Accounting

Productivity Innovations Announced at QuickBooks Connect 2021

Nov. 05, 2021

This year’s QuickBooks Connect, Nov. 3-4, featured presentations for accountants and their small business clients, with keynotes by celebrity chef Carla Hall, actress and philanthropist Kristen Bell, and author and purpose coach Jay Shetty. The all-virtual event also included the annual accountant keynote from Ted Callahan, Accountant Segment Leader, Intuit QuickBooks.

In his address, Callahan discussed Intuit’s mission to help small businesses prosper, and noted that the company’s mission cannot be carried out without the help of accounting professionals — Intuit’s valued partners — who consistently help their clients grow their businesses.

“Because of you, we believe small business owners are more financially stable, more creditworthy, and more likely to succeed. When I speak to small business owners, they describe you as heroes, and I understand why,” Callahan said.

Callahan went on to detail recent innovations from QuickBooks, designed to help accountants and their clients be more efficient and productive.

New “Revenue Share” Program

Callahan outlined a new revenue share program that’s available soon to accounting professionals who add new QuickBooks Online (QBO) or QuickBooks Online Payroll clients. Callahan explained that many accountants don’t want to manage their clients’ billing through the ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing Program, but want some kind of return on recommending QuickBooks to their clients.

“Instead of adding a client through QuickBooks Online Accountant and paying for their QBO account yourself, this new Revenue Share program gets you out of managing billing, provides clients with a great discount, and compensates you for bringing clients on to the QBO platform.”

Through QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA), whenever an accountant starts a new QBO or QBO Payroll subscription, they’ll choose revenue share as the billing option. Clients pay Intuit each month, while the accountant receives 30% of the billed price for the next 12 months.

“And, of course, if you prefer to continue receiving an ongoing discount by paying for your client’s QuickBooks Online account yourself, the ProAdvisor Preferred Pricing program will continue to support that.”

Callahan said Intuit is in the process of opening the Revenue Share feature up to accounting pros. Anyone interested in being an early adopter of this program can sign up at this link.

Books Review and Transaction Collaboration

Many accountants are probably familiar with Intuit’s Month-End Review, the first-ever end-to-end workflow that’s built inside accounting software specifically to deliver the books each month. Month-End Review breaks the bookkeeping flow into three steps: transaction review, account reconciliation, and final review.

Now, Month-End Review is called Books Review, a name change Callahan said was based on feedback from accountants who had ongoing needs outside the monthly window. New capabilities have now added to the workflow: Bookkeeping Setup, Bookkeeping Wrap-up, and Transaction Collaboration.

“We expanded this workflow to include experiences at the beginning and end called Bookkeeping Setup and Bookkeeping Wrap-up,” he said. “Until today, there was no industry standard definition for how to set up books correctly, yet this is the most critical step in delivering the books. Setup makes it easier to make adjustments to the opening balance and sort out issues, such as disconnected bank accounts and redundant accounts on the chart of accounts, all in one place.”

Helping clients understand their numbers to make more informed decisions is also very important.

“Wrap-up lets you prepare a set of tailored reports for your client that provide insight into their business and serve as a tangible work product of your value. You can edit, customize, and then send these tailored report packages to your client, all from within QBOA,” Callahan said.

Helping accountants make the move to more advisory services is also a part of Wrap-up because it guides clients in making strategic decisions, but just as important is the ability to get information from clients in a timely, productive way. “Transaction collaboration” does just that.

“Beyond the need for a first-of-its-kind bookkeeping workflow like Books Review, one of the biggest challenges you face each month is getting missing information from clients. How much more productive could you be if you didn’t have to chase, hound, remind, and bug your clients for those little morsels of information you need to complete your work?” Callahan asked.

Once you’ve requested information, transaction collaboration takes place through notifications and messages. Clients will get a notification and also see transaction collaboration requests in the My Accountant tab, when they log in to their QBO account. They can open the request and provide the information for review, all without leaving QuickBooks.

“You have the information from your client, and you’re no longer held up! Now you can complete the transaction review. Transaction collaboration makes it easier to deliver complete books and awesome service every month.”

QuickBooks Online Advanced App for Windows

One of the ways to get more done in less time is to rely on apps, something accountants have known about for many years. Now, brand new, is the QBO Advanced App for Windows.

The free app is available for download and designed to help all QBOA users manage their QBO clients, no matter what version of QBO they are using. To get the app, go to the QBO Advanced Books via QBOA, click on the gear icon, look for the link for the app to download it, and log in.

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“Not only do you have all your clients accessible through your client list, but you can actually have multiple accounts open at the same time,” said Callahan. “The app will enable you to navigate quickly without having to constantly switch back and forth between clients. Because this is installed software, not a web browser, your sessions can be longer, making it easier for you to get your work done without getting interrupted to sign back in.”

ProAdvisor QuickBooks Online Payroll Certification

Now available in a ProAdvisor’s portal is the new QuickBooks Online (QBO) Payroll Certification.

“Our payroll training will help you and your team with live and on-demand product and compliance training, plus a certification prep course and the qualifying exam,” said Callahan. “Through our training and certification, you develop not only knowledge, but also confidence about Payroll, so you can further grow your practice with Payroll, without taking on the work yourself.”

Firm of the Future recently posted a blog article with more details about the certification. According to Callahan, the combination of QBO and Payroll provides a huge growth opportunity.

“We recognize that many of you want to grow and differentiate your business with QuickBooks Payroll, even if you don’t want the burden of running payroll yourselves. In fact, our QBO Payroll solutions takes payroll off your plate. And, when you’re certified, you can display the new Payroll certification badge on your website and on your Find-a-ProAdvisor profile.”

ProAdvisor Support

The last area Callahan touched on was ProAdvisor support and bringing it back to the United States.

Callahan outlined the four focus areas for improving ProAdvisor support: decreasing wait times, connecting ProAdvisors to knowledgeable agents, routing calls to the right agents, and hiring more U.S.-based agents.

“Today, 100% of ProAdvisor support for Elite and Platinum ProAdvisors is in the U.S. All Gold ProAdvisors will experience U.S.-based support by December, and Silver members by early next year.”

Visit QuickBooks Connect regularly for on-demand and timely webinars held throughout the year.

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