CPA Practice Advisor - 13

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Summing it up at Scaling New Heights:

35 YEARS OF INTUIT INNOVATION
AMIDST SCENIC VIEWS, rich history and welcoming locals of Salt Lake City, Intuit's
rich 35-year history of innovation was front and center at the recent Scaling New
Heights conference. On the main stage, Ariege Misherghi, global leader of the
Intuit accountant segment in the small business self-employed group, and Misty
Megia, global head of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program and education strategy,
provided key updates for the capacity crowd of accounting professionals.

THE JOURNEY TO EXCELLENCE
Misherghi began by touching on Intuit's journey
and legacy of constant disruption and innovation.
"Intuit has a 35-year track history of identifying
trends - from leveraging platforms like DOS, Windows, web and mobile, to embracing technologies
like the cloud, and now artificial intelligence and
machine learning - and leveraging them to solve
important customer problems. Intuit is a company
that reinvents itself constantly. This adaptive style
keeps us relevant, and it keeps us innovating and
delivering more and more value to our partners and
our customers."
An example of this disruption is the recent
introduction of QuickBooks Live, a monthly bookkeeping subscription service for small businesses
provided by QuickBooks Online Certified ProAdvisors. Today, 60 percent of small businesses that
use QuickBooks are connected to an accountant.
For the 40 percent of small businesses who don't
have a pro and aren't interested in searching for
one, QuickBooks Live bookkeepers will help set up
QuickBooks, categorize bank transactions, reconcile
accounts and walk customers through reports so
that they understand them.
"Our goal is to connect these SMBs [who aren't
currently connected to an accounting pro] with
the ProAdvisor experts they need without the
intimidation factor of a search," said Misherghi. "For
the industry, this could mean an unprecedented
expansion in people who have access to bookkeeping
experts for the first time. And because participating
in this service is open to ProAdvisors with bookkeeping expertise, it is also a way for us to extend
your reach to our customers."
Ariege also shared some other updates in
QuickBooks Online Accountant designed to help
accountants grow and manage their practice:

Managing Leads. Soon, ProAdvisors will be
able to see directly inside of QuickBooks Online
Accountant each prospect who has reached out to
them from the Find-a-ProAdvisor website. The goal
is to increase ProAdvisors' visibility into the leads
they're getting in order to maximize response rates
and ultimately client connections.
Client Overview. In the past, it took up to four
hours to evaluate how much work needs to be done,
clean up a client's books and decide what must be
done to support a prospective new client.
"Imagine those four hours being wrapped up
in four minutes; that's what Client Overview delivers," said Misherghi. "From having opening balance
equity and uncategorized transactions, to negative
balances in asset and liability accounts, you'll see
the common issues small businesses are facing
that they don't even know about - and you'll more
accurately be able to estimate how much time it will
take to clean up their books. The goal is to give you
the information you need to accurately, confidently
and transparently price your services so you can
win new client business."
Statement Auto-Import. Chasing down your client for a bank statement or other source documents
you need is never fun. In fact, research shows it
takes up to 35 percent of your time just to do this
one step. With statement auto-import, when a client
connects a financial institution to QuickBooks, in
addition to transaction data, you'll also receive the
source of truth - the bank statement through the
same connection.
Here's how this feature will work: Simply log
into a clients' QuickBooks Online file, go to the
reconcile page and find this new button called "view
statements." Click it and you'll see the most recent
statements. Then, you're all set. The bank statement
is right there - something that will happen automatically when you connect a bank to QuickBooks.

The ProAdvisor
Spotlight is sponsored by

Advisory. Misherghi said Intuit is investing in
practice management tools to enable accountants
and bookkeepers to be able to offer more services
and grow their practices. One of those is business
advisory services.
"This involves getting a clearer picture of where
your clients are today and how they're doing over
time," she said. "Using this information to educate
your clients, you'll also meet with them to decide on
one or two key performance indicators to work on,
and drive change and growth in the future. We're
currently exploring a next-level dashboard that
would provide the key metrics you need to do just
that. We've also taken your feedback and are now
looking at ways we could offer industry benchmarks,
suggested actions to improve KPIs, and training for
you and for your staff to move into advisory work."

A FOCUS ON THE PROADVISOR
PROGRAM
Up next was Megia, who discussed the impact of
the ProAdvisor Program and what it means for the
audience.
"The program represents a community of the
most engaged, enthusiastic advocates of QuickBooks; it currently stands at a staggering 400,000
ProAdvisors, with a remarkable 140,000 certified,"
she said. "This would never be possible without
your passion and dedication. Through your ideas,
thoughts and feedback, we've built a partnership
together based on communication and collaboration
to deliver you growth and shared customer success."
Megia said the mission has always been to
grow the accountant's skills and their business.
"The program helps do that by strengthening your
network and helping you engage with the ProAdvisor
community, as well as amplifying your expertise
and expanding your reach by connecting with
more small businesses who need your guidance
and expertise."

LOOKING AT WHAT'S AHEAD
The message at Scaling New Heights was optimistic:
Intuit will continue to deliver powerful solutions to
help accounting pros elevate their role of advisor and
expand their reach, while connecting small business
owners with the experts they need to power their
prosperity and succeed. ■

JULY 2019 ■

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CPA Practice Advisor

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