What's Up with QBO's New 'My Accountant' Feature?

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There is a QuickBooks Online update being pushed out that appears to be affecting everybody at nearly the same time, or at least within hours of each other. This is not normally Intuit's model, but it seems to be this time. 

Included in this update is a new feature link called "My Accountant" on the navigation bar. The new feature gives users and their accountants the ability to send messages and pass documents back and forth.

That means an accountant or ProAdvisor can send their client a request for information, including due dates directly within QuickBooks Online. It allows you to easily keep track of informational requests sent to your clients, as well as those to whom your clients respond. 

As an option, accountants can "alert" their client via an email notification that the message or document has been sent via QBO.

As an accountant or ProAdvisor, you might be unclear as to why your client chose to code a specific transaction in a specific way.

For example, they routinely purchase office and maintenance supplies from Walmart and their bank feed rules typically take care of that coding when the expense is normally below $100. But on this occasion, you notice a Walmart charge hitting maintenance supplies for nearly $700.

With this new feature, you can easily send a message to your client via QBO to find out what they purchased for $700 in maintenance supplies. 

Then your client send you message with the answer, which, as it turned here, they purchased new tires. That means the transaction must be reclassified. The My Accountant two-way communication channel streamlined the process.

All of this sounds quite good, but there are problems. As it's being rolled out, it seems that QuickBooks is unavailable. Several QBO clients have experienced these problems (by the time you read this).

As a ProAdvisor supporting QBO, I'm certain you'll be hearing from your clients when they attempt to login to QBO and get a message like the one below:

Then, when QBO goes back to working and the new "My Accountant" link appears on the Navigation bar, there's nothing there when you click on it (see the message below). This is another reason why your clients may be calling you. As their ProAdvisor, rather than sending you a message with the new feature, we thought you should know, so you can be prepared to answer their inquiries.

So, I can only say that while the new feature appears to be promising, there seems to be a glitch in the roll out and readiness, aka: "Temporarily Out of Service."

By the way, Liz should have a feature review of the new My Accountant feature in an upcoming QBO Monday Minute.

Out of fairness we have published the above update, as well as the comments from Intuit's spokesperson, in the comments section below.