(This post originally appeared on Forbes)

Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?

1— Workplace messaging app Slack to go public.

Early this week, California-based workplace messaging startup Slack said it had filed a confidential registration for an IPO. The company claims to have 10 million users in 150 countries and has raised more than $1 billion from investors, meaning it is now valued at $7.1 billion and is one of the most richly valued ‘unicorns’ in the country. (Source: France 24)

Why this is important for your business:

The workplace collaboration market is worth billions and Slack has, for years, been the undisputed leader in that space. But the company faces stiff competition from others – most particularly Microsoft Teams – and will likely see its market share decline a bit in the coming years. But no matter, I’m sure the markets will agree that Slack’s application is great and the future is bright for workplace collaboration technologies like it. That should give you confidence to try one of these apps in your business too. (My company is a Microsoft partner).

2 — FreshBooks adds bank reconciliation and double-entry accounting to its small business friendly software.

FreshBooks has announced it will offer bank reconciliation and double-entry accounting to help its fastest-growing customers realize their goals. This new offering includes a General Ledger, Chart of Accounts, Accountant Access, Bank Reconciliation, and more—so growing service-based businesses can confidently scale on FreshBooks, work more easily with their accountant, and be better prepared for tax time. According to the report above with this offering FreshBooks aims to help the 70 percent of accountants and bookkeepers who—in a recent company report—said small business owners find accounting software intimidating and the 83 percent who said it’s typical for owners to make mistakes when using such software.  (Source: CPA Practice Advisor)

Why this is important for your business:

For years FreshBooks has been a popular, cloud-based way to do billing, collect payments and manage cash. But frankly, it always lacked the full accounting functionality that would allow it to compete more aggressively against products like QuickBooks.  No more! With these new capabilities FreshBooks can now go head to head with other well-known accounting brands and –judging by the positive feedback many of my clients give me about the product – can provide an excellent accounting alternative for small businesses.

3 — Small businesses get larger tax breaks for tech purchases.

Companies preparing to file their 2018 taxes and planning for 2019 will see some big changes because of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, including much larger tax deductions for technology purchases. (Source: BizTech)

Why this is important for your business:

Want an example? A change in the Section 179 deduction and bonus depreciation—which lets businesses write off all their technology and equipment spending in one year rather than using the normal 5-year depreciation schedule for hardware—changes the deduction amount. It doubles, from $500,000 to $1 million for this year and beyond, and limits will be indexed for inflation after 2018. Talk to your accountant about this now. Even if you can’t take advantage for 2018 make your plans for this year.

4 — Facebook now lets everyone unsend messages for 10 minutes.

This week, Facebook Messenger globally released a “remove for everyone” feature to gives users 10 minutes to remove a message for any reason, including typos, poor choices, embarrassing thoughts, etc. Now, senders can tap on the message and see a “remove by you” button in place of the delete button plus a ‘Remove for everyone’ option that pulls the message from recipients’ inboxes. Users will then see an alert that they removed a message and can still flag the message to Facebook, which will retain the content briefly to see if it’s reported. (Source: Tech Crunch)

Why this is important for your business:

The company says that the move is intended to help users feel more comfortable having honest conversations or “using Messenger for flirting since they can second-guess what they send in that 10-minute time frame.” OK, flirting aside, this is a feature that you should tell your employees about, particularly if they’re using Messenger for customer service or sales functions. Knowing about this may save a few embarrassing – and costly – mistakes.

5 — Microsoft: almost all our commercial cloud revenue is sold through partners.

This week, Microsoft executives revealed that it has thousands of partners around the world and that 95 percent of its $9 billion in commercial cloud revenue is sold through these partners. Currently, the industry transition from self-managed data centers to cloud providers has created huge opportunities for Microsoft’s partners to help businesses make the sometimes- difficult transition by building custom technology services on top of Azure to help clients move their workloads and data into the cloud. In addition, hundreds of software companies offer their wares directly within Azure through the Azure Marketplace. (Source: Geek Wire)

Why this is important for your business:

If you’re thinking of going to Microsoft for a Microsoft product you’re actually going to the wrong place. Microsoft is a partner-driven company. The best place to get advice, support and to buy Microsoft products is actually through their channel.