City Works at 'The Star' in Frisco, Texas, one of the hottest growing areas in all of North Central Texas, was the place for one of three Intuit Accountants Innovation Showcases. It was a lovely day with temps in the mid/upper 70s for the covered-rooftop overlooking the Ford Center. By the way, this venue was only about 2 or 3 miles north of Intuit's 'Plano' Campus located off Dallas North Tollway and Headquarters' Drive (where I've visited more than a few times.)
I can't say for certain, but I estimated about 100 in attendance. Of that number there were about 20+ Intuit personnel that were involved in logistics and also in demonstrations after the presentations ended.
Roney Branch, Intuit's Director of Accountant and Partner Sales, served as the 'Master of Ceremonies'. Roney has been with Intuit for more than 22 years, and served in a variety of capacities, but has pretty much been involved with the accounting community and Intuit partners. After a 'glad you're here' (rather than a big Texas 'Howdy') he spoke about these Regional Showcases focusing on 'the mid-market' and Intuit's Big Bet # 5 of expanding their product offerings to service the mid-market. Of course, to accomplish that task, Intuit has launched "Intuit Enterprise Suite" and much of the event was focused on that offering.
Next on the agenda was a two-tiered segment on thought leadership featuring local Accountant Guest Speakers. Roney introduced Amy Walker with Walker Glantz, PLC. Amy is a Partner in the firm which arose out of a merger of her own firm with the firm of Paul Glantz. While Amy's firm provided Client Accounting (and Advisory) Services (CAS), Mr. Glantz' firm was essentially a 100% tax practice. By combing the two firms into one they could then offer a comprehensive practice, and by maintaining both locations (Houston and Austin) they could essentially double their exposure for their services.
Now Walker Glantz focuses on a one-team approach to serving the needs of their clients. And those needs are plentiful since the firm focuses on clients who are innovative go-getting entrepreneurs. In order to accomplish their approach, some of the dynamics and tools the firm had used gave way to changes. For example, the firm is now 100% Intuit based with a few add-ons for specialized purposes. For example, to provide a "frictionless client experience" the firm uses Canopy to bring new clients on board and maintain their client letters of understanding. The firm also uses Ignition for billing purposes. Another change, all their clients must be both CAS and Tax clients which helps ensure continuity in outcomes.
Walker Glantz is a prime example of how two smaller firms decided to combine to provide a single firm with expertise enough to go around for the practice and their firms. As a result that expertise became an increasing attraction for new clients who found their way into not only welcoming arms, but an outstanding service offering environment.
Amy then introduced Missy Thompson of Baker Tilly. Missy is a Principal and Client Accounting Services Leader in the firm. Baker Tilly is a top ten advisory tax and assurance firm dedicated to customized business solutions that generate and sustain growth. Missy is based in the Dallas, where the firm she had previously worked for was acquired by Baker Tilly. In fact, over the lifetime of Baker Tilly they have combined with more than fifty accounting and tax firms to form a global presence.
More specifically, Missy is part of Baker Tilly 'Advantage', which is designed clients who need help scaling their businesses by handling accounting, critical tax and HR functions so their owners and managers can spend more time on strategy, innovation, growth and client relationships. They provide proactice support through dedicated Client Success Managers to provide personalized tech-enable experiences for their clients.
Key among these experiences are Standardization and Consistency including those that are processed focused like onboarding with meaningful timelines to achieve client deliverables coupled with quality control to ensure reviews are on-the-spot. To the extent possible, client software should be standardized, as well as in the way it is used and products the software produces. While clients are different, trusted advisors can still provide leadership in standardizing the what and how, and in so doing maintain consistency based on the commonalities across all clients. It's OK for clients to have some differences, but you want to minimize the differences and enhance the common factors.
An example of commonalities achieved, even with client differences comes in the form of reporting. Almost every client will have unique characteristics or requirements that they need for reports or analytics. Yet Missy has found out that almost always either Fathom or Qvinci can meet those requirements. In most cases, if you can't produce a needed report with one of these two reporting apps, it simply can't be done.
I think the most impressive aspect of these two professionals was just that, "their professionalism." Yet at the same time, they spoke to the accountants, and other professionals in the crowd as equals... sharing their experiences, openly, and as a result they saw (or at least I saw it) more heads shaking an 'affirmative yes' to the points they both made, then those who were shaking heads in a 'skeptical no'.
One of the major positive takeaways for me from this event was just that... it was more of an 'Intuit sharing event' than just another 'connecting event.'
I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about Intuit products in this article, because Insightful Accountant has covered so many of the same issues prior to and since Intuit Connect, but I will highlight a few things that were said that had either been questions in my mind or which went unanswered at Intuit Connect.
With that understood, I will say that the intended 'star of the show' was Intuit Enterprise Suite (IES). Intuit Enterprise Suite is Intuit's new configurable business solution for complex companies to help you grow your clients’ business beyond their books. It is specifically aimed at the mid-market in part because it offers functionalities that no prior Intuit 'on-line' product could provide. For example, this product was built for multi-entity businesses like a C-corporation with a group of LLC subsidiaries, or an S-corporation with LLC subsidiaries.
While some people would have you believe that Intuit Enterprise Suite is an entirely new 'from the ground up' Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP) solution, it really isn't that at all. Rather, it is platform-interface that relies upon the power of QuickBooks (Online) Advanced and Mailchimp to provide features that are based in the two underlying applications but which can only be accessed through IES.
This is why an existing QuickBooks Online Advanced, or any other QBO SKU, can be converted to IES so quickly... quite literally at the flip of a switch. When the new interface is turned-on for a client, the existing QuickBooks files are simply connected to the interface rather than their prior interface. The added features are supported in the existing file structure, they simply were not accessible until IES was made available.
And more and more features are being added into the existing databases of QBO files, and made available only via the IES SKU. For example, workflows. QBO Advanced has had workflows for some time, get an approval for a purchase, or to pay a bill, that sort of thing. They had limited levels and number of workflow steps, but the ability to have more complex workflows has already been added to QBO database files, yet those extra layers will only be available via the IES SKU.
It won't be long before users running IES with 5 companies will be able to create workflows across companies. Someone wants to buy a $250,000 capital improvement in subsidiary A, it has to go through 3 supervisors in subsidiary A before it then goes to the Parent company to go through 3 more workflow steps. And just as likely, since an expenditure of that amount will probably be paid out of the Parent company, the actual purchase order will be created using this intercompany workflow within the Parent company, then paid out of the Parent using the intercompany transaction feature, so it's automatically charged back to subsidiary A. Now that is an example of not only mid-market but 'enterprise level' functionality that may soon exist within IES.
But looking beyond the functionality aspects of IES, another 'reveal' from the Dallas meeting came when Barry Pennett, Intuit Sr. Vice President and Chief Sales Officer mentioned something about the 'starting price' for IES. Until that moment, the cost of IES has been a 'quoted' thing, held close to the vest by Intuit IES Sales Reps. It seems that the base license fee for IES is $7800.00/year, or $650.00 per month. Apparently this includes a few attached companies, a few of the new 'dimensions' per company, and a limited number of users. Things like payroll and number of employees, marketing activities (per month), and money transactions all then become configurable within the price structure. So, while we don't have full pricing visibility, at least we have a starting point with which to discuss this new offering with our clients.
The presentations included a fairly comprehensive list of many of the 2024 enhancements to the QuickBooks platforms for QBO, Payroll/HR, Money/Payments and more, most of which we have covered previously.
The final wrap-up was a meet & greet, along with kiosk booth demonstrations of products and features, again with IES garnering the most interest for those attending and staying around for the 'happy hour'... TEXAS style, of course!