase to the nation’s borrowing limit, ahead of a planned vote on the resolution later this week. 

The Senate plan will allow for a $4 trillion extension of Trump’s tax cuts and an additional $1.5 trillion in further levy reductions. The House plan called for $4.5 trillion in total cuts.

Republicans say they are assuming that the cost of extending the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts will cost zero dollars.

The draft is a sign that divisions within the Senate GOP over the size and scope of spending cuts to offset tax reductions are closer to being resolved. 

Lawmakers, however, have yet to face some of the most difficult decisions, including which spending to cut and which tax reductions to prioritize. That will be negotiated in the coming weeks after both chambers approve identical budget resolutions unlocking the process.

The Senate budget plan would also increase the debt ceiling by up to $5 trillion, compared with the $4 trillion hike in the House plan. Senate Republicans say they want to ensure that Congress does not need to vote on the debt ceiling again before the 2026 midterm elections. 

“This budget resolution unlocks the process to permanently extend proven, pro-growth tax policy,” Senate Finance Chairman Mike Crapo, an Idaho Republican, said. 

The blueprint is the latest in a multi-step legislative process for Republicans to pass a renewal of Trump’s tax cuts through Congress. The bill will renew the president’s 2017 reductions set to expire at the end of this year, which include lower rates for households and deductions for privately held businesses. 

Republicans are also hoping to include additional tax measures to the bill, including raising the state and local tax deduction cap and some of Trump’s campaign pledges to eliminate taxes on certain categories of income, including tips and overtime pay.

The plan would allow for the debt ceiling hike to be vote on separately from the rest of the tax and spending package. That gives lawmakers flexibility to move more quickly on the debt ceiling piece if a federal default looms before lawmakers can agree on the tax package.

Political realities

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Wednesday, after meeting with Trump at the White House to discuss the tax blueprint, that he’s not sure yet if he has the votes to pass the measure.

Thune in a statement said the budget has been blessed by the top Senate ruleskeeper but Democrats said that it is still vulnerable to being challenged later.

The biggest differences in the Senate budget from the competing House plan are in the directives for spending cuts, a reflection of divisions among lawmakers over reductions to benefit programs, including Medicaid and food stamps. 

The Senate plan pares back a House measure that calls for at least $2 trillion in spending reductions over a decade, a massive reduction that would likely mean curbing popular entitlement programs.

The Senate GOP budget grants significantly more flexibility. It instructs key committees that oversee entitlement programs to come up with at least $4 billion in cuts. Republicans say they expect the final tax package to contain much larger curbs on spending.

The Senate budget would also allow $150 billion in new spending for the military and $175 billion for border and immigration enforcement.

If the minimum spending cuts are achieved along with the maximum tax cuts, the plan would add $5.8 trillion in new deficits over 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

The Senate is planning a vote on the plan in the coming days. Then it goes to the House for a vote as soon as next week. There, it could face opposition from spending hawks like South Carolina’s Ralph Norman, who are signaling they want more aggressive cuts. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson can likely afford just two or three defections on the budget vote given his slim majority and unified Democratic opposition.

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How asset location decides bond ladder taxes

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Financial advisors and clients worried about stock volatility and inflation can climb bond ladders to safety — but they won’t find any, if those steps lead to a place with higher taxes.

The choice of asset location for bond ladders in a client portfolio can prove so important that some wealthy customers holding them in a taxable brokerage account may wind up losing money in an inflationary period due to the payments to Uncle Sam, according to a new academic study. And those taxes, due to what the author described as the “dead loss” from the so-called original issue discount compared to the value, come with an extra sting if advisors and clients thought the bond ladder had prepared for the rise in inflation.

Bond ladders — whether they are based on Treasury inflation-protected securities like the strategy described in the study or another fixed-income security — provide small but steady returns tied to the regular cadence of maturities in the debt-based products. However, advisors and their clients need to consider where any interest payments, coupon income or principal accretion from the bond ladders could wind up as ordinary income, said Cal Spranger, a fixed income and wealth manager with Seattle-based Badgley + Phelps Wealth Managers.

“Thats going to be the No. 1 concern about, where is the optimal place to hold them,” Spranger said in an interview. “One of our primary objectives for a bond portfolio is to smooth out that volatility. … We’re trying to reduce risk with the bond portfolio, not increase risks.”

READ MORE: Why laddered bond portfolios cover all the bases

The ‘peculiarly bad location’ for a bond ladder

Risk-averse planners, then, could likely predict the conclusion of the working academic paper, which was posted in late February by Edward McQuarrie, a professor emeritus in the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University: Tax-deferred retirement accounts such as a 401(k) or a traditional individual retirement account are usually the best location for a Treasury inflation-protected securities ladder. The appreciation attributes available through an after-tax Roth IRA work better for equities than a bond ladder designed for decumulation, and the potential payments to Uncle Sam in brokerage accounts make them an even worse asset location.

“Few planners will be surprised to learn that locating a TIPS ladder in a taxable account leads to phantom income and excess payment of tax, with a consequent reduction in after-tax real spending power,” McQuarrie writes. “Some may be surprised to learn just how baleful that mistake in account location can be, up to and including negative payouts in the early years for high tax brackets and very high rates of inflation. In the worst cases, more is due in tax than the ladder payout provides. And many will be surprised to learn how rapidly the penalty for choosing the wrong asset location increases at higher rates of inflation — precisely the motivation for setting up a TIPS ladder in the first place. Perhaps the most surprising result of all was the discovery that excess tax payments in the early years are never made up. [Original issue discount] causes a dead loss.”

The Roth account may look like a healthy alternative, since the clients wouldn’t owe any further taxes on distributions from them in retirement. But the bond ladder would defeat the whole purpose of that vehicle, McQuarrie writes.

“Planners should recognize that a Roth account is a peculiarly bad location for a bond ladder, whether real or nominal,” he writes. “Ladders are decumulation tools designed to provide a stream of distributions, which the Roth account does not otherwise require. Locating a bond ladder in the Roth thus forfeits what some consider to be one of the most valuable features of the Roth account. If the bond ladder is the only asset in the Roth, then the Roth itself will have been liquidated as the ladder reaches its end.”

READ MORE: How to hedge risk with annuity ladders

RMD advantages

That means that the Treasury inflation-protected securities ladder will add the most value to portfolios in a tax-deferred account (TDA), which McQuarrie acknowledges is not a shocking recommendation to anyone familiar with them. On the other hand, some planners with clients who need to begin required minimum distributions from their traditional IRA may reap further benefits than expected from that location.

“More interesting is the demonstration that the after-tax real income received from a TIPS ladder located in a TDA does not vary with the rate of inflation, in contrast to what happens in a taxable account,” McQuarrie writes. “Also of note was the ability of most TIPS ladders to handle the RMDs due, and, at higher rates of inflation, to shelter other assets from the need to take RMDs.”

The present time of high yields from Treasury inflation-protected securities could represent an ample opportunity to tap into that scenario.

“If TIPS yields are attractive when the ladder is set up, distributions from the ladder will typically satisfy RMDs on the ladder balance throughout the 30 years,” McQuarrie writes. “The higher the inflation experienced, the greater the surplus coverage, allowing other assets in the account to be sheltered in part from RMDs by means of the TIPS ladder payout. However, if TIPS yields are borderline unattractive at ladder set up, and if the ladder proved unnecessary because inflation fell to historically low levels, then there may be a shortfall in RMD coverage in the middle years, requiring either that TIPS bonds be sold prematurely, or that other assets in the TDA be tapped to cover the RMD.”

READ MORE: A primer on the IRA ‘bridge’ to bigger Social Security benefits

The key takeaways on bond ladders

Other caveats to the strategies revolve around any possible state taxes on withdrawals or any number of client circumstances ruling out a universal recommendation. The main message of McQuarrie’s study serves as a warning against putting the ladder in a taxable brokerage account.

“Unsurprisingly, the higher the client’s tax rate, the worse the outcomes from locating a TIPS ladder in taxable when inflation rages,” he writes. “High-bracket taxpayers who accurately foresee a surge in future inflation, and take steps to defend against it, but who make the mistake of locating their TIPS ladder in taxable, can end up paying more in tax to the government than is received from the TIPS ladder during the first year or two.”

For municipal or other types of tax-exempt bonds, though, a taxable account is “the optimal place,” Spranger said. Convertible Treasury or corporate bonds show more similarity with the Treasury inflation-protected securities in that their ideal location is in a tax-deferred account, he noted.

Regardless, bonds act as a crucial core to a client’s portfolio, tamping down on the risk of volatility and sensitivity to interest rates. And the right ladder strategies yield more reliable future rates of returns for clients than a bond ETF or mutual fund, Spranger said.

“We’re strong proponents of using individual bonds, No. 1 so that we can create bond ladders, but, most importantly, for the certainty that individual bonds provide,” he said.

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Why IRS cuts may spare a unit that facilitates mortgages

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Loan applicants and mortgage companies often rely on an Internal Revenue Service that’s dramatically downsizing to help facilitate the lending process, but they may be in luck.

That’s because the division responsible for the main form used to allow consumers to authorize the release of income-tax information to lenders is tied to essential IRS operations.

The Income Verification Express Service could be insulated from what NMN affiliate Accounting Today has described of a series of fluctuating IRS cuts because it’s part of the submission processing unit within wage and investment, a division central to the tax bureau’s purpose.

“It’s unlikely that IVES will be impacted due to association within submission processing,” said Curtis Knuth, president and CEO of NCS, a consumer reporting agency. “Processing tax returns and collecting revenue is the core function and purpose of the IRS.”

Knuth is a member of the IVES participant working group, which is comprised of representatives from companies that facilitate processing of 4506-C forms used to request tax transcripts for mortgages. Those involved represent a range of company sizes and business models.

The IRS has planned to slash thousands of jobs and make billions of dollars of cuts that are still in process, some of which have been successfully challenged in court.

While the current cuts might not be a concern for processing the main form of tax transcript requests this time around, there have been past issues with it in other situations like 2019’s lengthy government shutdown.

President Trump recently signed a continuing funding resolution to avert a shutdown. But it will run out later this year, so the issue could re-emerge if there’s an impasse in Congress at that time. Republicans largely dominate Congress but their lead is thinner in the Senate.

The mortgage industry will likely have an additional option it didn’t have in 2019 if another extended deadlock on the budget emerges and impedes processing of the central tax transcript form.

“It absolutely affected closings, because you couldn’t get the transcripts. You couldn’t get anybody on the phone,” said Phil Crescenzo Jr., vice president of National One Mortgage Corp.’s Southeast division.

There is an automated, free way for consumers to release their transcripts that may still operate when there are issues with the 4506-C process, which has a $4 surcharge. However, the alternative to the 4506-C form is less straightforward and objective as it’s done outside of the mortgage process, requiring a separate logon and actions.

Some of the most recent IRS cuts have targeted technology jobs and could have an impact on systems, so it’s also worth noting that another option lenders have sometimes elected to use is to allow loans temporarily move forward when transcript access is interrupted and verified later. 

There is a risk to waiting for verification or not getting it directly from the IRS, however, as government-related agencies hold mortgage lenders responsible for the accuracy of borrower income information. That risk could increase if loan performance issues become more prevalent.

Currently, tax transcripts primarily come into play for government-related loans made to contract workers, said Crescenzo.

“That’s the only receipt that you have for a self-employed client’s income to know it’s valid,” he said.

The home affordability crunch and rise of gig work like Uber driving has increased interest in these types of mortgages, he said. 

Contract workers can alternatively seek financing from the private non-qualified mortgage market where bank statements could be used to verify self-employment income, but Crescenzo said that has disadvantages related to government-related loans.

“Non QM requires higher downpayments and interest rates than traditional financing,” he said.

In the next couple years, regional demand for loans based on self-employment income could rise given the federal job cuts planned broadly at public agencies, depending on the extent to which court challenges to them go through.

Those potential borrowers will find it difficult to get new mortgages until they can establish more of a track record with their new sources of income, in most cases two years from a tax filing perspective. 

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