Palo Alto Software will debut a much-demanded accounting extension to its business planning solution - LivePlan at this year's Scaling New Heights conference being held in Atlanta . This feature set is created specifically for accountants and business owners who wish to integrate their business management operations with QuickBooks seamlessly and instantly.
This LivePlan update will disrupt the accounting industry. Accountants are fighting to stay relevant and useful for their clients in a world of expanding Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. In fact this year's Scaling New Heights conference theme is 'Tame the Machines' which has clear association to the future of professions like Accountants, Bookkeepers and Small Business Consultants.
LivePlan’s update will help these Trusted Advisors use the data and information they gather from reports to suggest smart business decisions to their clients. Moreover, the new features will improve accounting efficiency which, in turn, contributes to smarter business growth and improvements to their business practices.
LivePlan_Signup
The update will include novel features like automated forecasting, instant reports, co-branding and import of data from various accounting solutions including Intuit's QuickBooks. There is no other product that integrates accounting and business management in the same manner as LivePlan.
Among the various enhancements is a new user experience that automates the dashboard and forecast set up process when connecting to an accounting solution. This provides users with an automatic dashboard and instant reports, and for QBO users integrating via the Intuit App Center so automates the set up and initial sync so as to substantially reduce the time and steps needed to undertake these steps.
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When users sync with QuickBooks, LivePlan will check to see if they’ve enabled class tracking. If so, the new feature will sync their class data too. Those users will now have a new set of metrics available that will enable them to view a level of detail within LivePlan that they could previously only see within QuickBooks.
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When users start LivePlan through the Dashboard by connecting to an accounting solution never before connected, the application uses the respective charts of accounts from the accounting solution to create an initial set of forecast items for each of the revenue, expenses, and direct costs. LivePlan also uses their actual accounting data from last year to build a three year projected forecast.
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Luke Gheen, the owner of a CPA firm in Colorado, Gheen & Co., an early adopter and now a long-time user of LivePlan had this to say about the new features, "We use LivePlan for strategic planning. The automated features are attractive because they will save us time in setting up a client's account, and in getting us started with a beginning forecast."
If you have been looking for analytics to help you provide more information to your clients as their 'trusted advisor', then you will want to check out the news features in LivePlan. It's easy to do if you are attending Scaling New Heights, just stop by their booth on the exhibit hall floor, otherwise just reach out to LivePlan for more information.