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.
Ever since Intuit created ProConnect Tax they have blurred the lines between QuickBooks ProAdvisor and Tax Advisory Services. This is supported by the harmony between ProConnect, and QuickBooks Online Accountant as well as the synchronicity Intuit's Tax Advisor platform which is now included with 2024 ProConnect Tax.
Intuit has also incorporated up to ten (10) hours of tax training covering ProConnect Tax and Tax Advisor into the QuickBooks ProAdvisor training hub as supplemental (CPE eligible) education for which no certification or badge is currently available but I anticipate at least a 'badge' within the next year.
As a result of the tax emphasis Intuit has made available to the ProAdvisor community, Insightful Accountant established a Tax 'sub-category' that can contribute to either the Niche ProAdvisor Award or the ProAdvisor Client Accounting & Advisory Service (CAAS) Award.
Similarly, we created a 'Payroll' sub-category for the growing number of ProAdvisors providing Payroll and Human Resources which was the subject of last week's Top 100 Tuesday feature.
This article focuses exclusively on 'ProAdvisors with a Tax Emphasis.'
Tax Specialization
If you specialize or have a significant emphasis in 'tax', the first step in the Top 100 Application Process (US applicants only) is ensuring access to the maximum scoring factors impacting your ranking for categories impacted by the 'Tax sub-category.' The application question about the categorization of your ProAdvisor Practice on Page 7 of the U.S. Awards Application form is the key to heading down the right application pathways.
Categorizing Your ProAdvisor Practice for Tax Specialization
Tax is currently a sub-category of the awards, not an award category. Your Tax specialization contributes to scores for the 'Niche' and CAS/BPO ProAdvisor Award categories. You could have a tax specialization for both your niche and as part of a firm providing CAS/BPO services.
Insightful Accountant, for purposes of the ProAdvisor Awards, considers a 'niche' to be:
- Employment, status, or activity for which a person is best fitted;
- A specialized market
Typically, one or both of these definitions will fit you if your practice emphasizes or specializes in tax. If that's the case we want to ensure you can claim your tax specialization in the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Award Application process.
Let's start by looking at Question 44 of the application form, which asks you to Categorize your ProAdvisor Practice. If you look carefully you will notice that these are the same categories we measure for the awards.
Suppose your firm prepares tax returns and handles related tax matters for about 300 clients per year, and you are responsible for working with 100 of those clients. You may, or may not, provide other services like basic accounting or financial advisory. But if you are doing the taxes for one-third of the clients you certainly have at least a 'secondary' Niche priority and a 'secondary' Tax specialization.
In this case, you should most likely mark the checkboxes in Question 44 using the checkboxes indicated by the 'red arrows' (in the illustration below).
Suppose you are the only firm member who does Tax for 300 clients but still have other related duties to perform. In that case, you still have a 'secondary' Niche priority, but Tax is your 'primary' specialization. You should use the 'yellow arrows' (in the above illustration) as your guide when marking Question 44.
But there might yet be another scenario, one in which you provide all the Tax work and/or lead Tax services for your firm, which is essentially 100% of your duties. In such a case, you have a 'primary' Niche categorization and a 'primary' Tax 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 may 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 Tax as part of its 'Client Accounting and Advisory Services' providing bookkeeping, accounting reviews, financial advisory services, business consulting, and tax. In such a case, you 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 Tax 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). You might work primarily with larger clients using either QBO-Advanced or QBD-Enterprise (or both). Most ProAdvisors multitask in many of our Award categories, the question is simply which tasks (categories) you multitask in the most or most often.
Intuit 'ProAdvisor' Tax Training
As mentioned earlier, Intuit inserted Tax Training on both ProConnect Tax and Intuit Tax Advisor products into the ProAdvisor Training library. The purpose of this paragraph is to ensure that you are aware of this training, make use of it if you specialize in tax, and that you are clear on where your completion of this training is recorded in the formal application form.
The illustration above confirms that this training is available in the Tax Section of the Training Library located within QuickBooks Online Accountant. Please note that only one of these two offerings is a CPE-eligible training. ProConnect Tax requires 5.5 hours (earning 5.5 CPEs); however, Intuit Tax Advisor, even though it requires 4.5 hours (doesn't offer CPEs). What does that tell you? You must track both CPEs and Hours, for training not offering CPEs.
So, you are asking where you should record this training in your 2025 ProAdvisor Awards Application if you completed it during 2024. The answer is Page 10 ProAdvisor Training Opportunities Question 57 (shown below) asks you to provide the 'finish date' for various training courses including both the ProConnect Tax (highlighted in the green box) and Intuit Tax Advisor (highlighted in the yellow box) courses.
The listings combine both modules into a single course; however, you are not required to have completed both modules to claim CPEs or Hours. You should report the actual number of CPEs for the ProConnect Tax modules you completed (either one or both), and the actual number of hours for the Intuit Tax Advisor modules you completed (either or both). But you can NOT claim CPEs or hours for incomplete modules if you stop the training to completion.
Tax Practice Characteristics
If you specialize in tax, it doesn't matter whether you are working with QBO or QBD. Intuit offers a variety of tax products ranging from Turbo Tax to ProConnect Tax. If you support QBO Products, some of these questions are found on Page 12 of the application provides measures of your 'tax' practice.
Question 64 (shown below) allows you to provide the Number of Clients for various QBO and QBO-related products, including the various Intuit Tax products. Make sure to accurately mark the number of clients you provide tax services to for each of the products you use.
Desktop ProAdvisors who select Desktop as a primary or secondary category in Question 44 will find similar questions to that illustrated above on Page 14 QuickBooks Desktop ProAdvisors. Question 70 asks the percentage of practice by Intuit products, including the tax products.
Question 71 is essentially identical to Question 64 (shown above) but in the context of working with Desktop rather than QBO.
Intuit QuickBooks Tax Practioner
Depending on how you categorized yourself based on what I discussed earlier in this article, you could find yourself looking at Page 16 of the application form, Intuit QuickBooks Tax Practioner. This is the real 'meat and potatoes' when it comes to tax practitioners. Question 77 (shown below) is key to this page, it allows you to select four major categories of tax training opportunities you participated in during 2024.
Be aware, that each checkbox you mark turns on additional questions related to Intuit tax training, NATP tax training, IRS tax training, and other Federal or State tax events. If you participate in lots of tax training, like most tax practitioners, you can earn hundreds of points from this single page of training opportunities. Make certain to complete each question with the specific information outlined in the question instructions.
QuickBooks CAAS/BPO "Tax" 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 associated with Tax Compliance and Tax Planning. You also don't want to miss the opportunity to include any Sales/Use Tax related services you provide. There are sliders for each of these three 'tax' services (as shown in the illustration below).
If you specialize in Tax as part of a CAAS/BPO practice, you will want to emphasize "Tax Analysis and Planning" as your answer to Question 84.
Niche Practice ProAdvisor
Page 18 is also essential for Tax practitioners. Question 86 asks you to define what percentage of your overall practice is devoted to your niche (including a primary "Tax" specialization). 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 "Tax" in the drop-down list. You need to choose the drop-down option, "Define your Niche specifically in 35 characters or less." Then type in "Tax practitioner" as your niche.
That pretty well wraps up my 'pointers' on completing your 2025 ProAdvisor Awards Application if "Tax is Your Thing." Of course, there are other tax questions you will see; for example, the tax apps you use in the Ecosystem Section of the application. Just keep an eye out for the word "Tax" and you should be OK in terms of maximizing your scores.
Let's 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 need to nominate a fellow ProAdvisor specializing in "Tax", you can nominate them for the U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE.
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