When we publish our Top 100 list this Friday, some of you may notice this year that the list will appear different, especially if you are ‘no longer on it’, or you are ‘new to it.’ You will probably wonder “why” in either case.
Distinguished ProAdvisor Award
There may be very specific reasons in your case related to your own ‘point status’ generated from certifications and other factors. For example, you might not have earned the most recent certifications at the time you completed your application… “oops, there went those points…”
But one of the biggest reasons are changes we made internally in how the Top 100 is computed. We told you prior to the start of our process that we were changing our criteria so that QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online ‘stood on their own merits’ without any cross-certification.
This meant that a QBO ProAdvisor who did not have any QuickBooks certification or experience had just as much chance as QuickBooks Desktop applicant since desktop-related factors were not considered in the rankings for the QuickBooks Online category. But that doesn’t mean that ProAdvisors with primarily a QBO Practice (50% or greater as advised in their application form) even if they had certifications and/or a history of QuickBooks Desktop.
The result is that a larger number of QBO ProAdvisors met this year’s overall standing than in years past, in fact this year’s list is dominated by QuickBooks Online ProAdvisors in contrast to past years. This happens because some subcategories did not have sufficiently qualified desktop applicants in those categories, while having an overwhelming number of applicants from the total number of QBO applicants. So, the total ‘categorical’ rankings were also dominated by QBO applicants in a majority of categories.
Another factor influenced this year's list for the first time ever. A full complement of 'International' participants. In past years there has never been a full complement of qualified applicants to fill the allocated international category positions, as a result those 'empty' positions were shifted on an equal basis to the Desktop and QBO categories, which meant additional qualified individuals were the recipients of those positions. But this year the entire complement of international positions were filled, so 'sorry folks' no extra positions for Desktop or QBO. The plus side, our list reflects the growing number of ProAdvisors in the world, that's why we are also recognizing two International 'Categorical winners' this year for the first time ever, one for 'The Americas (excluding the USA)', and one for essentially everywhere else.
If all of this sounds ‘math intensive,’ I must say you are correct. A lot of time goes into the process we use of ‘digitizing’ each application and computing the scores of every applicant based upon the data provided along with the confirmatory data we obtain. Each applicants’ standing in each category for which they qualify ultimately determines if they fit into the Top 100, and if they become the ‘Categorical’ winner, or ‘ProAdvisor of the Year.’
Despite the changes, the ‘math’ has proven to once again be true to form, we have a Top 100, and a set of Categorical winners and a ProAdvisor of the Year for 2019. You can tune back in tomorrow (Friday May 17, 2019) for the list of our Top 100, but you will have to wait for the big reveal at Scaling New Heights next month for our Categorical winners and 2019 ProAdvisor of the Year.