Advancing Your Practice - Part 1

When you think about 'mid-market,' what comes to mind? Probably clients bigger than those you have now. The reality is that we have all talked - for years - about using QuickBooks to service SMB clients (Small to Medium sized businesses), but QuickBooks was designed for Small Business. 

When you look at Desktop with 3 or 5 users for Pro and Premier, you really get the sense of exactly what I am talking about…. ‘those are small business.' Even 10-user Enterprise is still pretty ‘small’ when it comes to today's business environment.

Now if we turn our attention to QuickBooks Online, whether you are using Simple-Start or Plus edition, they are all designed for small business too; they are intended to deal with those smaller companies that have basic accounting needs, a few people who need to access to ‘the books,’ and who need to perform basic functions. Sure, you can expand those functions by using add-on Apps, but when it comes to QuickBooks Online itself we all recognize that our clients will finally get to the point that one of these original versions of QuickBooks Online simply won't 'cut the mustard;' they are going to need more power, more flexibility and more productivity, and that folks is where Intuit's newest offering, QuickBooks Online Advanced comes into play.

QBO Advanced was built for mid-market businesses, and it was designed to offer more in the way of features that growing mid-market companies are going to need in order to continue to grow. It's also designed to provide ProAdvisors supporting the mid-market with the kinds of features they need and want, like smart reporting powered by Fathom, as well as enhanced custom fields that allow them to set up special requirements for their clients, or custom user permissions to limit client users to the specific areas of access that growing companies need to control. And, if you think that's not enough, there is much more on the way.

The reality is that as a ProAdvisor, Accountant or Bookkeeper you are in the best position to elevate your clients and better serve their fast growing businesses that are on their way to becoming the mid-market companies of tomorrow by transitioning them to QuickBooks Online Advanced, if not right now, at least by the time they reach the threshold.

So you may be wondering what some of those thresholds are... certainly complex workflows are one of them, especially when they involve repetitive tasks. In case you are wondering how QuickBooks Online Advanced can help with that, one example is the ability to import or send multiple invoices at one time... now if that won't improve the productivity of a growing business, I don't know what will.

But the reality is that small businesses simply outgrow their accounting solutions, even if those solutions are QuickBooks Online Plus. That's why QuickBooks Online Advanced can support up to 25 users, and has an unlimited chart of accounts as well as an unlimited number of classes and locations.

One of the coolest ways you can 'advance your practice' with QuickBooks Online Advanced is by expanding your role as a trusted advisor by making use of the 'smart reporting' feature powered by Fathom. This functionality provides deeper, faster insights into the financials of your clients by providing in-depth financial analysis and metrics. Now I think most of you know that I am a bit of a nut when it comes to 'financial metrics' (having written a book on the topic) and I want you just to take a look at the level of detail, scope of information and quality of graphic data displayed in just this one page of the report that you will get with this built-in Fathom power reporting (and this is just one of the 13 pages of this one single report). Now you won't be getting that (included) in any other version of QBO!

So I see QuickBooks Online Advanced as a great way for ProAdvisors, Accountants and Bookkeepers to 'advance their practice' beyond the typical SMB they have been stuck in and truly penetrate the mid-market sector. To help you decide, Insightful Accountant has teamed up with Intuit to offer you a series of webinars over the new couple of months and here is the information on just a couple of them.

The first one is today (July 18, 2019) at 2pm (Eastern). Matthew Fulton will take you through a deep-dive into the high value features of QBO-Advanced and the benefits of those features for both accountants and your growing, mid-market clients. Now Matthew isn’t an Intuit Sales Guy, is one of us, he is an Advanced Certified QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor and Workflow Specialist with ‘real live QuickBooks clients’. In fact, he is the co-founder and CTO of Parkway Business Solutions. He is going to spend a lot more time differentiating how the features of QBO-Advanced better fit bigger businesses than those of the smaller QBO subscription offerings.  You can actually register here.

This webinar will be repeated on August 15 at 2pm (Eastern), for that date you can register here.

In addition to Matthew’s Deep Dive, our own Liz Scott is presenting another QBO Advanced webinar titled ‘How to get the most out of QBO Advanced. What are some common mid/large size company issues?’ which isn't being held until August 22, 2019 at 2pm (Eastern). We all know Liz to be a 'straight talker,' so when it comes to her describing her experiences in transitioning companies from QBO to QBO Advanced when she thought it was the right move to make, and why, you will know that she isn't 'joshing you.' She'll talk about the need to look not only at a company in terms of their present situation, but where they are going, and what they want to accomplish… and then tell you how you can determine if QuickBooks Online Advanced is the best fit for them. You can register for this webinar here.

We have more QBO Advanced webinars in the mix as well, you can find out how they can help 'advance your practice' and register for them by checking out this Insightful Accountant feature.

In Part 2 of this mini-series, we will look at how an 'inventory niche' may be just what you are needing to 'advance your practice.' See you next time.