This article is one in a series of 'help guides' for 2025 ProAdvisor Award applicants. It deals exclusively with requirements for the U.S. ProAdvisor Awards.
You can apply for the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE or nominate a U.S. ProAdvisor HERE.
With a growing number of ProAdvisors focusing on Payroll and Human Resources and Intuit's establishment of Payroll as a ProAdvisor 'supplemental' certification, Insightful Accountant implemented a 'sub-category' for Payroll and Human Resources that can contribute to either the Niche ProAdvisor Award or the ProAdvisor Client Accounting & Advisory Service (CAAS) Award.
Similarly, we created a 'Tax' sub-category for the growing number of ProAdvisors providing tax services and Intuit's focus on including tax options within the ProAdvisor supplemental training offerings. The tax sub-category can also contribute scoring points toward the Niche and CAS/BPO ProAdvisor award categories.
This article focuses on 'Payroll and Human Resources.' Next week, our article will focus on 'Tax.'
Payroll Specialization
The first step in ensuring that you have access to the maximum number of scoring factors impacting your ranking for categories impacted by Payroll and Human Resource specialization is to categorize yourself properly. The most critical factor in determining how you are categorized begins with your ProAdvisor Practice categorization on Page 7 of the U.S. Awards Application form.
Categorizing Your ProAdvisor Practice for Payroll Specialization
Payroll is currently a sub-category of the awards, not an award category. While that might change in the future, we are not set to award a Payroll category for 2025; however, it may remain an integral part of your practice and award-scoring potential.
Your Payroll Specialization contributes to a 'Niche' or a CAS/BPO ProAdvisor Award category. If the conditions are right, you might have such a specialization for both your niche and the work you do as part of a firm that provides CAS/BPO services, including Payroll.
Let's first define 'niche'. We're not talking about 'recesses in a wall' when discussing the ProAdvisor Awards; instead, Webster's second and last definitions for the term niche are what we are aiming for with these awards.
- Employment, status, or activity for which a person is best fitted;
- A specialized market
If this sounds like you and your client base, you will likely have a 'niche' practice to some extent.
And, if 'payroll' is your thing, this article is 'for you.'
Let's ensure you can claim such specialization in the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Award Application process. To start this process, we have to look at Question 44 of the application form, which asks you to define your ProAdvisor Practice Categorization based on the same categories we measure for the awards.
Suppose your firm has 200 clients, and you are responsible for managing the Payroll for 100 clients and your other (non-payroll-related) work with firm clients. In that case, you have at least a 'secondary' Niche priority and a 'secondary' Payroll specialization. So, we suggest you mark Question 44 using the checkboxes indicated by the 'red arrows' (in the illustration below).
Suppose you are the only firm member who does Payroll for the firm's clients but still have other client accounting-related duties to perform. In that case, you still have a 'secondary' Niche priority, but Payroll is likely to be your 'primary' specialization. You should mark Question 44 by following the 'yellow arrows' (in the above illustration).
But there is one more scenario. You do all the Payroll or lead the Payroll services for your firm, which is essentially 100% of your firm duties; then, you have a 'primary' Niche categorization and a 'primary' Payroll specialization. When you answer Question 44, mark it using the checkboxes indicated by the 'green arrows' (in the above illustration).
When you have answered Question 44 using either the red or yellow arrow-indicated checkboxes, you might still have other 'primary' or notable 'secondary' practice categorizations. You might even have other 'secondary' practice categories when answering using the green indicated arrows.
For example, suppose your firm focuses on Payroll as a 'payroll processing outsource company' providing its clients with Payroll and human resource-related services and advisory services. In that case, you might also consider marking the Client Accounting Services/Business Process Outsourcing Provider as either a 'primary' or 'secondary' categorization in addition to the selections mentioned above. (See the purple box and circles in the illustration below.)
The deciding factor would be whether you and your firm provide CAS/BPO services other than Payroll/HR or client services outside a CAS/BPO arrangement. In such cases, the CAS/BPO would be 'secondary' rather than' primary' categorization.
The guide above doesn't include other categories for which you might also be qualified as a ProAdvisor on a primary or secondary practice basis. For example, you might still be a General Practice—QBO ProAdvisor or Desktop (or both), an Educator, or even a Social Media Mogul. If we can multitask on a computer, we can undoubtedly multitask as a ProAdvisor; the question is simply which task (category) we multitask in the most or most often.
Payroll Certification
A 'Payroll Specialist' typically holds current QuickBooks Online Payroll ProAdvisor Certification. This question appears on the 'Additional ProAdvisor Certifications' page (11) of the 2025 ProAdvisor Awards Application Form.
Question 59 (shown below) asks you to provide the 'most current date' for such Payroll certification.
Payroll Practice Characteristics
Whether you are working with QBO or QBD and 'payroll is your thing,' there are questions that measure just how much of your 'payroll thing' you do. If you support QBO Products, some of these questions are found on page 12 of the application.
For example, Question 63 is a QBO question about product type percentages. It matters very little if you are using QBO or QBO-Advanced in this question; all you use them for is access to QBO Payroll and payroll-related functionality. So, if your emphasis is on 'payroll,' you want to emphasize that in this question by maximizing your QuickBooks Online Payroll (any platform) selection, as shown in the illustration below.
In the case above, I've selected 100% to represent Payroll, 75% to represent QBO, and 25% to represent QBO-Advanced. Your percentages may differ, but remember that your emphasis based on the previous illustrations is on 'payroll.'
By the way, you have essentially the same opportunity within our QuickBooks Desktop Category questions. So, if you support Desktop and Desktop payroll, you would also want to reflect your product emphasis relative to Payroll.
Question 64 allows you to provide the Number of Clients for various QBO and QBO-related products, including QuickBooks Online Payroll. Make sure to accurately mark the number of clients you provide payroll services to or assist them with Payroll or human resources.
In contrast to Question 63, which asks about the percentage of product use by product, Question 65 asks you to outline the percentage of work you do by product. In other words, you rank the products collectively for the service(s) you perform. Again, we expect you will have primarily a Payroll emphasis reflected by 'QBO Payroll Support.' You might select 100% for that work as the only work performed, but if you perform another task, then weight them accordingly; make sure Payroll is your most significant percentage if it is your primary focus.
QuickBooks Client Accounting Services Practice
Depending on how you categorized yourself based on what I discussed earlier in this article, you could find yourself looking at Page 17 of the application form covering Client Accounting Services. Question 83 lets you tell us the percentage of clients for whom you perform various CAAS and Business Process Outsourcing. Don't miss this opportunity to maximize your Payroll (and HR) points; there is a slider for both services (as shown in the illustration below).
Chances are, if you specialize in outsourced Payroll or HR services, you will select human capital analysis, forecasting, and consulting as your answer to Question 84.
Niche Practice ProAdvisor
Page 18 is also essential for Payroll Specialists. Question 86 asks you to define what percentage of your overall practice is devoted to your niche (including a primary Payroll/HR focus). These are broad ranges (25% increments) of practice; answer as liberally as appropriate for your work.
Question 87 gives you areas of the most common Niche Practices, but you won't find Payroll listed here. Instead, you should choose the option from the drop-down menu, "Define your Niche specifically in 35 characters or less." Then type in Payroll or Payroll/HR as your niche.
Payroll/Human Relations Practice
We have finally reached Page 19, which is specific to Payroll or Payroll/HR Specialists. The first question of importance for a practicing Specialist is Question 89 (shown below), which asks you to provide the relative percentage of your practice between Payroll and Human Relations. You will select 10% relative ranges for each area, such as 100% Payroll / 0% HR, 50% Payroll / 50% HR, or 0% Payroll / 100% HR, and all the combinations between.
Be aware that this question turns on other payroll or human relations questions.
While you can only select one option as your final choice, I suggest you don't just jump to one answer. You might switch up the percentages to see the differences the answers make to the questions that turn on. If you only perform Payroll-related services, you should have a higher payroll percentage than HR, and the opposite would likely be true if more of your services are geared toward human relations.
Questions 90 and 91 provide lists of payroll and human resource tasks you may perform. For these questions, either or both, depending on how you answer Question 89, you will rank the various tasks 1 to 8, with 1 representing your most time/effort consuming task and 8 your least time/effort consuming task.
Wrap-up for this week.
Next week's Tuesday ProAdvisor tip will focus on 'Tax' specialization and whether you have a 'tax niche,' a tax CAS/BPO practice, or both.
Suppose this article has helped prepare you to start your 2025 application for the ProAdvisor Awards; then you can apply for the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE.
On the other hand, if this article has convinced you that you should nominate a fellow ProAdvisor specializing in Payroll, you can nominate them for the U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE.
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