The Dawn of a New Era - the NEW QuickBooks Online Accountant

Today marks the dawn of a new era in terms of how accountants and ProAdvisors work with their QuickBooks clients. The debut of the ‘New’ QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) is the culmination of a long chain of events set in place more than 30 years ago when Scott Cook and his wife sat around the kitchen table pondering the question, “isn’t there a better way to keep the checkbook in balance?”  From the first fledgling version of Quicken to today’s newest version of QuickBooks for accountant’s (the new QBOA), Intuit has remained true to their mission of “improving their customers’ lives so profoundly that they can’t imagine going back to the old way.” The new QuickBooks Online Accountant is destined to accomplish that mission for accountants and ProAdvisors as they serve their customers who are increasingly moving from desktop to cloud and turning to QuickBooks Online for their financial and accounting needs.

Intuit’s vision of QuickBooks being the operating system behind small business success is now manifesting itself in this new QBOA which will help accounting professionals save time while also serving as the tool to grow their practices.

In a recent interview Ariege Misherghi, Group Product Manager for the New QuickBooks Online Accountant told me, “We’ve completely re-imagined QuickBooks Online Accountant, and it’s the most significant offering ever for accounting professionals. We built it from the ground up to save Accountants time so they can take pride in confidently helping their clients succeed.”

The re-imagined QuickBooks Online Accountant was inspired by Intuit's accounting partners. As those partners move to the cloud and expand their recognition as trusted advisors and experts to their small business clients, Intuit is striving to provide a new solution intended to insure client success. As such the New QuickBooks Online Accountant core capabilities focus on three areas: seamlessly exposing tools and insights to accounting professionals, allowing them to seamlessly work with all their employees and clients, and transforming how they grow their practice. 

Seamlessly Exposes Tools and Insights to Accounting Professionals

New Customizable Dashboard: highlights what needs attention via alerts, to-dos and recent activities. Ariege said, “I love the customizable Client Dashboard which highlights in one place things that need your attention across all your clients and across all the services you offer – not just bookkeeping.”

  • It provides one-click access to clients’ books and payroll to help accounting professionals take immediate action.

New Bookkeeping and Payroll Detail Tabs: allows accounting professionals to see at-a-glance reconciliation information, transactions requiring attention, due dates and tax filings.

  • Free subscription of QuickBooks Online Plus, included with QuickBooks Online Accountant
  • Now includes Payroll to help accounting professionals manage firm’s books and pay employees.

New Accountant Toolbar: enables easy access to accountant-only tools such as batch reconciliation, re-classify transactions and Books-to-Tax from within any client’s books. Ariege was extremely excited when she said, “Accounting professionals can save using the Accountant Toolbox, which gives them easy access to accountant-only tools and one-click access to any client from anywhere within QuickBooks Online Accountant.”  I must admit I was excited too when I saw the streamlined interface.

  • Also enables one-click access to any client from anywhere within QuickBooks Online Accountant.

Work Seamlessly With Employees and Clients

New Client Document Center (scheduled availability early 2015): allows users to request and receive documents from clients directly inside QuickBooks Online Accountant. Users can view all requests and documents by client and easily keep track of what is received or outstanding. (Exact methodology and functionality could vary by the date of release.)

New Employee Access Controls: designates firm roles and permissions that define the level of access (full, custom or restricted) an employee can have to clients’ books.

New Management Reports: enables creation of customizable, professional-looking and firm-branded management reports that can be easily saved and shared with clients.

Enhanced Books-to-Tax: The new QuickBooks Online Accountant doesn't just focus on bookkeeping, it also provides a common functionality for Intuit Tax Online. The enhanced Books-to-Tax integration bridges tax and accounting so you can make adjustments in books, or tax or both - right from within QuickBooks Online Accountant, and bookkeeping data flows seamlessly from your client’s QuickBooks Online account to Intuit Tax Online to generate a tax return.

  • Enables QuickBooks Online accounts to be easily mapped to tax accounts.
  • Users can make tax-only adjustments inside QuickBooks Online Accountant.
  • Then seamlessly push the bookkeeping data to Intuit Tax Online to generate the tax return.

Transforms How Accounting Professionals Grow Their Practice

New QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program Integrated into QuickBooks Online Accountant: allows QuickBooks ProAdvisors to access their membership details directly from within QuickBooks Online Accountant. ProAdvisors can track certifications, the number of clients they have, view available training materials and make changes to their Find-a-ProAdvisor listing.

Enhanced Wholesale Pricing: exclusively for QuickBooks Online Accountant users, accounting professionals can now bundle payroll to their clients’ QuickBooks Online subscription. Through QuickBooks Online Accountant, accounting professionals can offer their clients 50 percent off the life of their QuickBooks Online subscription and enjoy consolidated, monthly billing for all their wholesale pricing clients.

Ariege said,“I’m excited about the enhanced Wholesale Pricing which now includes a QuickBooks Online subscription that’s bundled with payroll. Accounting professionals can offer clients 50 percent off the life of their QuickBooks Online subscription for a special limited time and enjoy consolidated, monthly billing for all their wholesale clients. It’s the only discount we offer that is a lifetime discount and we offer it exclusively to accountants – our most important partners.”

I can certainly understand her excitement, any time you start talking "discounts for life", I am sure a lot of accountants, and ProAdvisors will be jumping for joy at this opportunity to pass the news of these savings on to clients who are read to jump to the cloud.

The new QuickBooks Online Accountant is a global solution that is scheduled to be available to new users starting in early December 2014, and will roll out to customers around the world throughout early 2015. Current QuickBooks Online Accountant customers will begin to have access to the new product over the next few months.

“We know from experience that accounting professionals want time to become familiar with new offerings before they are publicly available,”said Jim McGinnis, vice president of Intuit's Accountant and Advisor Group. "We listened and will offer a variety of ways to help accounting professionals become experts with the new offering including training sessions, videos, and weekly product webinars that highlight new features.”

QuickBooks Online Accountant is free for the first 180 days, starting from the date of enrollment. After the first 180 days, users automatically maintain free, full access to QuickBooks Online Accountant if they have an active ProAdvisor membership or at least one current QuickBooks Online client on their QuickBooks Online Accountant client list.

For more details about the New QuickBooks Online Accountant visit http://intuitaccountants.com/announcement.