New Features and Enhancements in QuickBooks Online Accountant

Giving you back more time to spend with your clients is a primary goal for everyone – and the new reclassify transactions is designed to do just that by enhancing the bulk reclassify experience.

Many accountants and bookkeepers use the Reclassify Transactions tool to fix issues in their client’s books. It is commonly used to find incorrectly recorded transactions in order to reclassify them with the correct data without going into transactions one by one. The new reclassify screen eliminates several previous issues and upgrades the tool to newer and faster technology, enabling Intuit to make more enhancements for you in the future.

In-Product Notification Bell

Everyone knows that communication is king, and if you’re knee-deep in client work, you may not readily notice important changes happening in QuickBooks. Rather than being notified of these changes in emails, webinars or other announcements, you can now rely on the “notification bell” in the top right-hand corner of QBOA. A pink dot on the bell means that you have a new notification.

In-product notifications give you a consistent, central location to notify you of recent changes. Not only will this increase your productivity, but notifications are also smart: they are tailored to the kind of work you’re doing for your clients. Rather than sifting through notifications that don’t apply, you’ll only see the ones that are most important to you and your clients.

Client Overview and the New Print Feature

In the past, it took up to four hours to evaluate how much work it took to clean up a client’s books and decide what must be done to support a prospective new client. Client Overview was introduced in fall 2018, and since then, Intuit has worked to make this much in-demand feature even better.

Client Overview enables you to look at a prospect’s QuickBooks file to identify signals that indicate how much effort would be required to clean up the books and then maintain them on an ongoing basis. Only with a decisive understanding of the “state of the books” can you satisfactorily determine the projected outcome.

Of course, reviewing any business’ books has always been possible, but Client Overview speeds up the process and offers big benefits:

• A better understanding. Get a high-level understanding of the state of the books with a unified view of relevant setup, banking and account data.
• Take control of your pricing. Better estimate the pricing for initial cleanup, with upfront visibility into how updated the books really are, while improving your pricing strategy with data insights that indicate the complexity and required effort to clean up and maintain the books.
• Save time. Get a better sense of where to start your file analysis with a view of items that typically require attention and cleanup.
• More transparency. Better evaluate the required ongoing workload with information on the client’s company setup and business activity insights that reflect the prospect’s proficiency with QuickBooks Online.
• Simple and efficient. Get to where you want to go in fewer clicks with deep links that take you directly to relevant transaction reports, specific bank accounts and the reconciliation tab.

When you access a prospective client’s account through QBOA, you’ll see an Overview tab, visible to accountants only, that provides relevant and actionable data to kick-start your initial file review.

New: Once that review is finished, you can now print and/or export the overview screen, making it easier to onboard the client by showing them a concise summary. This was one of the most requested enhancements to Client Overview – and now it’s available.

Managing Leads in Find-a-ProAdvisor

Intuit had consistently received feedback from busy ProAdvisors that email leads from potential clients were getting lost in their inboxes. Now, there’s an easier way to manage leads: ProAdvisors with a published profile on Find-A-ProAdvisor can see directly inside QBOA each prospect who has reached out to them from the Find-a-ProAdvisor website. The goal is to increase your visibility into the leads you’re getting to maximize response rates and, ultimately, client connections.

Prep for taxes

The integration of QBOA and Intuit ProConnect Tax Online has been a huge boon to enable books to tax. Now, recent enhancements enable even more productivity. Previously known as “Trial Balance,” the new Prep for Taxes enables you to review, adjust and transfer your clients’ data in less time and with less work. You can:

• Do your work within a Profit and Loss and Balance Sheet view on the same screen.
• Automatically map data to tax forms and make quick changes.
• Export balances to new or existing returns, or as a CSV file.
• View, modify and approve any changes made to your clients’ books before sending to your tax software.

For more information, visit https://proconnect.intuit.com/prep-for-taxes, or log into QBOA and access Prep for Taxes through the Accountant Tools menu or on your Client landing page, the same place where you previously found Trial Balance.

Keep Up With Updates

For continuous updates to QuickBooks Online Accountant and other tools, visit the Firm of the Future blog at https://www.firmofthefuture.com or https://quickbooks.intuit.com/accountants/products-solutions/accounting/online.

Not currently using QBOA? Go here to sign up for free.