You can apply for the 2025 U.S. ProAdvisor Awards HERE or nominate a U.S. ProAdvisor HERE.
This article is one in a series of 'help guides' for 2025 ProAdvisor Award applicants. This article deals exclusively with requirements for the U.S. ProAdvisor Awards Only.
You could listen to maritime radio for years and never hear a distress signal, but you might miss such a signal if you don't know 'Morse code.' The international distress signal of three dots, three dashes, and three dots represents the call for help... 'SOS,' which some experts believe was the abbreviation for "save our ship," but most agree that it meant "save our souls."
Whenever I attend a ProAdvisor event, I hear a different kind of 'SOS' being sent out to me. Hundreds of ProAdvisors ask me, "How do I make the Top 100?" or "How can I earn one of those categorical awards?" They are seemingly sending out an SOS for help unlocking the code behind the award process.
While every ProAdvisor is unique in their practice, background, education, and how they provide services as a ProAdvisor, they share common characteristics. Making the Top 100 list and earning one of the ProAdvisor awards can boil down to a few tenths of a point, so understanding your potential is a significant factor in becoming a list maker or award recipient.
As I've previously mentioned, the U.S. Awards are not 'one long list' of the top-scoring ProAdvisors. Instead, the list comprises the highest-ranking applicants within Insightful Accountant's recognized categories and sub-categories.
Early in the awards' history, every applicant was screened against every categorical question; however, as the screening became more intense to handle an ever-growing number of applicants, changes in the process needed to be made. Over the past few years, Insightful Accountant has asked 'key questions' to hem ProAdvisors into the most applicable categories; however, this wasn't always to the advantage of every ProAdvisor. The problem was that some ProAdvisors didn't always see themselves in specific categories, and their answers to those questions reflected that.
To some extent, you might consider those questions 'a code' to categorization. For example, if you skipped questions (or parts of questions) related to 'training' or 'writing,' there was no way you would open up the specific questions related to the ProAdvisor Trainer/Writer category. That meant you couldn't report hours of instruction, speaking, and content pages developed.
The same held true for many of our award categories; multiple questions were used to turn on each category's specific page of questions. But now, Insightful Accountant has 'cracked that code' wide open for your benefit, and I'm about to tell you 'the new code' we are using.
The new key to categorization is found at the bottom of page 7, in question 44 (as shown below). We specifically ask you to identify 'your' ProAdvisor Practice based on a series of categories (that is, in fact, our 2025 Award Categories or sub-categories).
You can select multiple categories, and for each category, you select "Primarily my practice," "A secondary practice priority," or "Not part of my practice." We let you decide the categories that you best fit into. If you select "Primarily my practice" or "A secondary practice priority, " you will generally turn on the related categorical pages and questions. If you select "Not part of my practice," you generally will turn off the related pages and questions; however, if you answer other key-question page prompts, you could turn the page back on.
CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE OR APPLY FOR THE U.S. PROADVISOR AWARDS
Assume you primarily work with Desktop clients, including larger Enterprise clients. You should select "primarily my practice" for both categories (General Practioner – QuickBooks Desktop and Large Business Specialist – QuickBooks Enterprise). But if you also support Desktop Payroll, select "A secondary practice priority" for Payroll Specialist – QB Payroll Products.
Select at least General Practice QBO and General Practice QBD if your QuickBooks practice supports Online and Desktop products.
If your QuickBooks practice is primarily QBO, Online Payroll, and third-party apps for QBO, then select QBO General Practice as your 'Primary' and Payroll and QBO Appology as your 'Secondary.'
If you use QuickBooks Online and support QBO Advanced to integrate various' construction apps,' 'legal apps,' or 'inventory apps'… then you want to be sure to turn on the QBO General Practice category, the QBO Mid-market (Advanced) category, and the Niche Practice (highly specialized practice) category.
And suppose any of the above combinations apply to you or similar multi-category groupings, then don't forget… if you speak, teach, or write about QuickBooks, the ProAdvisor profession, or the accounting/bookkeeping/consulting industry, be sure to also select QuickBooks Educator/Trainer/Writer as a "secondary priority." That way, you can report the hours of instruction, content pages produced, or speaking/presenting hours delivered.
Remember, as little as one-tenth of a point can make the difference between making the list or earning recognition as a categorical award recipient and even ProAdvisor of the Year. Murph
So you might wonder what happens if you turn on a page and realize after you read the questions they don't apply to you. For the first time this year, you can 'turn off' those questions (as shown below).
The example above shows the QuickBooks Payroll and HR questions. Note the red "If you DO NOT have a QuickBooks ProAdvisor Payroll or HR Practice, you may opt out of the following questions by moving the toggle to the right."
Don't jump to conclusions on any categorical page that opens in your application… I suggest you read the questions before turning it off because you can't turn it back on once you turn it off.
So, now you have a key to crack the code and potentially score your way onto the list or to the top of an award category.
Don't count yourself short; use every category that applies to your ProAdvisor practice to 'score more points.'
CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE OR APPLY FOR THE U.S. PROADVISOR AWARDS
QuickBooks® and QuickBooks ProAdvisor® are registered trademarks of Intuit, Inc. of Mountain View, California, used with permission.
Thanks to our 2025 ProAdvisor Awards sponsors who make these awards possible.
