A successful business is made up of multiple successful partnerships. Sometimes it’s the partnership between owners; other times it’s the partnership between the business and its vendors. But what makes a good partner? Financial software provider, Intuit, not only knows the answer to this, but it wants to be a good partner to the thousands of ProAdvisors worldwide.
“A good partner does three things: gives you good advice; introduces you to new friends in the form of mentors, clients and other business partners; and supports you. As we prepared to roll out the next version of our ProAdvisor certifications, we had to ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing to support these three things and how can we continue to do it in the future?’ Helping our ProAdvisors succeed all comes down to us being a good partner,” said Luis Sanchez.
Intuit believes the purpose of its role as a partner to accountants is to help them become trusted ProAdvisors to their clients. In turn, this will help them grow their practice by not only getting more clients, but also delivering better service to existing clients. For accountants to truly move into the trusted advisor role, though, they have to embrace current and future technology.
“Our CEO Brad Smith always says ‘Change can happen to you or through you. It’s your choice.’ We want change to happen through our ProAdvisors and us, not to us,” said Sanchez.
Giving Good Advice
Intuit is committed to ensuring its ProAdvisors stay up-to-date with the latest training and certifications. As such, it has released three new QuickBooks ProAdvisor certifications and updated its Advanced Certified ProAdvisor Online certification. The three new certifications are Certified ProAdvisor Enterprise, Certified ProAdvisor Point of Sale and Advanced Certified ProAdvisor Desktop. All four certifications were announced at Scaling New Heights.
In addition to the new and updated certifications, Intuit is also partnering with Ron Baker, founder of VeraSage Institute, to offer guidance to professionals on switching to a value pricing model. Much like cloud-based accounting, the future of the profession lies with value-based pricing. Many professionals have already stopped billing for time, but for those that haven’t, Intuit is committed to providing guidance and resources.
Introducing New Friends
Intuit has worked hard to build up its QuickBooks ecosystem over the years and is continuously launching partnerships with new apps that its customers can benefit from. Recent partnerships include Bill.com, TSheets and Receipt Bank. As part of its partnerships with TSheets and Receipt Bank, Intuit customers received lifetime accounts. Other benefits of the partnership with Receipt Bank include a 50 percent discount for multi-user clients and dedicated support, as well as access to training and certification
In addition to its partnerships and apps, Intuit is also committed to helping its ProAdvisors find new clients. The company built its “Find A ProAdvisor” directory into QuickBooks Small Business to help connect small business owners with trusted ProAdvisors. An updated version is scheduled to be released in the near future that will include more detailed information about each ProAdvisor, and make it easier for business owners and ProAdvisors to connect.
Supporting Partners
Intuit believes in listening to its customers and responding to customer feedback. The best way to do this is to ensure that they have the best customer service agents in place when customers reach out, which is why they are committed to cross-training their support agents with accounting knowledge. In order for them to effectively solve customers’ problems, agents must have an understanding of why an issue is a problem.
Intuit also performs regular tests on its apps and solutions to ensure they are effectively solving its customers’ pain points. New apps undergo vigorous testing before they are released to the QB ecosystem. Afterwards, the company continues to test the apps as well as on-demand support for its solutions. This is especially important as Cloud solutions are regularly updated.
While Intuit fully supports the Cloud, it also continues to invest in its Desktop solutions.
“Our customers that continue to use our Desktop solutions, or have clients that do so, want to know that we are continuing to invest in them. And we will. We will continue to invest in them and make enhancements every year as long as they continue to use our products. ‘No desktop is left behind’ is our motto,” said Sanchez.
With 130,000 ProAdvisors in the US, Canada, UK, Australia, India and France, and 1 million QuickBooks Online paid subscribers globally, it’s safe to say Intuit knows a thing or two about growth, working in the Cloud and being a good partner.
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Tags: Firm Management, Small Business, Software, Technology
