Summer is a great time to assess your firm’s strengths, client base, and marketing efforts. Whether you have your own firm or are part of a team, keeping your QuickBooks Online Certification current is a component of life-long learning, as well as a key strategy for retaining your clients and recruiting new ones.
After all, Certification is about demonstrating your efforts as a subject matter expert. It’s also part of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program, and once you’re QuickBooks Certified, you can be included in the Find-a-ProAdvisor online listing, a great way to help grow your business.
A few years ago, Intuit introduced annual recertification to keep ProAdvisors up to date with what’s happened in QuickBooks since their last exam. To retain or you’re your Certifications, you must pass all sections of the exam by June 30, 2022 at 11:59 PM PT.
Why Certification is Important
The more knowledge and experience you have in QuickBooks, the more expertise you have to evaluate and assess the overall health of your firm and your clients’ businesses. Your clients trust you to deliver focused accounting services to help them make more informed business decisions. The training that comes with Certification allows you to build your skills and further demonstrate your acumen.
Heather Satterley, CPA, MSI, owns her own firm in Portsmouth, RI, and has taught QuickBooks Certification courses to thousands of accounting professionals. Certification is important to her for several reasons.
“Our clients rely on us to stay informed about updates and changes to QuickBooks and the greater ecosystem,” she says. “Staying certified is the best way to make sure a ProAdvisor stays current and proficient in the QuickBooks ecosystem. Because new features and functionality are released continuously, we owe it to ourselves, our firms, and our clients to stay up-to-date and in-the-know.”
Satterley says maintaining her certifications also keeps her Find-a-ProAdvisor profile at the top of the directory in her geographic area.
“Certification ensures that my expertise is relevant, and also adds points to my tally when applying for various accounting ‘best of’ lists,” she says. “But most of all, I recertify every year for myself.”
Who has to recertify? If you recertified in 2021, or became certified before Nov. 1, 2021, you are required to recertify by June 30, 2022, to retain your Certification status. If you are required to recertify, a new “Your QuickBooks Online Recertification Requirement” category will appear in the training section when you sign into QuickBooks Online Accountant. The best way to verify your status is in your Training tab. The 2022 recertification will only be visible if you need to recertify.
What if I passed the QuickBooks Online Advanced Certification on or after Nov. 1, 2021? Do I need to recertify this year? The recertification requirements are based on your highest level of Certification, so if you completed QuickBooks Online Certification prior to Nov. 2021, and QuickBooks Online Advanced after November, you are set until the next recertification season in 2023.
Do I need to take two recertification exams: QuickBooks Online Certification and QuickBooks Online Advanced Certification? No. If you are QuickBooks Online Advanced Certified prior to Nov. 1, 2021, your exam will include both levels of recertification. One exam recertifies you in both Certifications.
What’s the best way to prepare for recertification? There are several ways to support your education to prepare for the exam:
- A short virtual training course will be offered once per day during the QuickBooks Online Certification Bootcamp, June 14 -16, 2022. Register here
- Live webinars are available in QuickBooks Accountant University.
- Self-paced modules are in your ProAdvisor Training tab.
Is there a limit to the number of tries I get to pass the exam? Yes; after three unsuccessful attempts, you are locked out of the recertification exam for 10 days (this only applies to the recertification exam). This enables you time to study the sections you didn’t pass and try again. For this reason, we recommend that you begin the recertification exam at your earliest opportunity.
Don’t miss this year’s window! The window will close on June 30, so now is the best time to tackle your Certification exam. Find out more by clicking on the Training tab in your QuickBooks account.
Thanks for reading CPA Practice Advisor!
Subscribe Already registered? Log In
Need more information? Read the FAQs
Tags: Accounting, Small Business
