The Importance of Connecting Accountants and Developers

by

The Intuit QuickBooks customer base is 3.9-million strong and growing. But this customer base comes with customer challenges that need to be met. Through the team work of accountants and developers, working hand-in-hand with Intuit, we will meet these challenges for our customers.  While these customers and their small businesses may have needs that vary widely, there is almost one thing that they can all agree on, they want to save time while growing wealth.

So, how does a giant company like Intuit 'connect' 3.9-million QuickBooks users with App Developers and Accountants? For that matter, how do they connect just the App Developers and Accountants? If the various challenges and demands of small business are going to be met and a relationship between Intuit, QuickBooks Customers, App Developers and Accountants is going to be built, what's the best way of doing that?

Well, obviously one way to start that process is with conferences like QuickBooks Connect. In case you haven't figured it out already, I am at QuickBooks Connect London (2019) being held in Old Billingsgate today (February 25) and tomorrow. But the reality is that I have been here for the past several days 'connecting' in a series of pre-conference connections designed to work on some of those challenges and demands of building the relationships between Intuit, QuickBooks Customers, App Developers and Accountants.

Yesterday, Brian Gorbett, Global leader of Intuit Developer Advocacy announced the prizes for this year's Small Business Hack-A-Thon, which brings developers together to create innovative solutions to meet the needs of small businesses. In fact, the solutions must meet several criteria; innovation for solving a problem which is easy to use, impactful and high quality. If the App cannot meet all these requirements, it cannot “win."

The prizes are amazing and the Developers are eager to win them; however, most importantly these Developers want to create a viable product for market. But long before the prizes are awarded, the Hack-A-thon is both a learning process and a 'work, work, work' process. Nevertheless, it also appears to be a good time for all present throughout the entire competition.

It really all begins with Intuit helping App Developers understand the QuickBooks Customers as well as the QuickBooks Platform, and this means 'tips on how to connect their App to their intended customer.' But it also involves understanding the customer, knowing what the customer expects, what they really need, what problems they are having, and truly developing an 'empathy' that will lend itself to the App. In order to achieve that goal, Intuit takes App Developers attending the pre-conference events, including the Hack-A-Thon preparatory activities, through their 'Design for Delight' curriculum. I will have more about 'Design for Delight' in another article later in my report from QuickBooks Connect London.

The small business Hack-a-thon not only focuses on solving the needs of businesses so owners can focus on growing their business, but it also focuses on the needs of App Developers so they can focus on growing their App Development(s). For example, here is Annie Terry, Senior Program Manager, who helps drive early App success on the Intuit Developer Platform.

Of course, App success means that plenty of time is also spent explaining the latest developments in the QuickBooks Online API through classes like the one being instructed by Intuit's Developer Relations Engineer, Diana De Rose covering API Resources, API Operations and the various 'tools' that are available for Developers to use when associating their App with QuickBooks.

But there was something different this year in regard to the Hack-a-thon, a new 'App Development Mentors group.' Which is partly why I am at QuickBooks Connect London. I am fortunate enough to have been selected to participate in this prestigious group. Intuit created this new program of App mentors to better help the hackers understand small business needs and basic accounting methods. By bringing together Developers and Accountants, we can hopefully help build viable solutions to bridge the gap and 'connect' with small businesses.

The team consisted of Heather Satterley, Brad Celmainis, Andrew Wall and myself (Liz Scott). This program was outstanding and the feedback was staggering. The developers loved the guidance.

The vision is bringing accountants and developers together into a deeper relationship and lay out a common understanding that hopefully enables the needed solutions to be designed and  developed more easily. One of the biggest takeaways was recognizing the common issue between developers and accountants, that being communications.

Often, because we each have a unique way of thinking/speaking (accounting speak vs. programmer talk) we have a hard time communicating in a way we feel the other will understand, so one side of the partnership may give up. But by bringing accountants and programmers together in the same room, these barriers were broken and bridges were built. The lines of communication opened, the translation of accountant speak to programmer talk became a reality, true progress happened, and solutions were actually created.  

And when I say 'created' that's what I mean, because the Hack-a-thon is about 'work, work, work.' After all the preliminaries, the teams get going. As part of this accounting mentoring team, I was filled with enthusiasm for this opportunity. Sitting in a room full of 130 programmers has been enlightening! They are excited to build code which impacts our market and they are hungry for input as to where there is a need for innovation! This is truly a great experience and I recommend it to all accountants.

In the end, one team takes home the Grand Prize of £5000 (Five-thousand Pounds) and in this case, that team was QuickCheck.

I will share more about the other teams and their App projects in an upcoming episode of Insightful Accountant.