By the time a majority of you are reading this article, I will have awakened for my second day at QuickBooks Connect. With that in mind let me tell you a bit about what I did yesterday.
Since I arrived too late on Sunday to take care of registration details, my first stop was on level 2 of the West Convention Center here at the Aria Las Vegas so I could pick up my 'all important Badge and Registration Swag'. Next I headed over to the ProAdvisor Hydration Station to grab a Logo Water Bottle and see a few ProAdvisors I hadn't seen in a year, since last QBC.
Next stop, the Exhibit Hall. There are a lot of QBO Integrated App exhibitors here that I need to see and not a lot of time to do so. I mean there is A2X, Aero Workflow, Anchor, ApprovalMax, Avalara, BigTime, Bloomerang, Bookkeep, BooXkeeping, Botkeeper, Canopy, Chaser, Cin7, Client Hub, ConnectBooks, Corpay and CorpNet. And believe it or not, that's just the first 3 of the 26 letters of the App-alphabet.
Good thing I didn't have anything scheduled until the lunch-n-learn lunch boxes at noon.
As soon as I gobbled down some groceries, I headed over Level 3 to learn about how Intuit's connected QuickBooks ecosystem allows customers and accountants to streamline business processes, automate tasks, and provide valuable insights into business performance. I'm not sure if Level 3 in this place is like the 3rd level in Tri-dimensional Chess, but at least the escalators are working.
Intuit's Anthony Chan, Manager of Strategic Partnerships along with Vinayak Thacker and Anna Kippley from the Product Management team, presented Intuit's roadmap on how they are accelerating App discovery. This session is all about reducing the effort it takes to manage Apps so we always have clean data to unlock the power of QuickBooks. In other words, how to avoid App clutter (a fate worse than COVID).
Back to the Exhibit Hall to see more exhibitors, I haven't even made it through all the ones I mentioned earlier. Now I do feel like Tri-dimensional Chessman, it's up then down, then down some more, then up again. But in many ways going from one level to the next isn't as bad as having to walk 6-tenths a mile in each direction between events.
Now where are those snacks?
Before you know it, it's time for the Opening General Session. Kicking off the festivities are Ted Callahan and Ashleigh Sutter. Most of you in the ProAdvisor arena know Ted Callahan as the Director of the Accountant Segment of Intuit's Small Business/Self-employed Group.
But Ashleigh Sutter, who is Director of US Sales, for the same Intuit 'Group', is fairly new to the community having only been in her present position for a little more than a year. She recently announced something Intuit is calling 'QuickBooks Ledger', which is a new way to manager year-end for tax-only and low-transaction clients. This product is still in a limited early access mode, and I hope to have more scoop on the underpinnings of it ASAP.
This really isn't so much a keynote as it is a welcome, introduction to what's going to happen the next two days, including Monday night, where to head to hear Ted accompany Scott Grillo and John Balesteri, from the Cali south bay area, as they play everything from classic rock, jazz, country, and much more.
In the alternative many attendees will find themselves at either the welcome reception in the Exhibit Hall for a fun way to visit with friends, enjoy some snacks, and see some more of the Apps that are making an appearance.