Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast

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  • (00:00) - Welcome to The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast
  • (02:31) - Deep Dive into Intuit Accountant Suite
  • (07:57) - Home Screen and Client Management
  • (18:15) - Client Insights and Custom Views
  • (24:41) - Books Close Feature
  • (33:58) - ProAdvisor Academy Enhancements
  • (38:43) - Wrapping Up and Upcoming Classes

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Creators and Guests

Host
Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT
Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT is the CEO at Royalwise Solutions, Inc.. As a Top 50 Women in Accounting, Top 10 ProAdvisor, and member of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network, Alicia is a popular speaker at QuickBooks Connect and Scaling New Heights. She has a Master of Arts in Teaching, with several QuickBooks books on Amazon. Her Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) at learn.royalwise.com is a NASBA CPE-approved QBO and Apple training portal for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and business owners.
Guest
Dan DeLong
I help people learn how to use QuickBooks the way they want to learn it

What is Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast?

Stay up-to-date on the latest QuickBooks news, tips, and updates with Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT. Alicia and guests break down need-to-know QuickBooks information in a fun and engaging format. Learn about new product features, accounting technology trends, integration how-tos, and best practices for getting the most out of QuickBooks all while earning NASBA-approved CPE.

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.

Alicia Katz Pollock: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, I've got with me, Dan DeLong of School of Bookkeeping and QB Power Hour. Hi, Dan, how are you?

Dan DeLong: Hey, Alicia, how are you? Happy thanksgiving.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Happy Thanksgiving. So you're listening to this sometime in December. But Dan and I are actually recording right after Thanksgiving, and, um, I had a great dinner. We had we had [00:00:30] guests come in, um, that were it was an atypical dinner. Um, we had, uh, the niece of one of my best friends growing up came and joined us for dinner. And then, um, our friend Carlton, who joins us every single year. And then another friend just called us up out of the blue and joined us also. And so it was a really special Thanksgiving with a whole lot of unexpected loved ones. How was your Thanksgiving?

Dan DeLong: That's really cool that you do that. Um, we we did [00:01:00] something very similar in the past where we had moved away from home, and so we really didn't have family in the area. So we just kind of offered our home as, uh, as kind of a similar type of thing where it's like, if you didn't have a home to call home, you can come to our home. Yeah.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Jamie and I call our family the House of love, and part of our wedding vows was to always have a house of love. And I'm glad that that extends out to other people beyond our family. And [00:01:30] also that it wasn't an empty promise that we. To me, it was. It was evidence that we really have created that environment for our kids and our friends.

Dan DeLong: And we had a great, great time with family. Uh, here we are not moved. We flew, uh, to, uh, to Pennsylvania. And, uh, that's where both my wife and myself are from. And, uh, got to spend it with, uh, with with close family here.

Alicia Katz Pollock: That's awesome. All right, so Let's give thanks [00:02:00] for some new developments from Intuit, shall we? Uh, so, uh, as you know, constant listeners have already know, I have pages and pages and pages of content, um, about new developments that Intuit has come out with that I gathered at Intuit Connect, and I spent most of the conference not in breakout sessions, but down in the exhibit hall talking to everybody about all the things coming out. And so we actually have several episodes worth of content. [00:02:30] But what Dan and I wanted to focus on first was Intuit Accountant Suite. That's the replacement for Qbo. And for a lot of us, uh, our new interfaces have already started shifting over. Or you can go up to the gear and try out the new interface. And we've talked a little bit about it in some of the episodes, but we wanted to go into a deep dive of everything that the developers have in store for us.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, and it's really cool. I mean, from my [00:03:00] perspective, where I was one of the first four Intuit agents to support QBO, um, to see its evolution from, you know, 2013, when it first started as just a client list dashboard to what it's actually evolving into, is is pretty a surreal thing. Um, you know, to to see all these iterations, uh, of, of qbo now into it. Accountant suite, I have to I think that that's part [00:03:30] of the thing now is the naming convention is, uh, you know, not getting it confused with Intuit Enterprise Suite, but now Intuit Accountant Suite.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Especially since one is IaaS and one is IIs. And depending what region of the country you're from, we might not be able to tell what you're actually talking about.

Dan DeLong: Right?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Um, so so yes, this is the next evolution of Qbo where they're actually turning it into more of a client [00:04:00] management portal that it's. Like you said, it's been a list of clients, and we could make new subscriptions for clients and we could invoice our clients, but we weren't able to actually do a whole lot of bookkeeping and cash management. And we've all been turning to different solutions. Whether you're at the firm level and you're looking at Canopy and Carbon and Jetpack Aero workflow, or you're at the bookkeeping and production level where you're looking at Zenit and Keeper and financial [00:04:30] sense into it, realized that they were leaving money on the table, and so they decided to add some of those management tools into their multifunction printer so that if you know, if you've got a big firm and a lot of employees and you're already up and running, the new things that we're going to talk about probably won't have you drop everything and change over, at least not for a few years, but for people who are starting out or for small firms and small teams. Having these features built [00:05:00] in and directly integrated with QuickBooks is actually a really good idea.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. Um, I don't have like a bookkeeping practice firm that where I mostly do projects, you know, for, for clients. So, you know, a lot of these things that, that we're going to be unpacking, um, as far as that, that fall into like the practice management, uh, needs of, of an accounting practice, I think in general, you know, Intuit kind [00:05:30] of takes the shallow end of the pool for a lot of things. But what do you, uh. I wanted to ask you, Alicia. What what have you. I mean, you you use other practice management tools for for your for your firm.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I kind of use a hybrid, mostly because I want to keep my hands in on how, uh, how, um, qbo works. And so I actually try and put into practice some of the tools that are already in there, but I do use keeper for my task lists and my [00:06:00] SOPs so that I can have other bookkeepers and have have my team do the work. And it's not all just me. And, um, but I don't have a full on practice with, um, multiple team members and lots of different kinds of clients. And so it was interesting to me to see how Intuit is intending to bring that level of management in here.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, and I think that's part of the kind of like the feedback that I've heard when I worked at, [00:06:30] at, at Intuit was like a lot of these features that were in Qbo before, like, if you don't do taxes, the books to tax feature is, you know, there's no value. Right, right. Um, but there is. So it's so wide of all of the things that you could do, you know, they have to at least touch, you know, something?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, exactly. So let's go through and, um, relay all the conversations that I had with different developers, and I'm even going to get to tell you, like, who [00:07:00] said what to. So. All right. So the first person that I talked to basically at Intuit Connect in the center of the room is the Intuit, what I call the Innovation Circle. And when I'm in a good mood or the pit when I'm not and I there were full on like 20 different stations that you go around to the different stations and you get to talk to the developer or the project manager directly responsible for that component, or what they call now an app. And [00:07:30] there was a whole section just for Intuit Accountant Suite. They had its own zone. And so there were three stations there. One was an intro to IAS, one was about their books, clothes, and one was about their client insights. So the first person that I spoke to kicked off the whole thing for me was Spencer Johnson, who's the group project manager for the accounting team. And so he was the one who broke the news to me that QBO was getting replaced. And so it all starts [00:08:00] with a home screen. It's kind of it's essentially the dashboard, but it says home instead of dashboard in the left navigation strip. And when you're in the home, you're going to what you're going to see. There is going to be based on what level of access you have and your particular client list, and if you have firm access. So it can't be the same for everybody because it's specific to your work load, which if you are managing a team, let's actually couch Dan, let's couch this whole conversation [00:08:30] as if you were a cast firm as opposed to an individual bookkeeper. And then that way the bookkeepers can figure out what's going to be valuable to them, and the people know what their options are.

Dan DeLong: Sure.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So because it's not going to be the same home it's going to be, it's going to depend on your role in the firm. So you're going to it's going to focus on the clients that you have access to, and the home screen is going to have a section to show you if any of the clients [00:09:00] are having issues with their integrations and any of their apps. So if there's a disconnection, it'll it'll let you know if their bank accounts get disconnected. You'll be able to tell. You'll get news with product updates. You'll see advertisements for product recommendations, which they say they're letting you know about features that you aren't utilizing. But, you know, we know what that's been for. And there's a ProAdvisor team certification bar graph. So you're going to be able to keep track of your teams certifications [00:09:30] and then fully customizable, um, items that you can pin.

Dan DeLong: One of the things they mentioned in the, in the, in the announcement that, uh, that I thought was unique when you're talking about the product recommendations, um, piece of that is that when you initially set up, uh, the IAS, uh, you mark the services that you offer. And in theory, uh, we have yet to see what the reality [00:10:00] is. But in theory, they would not Intuit wouldn't advertise those services against your your clients. At least that's what I that's what I gathered from, uh, from from the announcement, which I thought was that, you know, the proof is in the pudding. You know, when the rubber hits the road, we'll see. Uh, you know, how what the reality of that is. But that seems to be, you know, where where a lot of, you know, outside CAS practices, bookkeepers, [00:10:30] um, you know, have a little butt heads with, uh, with Intuit where they kind of market ancillary services inside of their own client. So, um, I hope that that is true. Yeah.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I hope I hope so true. I mean, all of that came over from the Credit Karma model. I'm digressing. I mean, Credit Karma was a free, um, is a free website where you can keep track [00:11:00] of all of your spending in credit cards and loans and all of that for your personal finances. But the way that the reason why it's free is because they add ads everywhere for different credit cards that you can get in different bank services that you can get. And so obviously it works because they're making credit. Karma is doing really well. So it's that same like if you don't advertise, you know, putting up the ads for services in QBO. And you know, I used to have a retail store, if [00:11:30] you can't see it, people can't buy it. If you wanted somebody to buy something, you had to put it front and center. So from a marketing standpoint, it's good business. From a U.S. standpoint, it's like, well, this is bookkeeping software, you know, what are you doing? So yeah. All right I digress off that soapbox. Let's go back. So I was in the middle. Let's see where was I. So I was talking about the home screen, the dashboard in IAS. So the next thing that he talked about is that you can see KPIs [00:12:00] for all your clients in one overview grid. So um, and I'll actually say more about that a little bit a little bit later. We've got details there making it easier to consolidate your clients if you have multiple realms, which basically means multiple QBO accounts. So if you've had to log out of one to see one group of clients and log into another to see another group of clients, they're making it easy to just move clients back and forth between them. So you do have to be the primary admin [00:12:30] on all of them. But now you can transfer one primary admin to another primary admin.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, I have some STD with realm consolidation. It's been something that you know a lot into it in general has has had it's easier said than done is really what it boils down to, you know, because all I want to do is merge things, right? And that's, um, that's that's what the end goal is. And, you know, outside looking in, it sounds very simple [00:13:00] to do. It's like all I want to do is just combine under one login or one QBO or one realm. But the way that things get to that certain point makes it much more complicated, uh, to to actually do that in practice. And, uh, they, they understand the need for that to occur. It's just the reality of getting that to happen is, uh, is a challenge.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right. Well, especially in today's climate, with mergers and acquisitions being [00:13:30] primary and private equity happening in the in the accounting space and smaller bookkeepers joining forces to turn into larger firms, this is a this was a big sticking point. And so now if you do join forces with somebody, you can rearrange your clients into into new groups. Speaking of groups, one of the things that you are also going to do is be able to create groups for of your clients, and you can make them on a lot of different dimensions. So for example, if [00:14:00] you have multiple offices, you're going to be able to take your one big client list and group it into your different locations your Los Angeles office, your Chicago office. And by that you can also assign groups by industry. You can put all your construction clients together and all of your manufacturing clients together. You could do it by, you know, services versus retail. Whatever functional grouping is going to work for you, you're going to be able to group your clients. And then once you have [00:14:30] a group, you're going to be able to assign your team members to that entire group, and then they will have access to all of the client files in that group. And then you'll choose one lead for that group. And but then that basically means that you can now assign multiple clients to one team member all at a time, and vice versa. Assign multiple team members to a group all at one time instead of doing everybody's permissions. Team [00:15:00] member by team. Member by team member.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. And looking at I mean, this is I mean, as we're going through this, you know, and what I experienced at Intuit connect and, and whatnot, um, the journey of QBO to Intuit Enterprise. Uh, I see I said it wrong. Intuit accountant suite. Um, you know, it's definitely Intuit is is making um, this is [00:15:30] growing with you essentially, you know, is really boiling down what is boiling down to and some of these, uh, things we're, we're looking at, um, you know, kind of one of the, the, the foundational things that they had to do in order to make this a reality. Right. Um, like QBO, user permissions was always a challenge. Um, for the the the your books. Right. And so just last year, you know, they finally [00:16:00] made a lot of the, the, the user permissions inside of qbo such that you could um I think what they ultimately did is that may pave the way for this groups thing to, to become to become a reality. Right. So being able to separate and segregate and allocate, uh, those different areas, um, as you grow as a, as a firm, you'll be able to this is this solution is now [00:16:30] capable for you.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Um, and the fact that when you onboard a new client, you can assign all the team members and give them the correct permissions and correct access with just a few clicks, instead of having to manage everything individually. That's a that's a huge a huge new benefit. Okay. The next area is their client insights. And I talked to Pavel, who leads the engineering team for the accounting [00:17:00] suite, and he was the guy who broke the news to me that IaaS is going to have skews basically multiple versions. And so, um, basically the timeline is we can opt into the new IaaS now and it's going to be free for the next year while they develop all the things that I'm about to tell you. And then at the end of the year, you'll be able to decide which of the things you are using and are not using, and which ones have value to you and don't have value to [00:17:30] you. And you'll be able to continue working completely for free with the feature set that you already have now. Plus, some of the things I'm about to tell you about some of the basic functionality is just still going to be free. But if you decide you want the client insights or you'll go up to the accelerate skew. Or if you want the books closed, you can add an a la carte. So basically what we're telling you about are all the features that it will have. And then you choose whether you need these things [00:18:00] or not. This is one of those cases where you are going to be able to not necessarily opt out. You're just not going to pay for the the the new features.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So so the, the the skews are going to be core and accelerate. So like I said core is everything you're used to right now. And then accelerate has the new stuff. And right now when you go into my apps basically when you log into a into an accountant suite or IAS, that doesn't flow off [00:18:30] my tongue yet. Sorry, give me another year. Um, there's two sections in the left navigation bar. There's one at the top for service delivery, which has your work menu, your client insights menu, and your books close. And then there's a little line And then down below that is your firm operations, which is the old my books. So above the line, below the line. And let's talk about the Client Insights section. So you're [00:19:00] going to be able to store a bunch of your favorite views and create these overviews that have all of your clients listed on them. And it will refresh every 24 hours, although you can refresh it on demand, and you're going to be able to choose from 30 different KPIs, um, at the outset. And then they're going to add more over time. So basically you're going to choose which overview you want to see or design your own. Then this overview basically is going to list all your clients and [00:19:30] the KPIs that you want to look at. So you've got this big dashboard of how everybody's doing. And the accounting agent that little the little sparkle is integrated. And so if there's anything unusual or big changes you'll see the AI sparkle to call your attention to one particular KPI on one particular client that you have to watch out for.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, I think this is, um, and this is kind of where they're where they're headed here. Is [00:20:00] that, uh, instead of having to go into each of your clients and find out those anomalies, you'll have a dashboard inside of, you know, one, one, hopefully a one stop shop to see all of these anomalies. Okay. This client has a has something to look into. This client has a disconnected account. This client has an app that needs to be reconnected or is having problems. So basically my, um, fires that I need to put out today. What am I going to [00:20:30] need to do today with these with these clients, uh, is going to be all in one, you know, in one in theory, it's going to be all in one place for you so that you can kind of squash the emergencies first and then or and then maybe prioritize a deep dive if, if it is a, you know, a reporting thing.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. The way that it's going to work is they're going to have some default template, default view templates. Pnl data is going to be one set of KPIs. Balance sheet data [00:21:00] is going to be another set of KPIs. Bookkeeping data, you know, like a management portal so that you can see who's bank feeds are disconnected and who's payroll is ready to run, things like that. And then you'll be able to design your own custom views as well with your own KPIs, where you pull different things from the list for just what you want to see. And then, like I mentioned about client groups, the client groups are going to be on this dashboard as well. And so you [00:21:30] will be able to swap your client lists and see just the ones in certain areas or certain industries. And then that way you can just look at similar apples to apples clients as well. For benchmarking. You'll even be able to pull them up by which clients are all like all of your simple start, and then all of your essentials and all of your plus all at one time, too.

Dan DeLong: Did they talk about In the Pit? Um, like how they're [00:22:00] going to, you know, socialize these these changes get, you know, I'm sure they're going to have a series of webinars that, that people can, can participate in to, to really get an understanding of, you know, how these all how these changes are, are going rather than just here's the here are all the changes. Enjoy.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Well there's the in the Know workshop where there's a great place. That's the third Thursday of every month. And that's a great place to keep tabs on what's what's [00:22:30] going on. You'll see interstitials pop up during in the software. There's learn more links everywhere. And I don't know if you've been clicking those learn more links, but they actually do tell you what's happening and what the changes are if you actually go look. So for those of you who are like, don't tell us anything. Well they do, you gotta click the Learn More link and take the time to to find out.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. Like the one with the banking, uh, the new banking feed and those types of things. I mean, they, they've put a lot of resources [00:23:00] into, you know, making self-help, uh, helpful.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, they have, and the explanations are really good. I'm always impressed myself, since I'm somebody who creates content. I like the content they create. Okay, let's go on to the next feature. So the next feature is the books Close feature. And the person I talked to was Arusha Natarajan. And um, she was telling me about this this new month end close, which [00:23:30] this for me, the first time I saw it my first thought was oh keeper. I mean, I'm sorry, double. Um, and uh, so they're definitely taking a page out of that software and what this basically allows you to do is instead of going into the client's file and doing your own due diligence and poking around to do all of the, um, the file management, you can do it in your QBO, I'm sorry, in your IAS [00:24:00] without going into the client file. And then if you need to go into the client file, you can but a lot of your routine stuff you're going to be able to do right at the right at the surface level.

Dan DeLong: Do you feel like, um, if somebody is using something like a keeper double, uh, or, you know, I think, would they abandon that? Do you think and utilize some of these, uh, utilities, or do you think this is more for the people that didn't even know that [00:24:30] these things existed? And, uh, yeah.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I mean, the obvious start is the people who don't know that it existed and double does way more than this is going to do for any length of time. So if you're only using the basic features of double, then maybe this will be solved for you. But we don't know what the price is, so we don't know how it's going to compare. Right? So you kind of have to decide for a year which one you're going to use, and then after a year, decide if you're going back to the other one again, you know, so it's [00:25:00] a little awkward, but there's nothing that we can do about rolling out new features and make that any smoother.

Dan DeLong: Maybe test it out, compare it with, uh, with 1 or 2 clients and see if it if the juice is worth the squeeze.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Exactly, exactly. Okay, so, uh, the way that the books close is going to work is you assign your team members to a role. Are they the preparer? Are they the reviewer? Are they approver? And you can create custom workflows of [00:25:30] tasks and save them as templates. So and you can actually already do that. I teach that in my Qbo class where you can make projects with task lists that repeat and then use that as a client management. So they're basically building off of something that already exists that is really, really underutilized. Most people don't know it's there and don't take advantage of the tools that are already there and have already been there for years. Um, but when you onboard [00:26:00] a new client, you can pick which template to to apply. You can pick the period of the close. You can assign the different tasks in the close to different team members, and that can even be built into the template as well. You can use the new reconciliation tool right from inside Books Close. I just taught the new reconciliation tool in my reconciliation class and it's pretty slick. It's busy, but the because it gives you a huge [00:26:30] amount of information, but it definitely brings a lot to the table.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Then you get a transactions review where it you can take a look for different things. You can look for how many transactions are uncategorized. How many client requests from the banking center are open? You can manage W-9 and 1099 requests from vendors. It has anomaly detection. It has management reports. And so, you know, [00:27:00] it'll it'll be a nice, a nice, um, opportunity. I'm trying to see if I can get to oh wait, here's the task list. So here's some examples of where Dan and I are looking at a screenshot right now of what this tool is. This books closed tool is going to look like. And so at the top it has all of the different bank accounts. And it says what date it was reconciled through what the ending balance was, what the statement date range is, which staff member was [00:27:30] accountable for it, and whether it's in progress or done. And then below that there's a transaction review and it gives account of uncategorized transactions, transactions without payees transactions posted to parent accounts, expenses and bills without attachments. Transactions greater than this one says $10,000, but you can set your own threshold. So $2,500 for small businesses transactions auto added by bank rules. [00:28:00]

Dan DeLong: That's huge.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Isn't that? That's awesome. That is awesome. Transactions auto posted by AI. So you can actually. And so each one of these has a little carrot so that you can flip it open. And you can see the ten transactions or the 12 transactions. And you can actually edit the transactions right from here.

Dan DeLong: So I think that one, the one with the, the without the payees, um, as long as there is a batch action type of thing that you can do or multiple [00:28:30] edits, um, that I think will, will, will make a lot of quick work, um, you know, and actually put the word quick back into QuickBooks.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. So I'm a I'm a fan of what I'm seeing on this one. I'm looking forward to that. Um and then the I had mentioned that each of these tasks in these templates can be assigned to different team members. And eventually there's going to be capacity planning [00:29:00] in here. This will definitely be in the accelerate version. Yeah for sure. But it basically is going to be able to look at all of your team members by the amount of work that you have assigned to them through the the books close so that you can see what everybody's workload is, and you can set a desired utilization rate by team member. So let's say it's, you know, 50 to 70%. You can make sure that somebody's not too high or not too low, and then change the tasks [00:29:30] and reallocate the tasks to different people. So and if somebody goes on vacation, you can reallocate their tasks. And if they go on temporary leave, you can just reassign people's work right through this capacity planning tool. Um, it also includes time budgeted versus actual and how much time they have remaining and their due dates.

Dan DeLong: I think one of the things that that caught my eye is, um, you know, when, uh, if, if you're, if you're under capacity or [00:30:00] over, I'm not sure what the perception is. If you don't have enough people to do the work that you have, uh, available. Uh, one of the, one of the options, of course, is utilizing Intuit's own quote unquote experts, uh, to to alleviate some of that. Right. And, and so you can work with the inside, the QuickBooks Live expert platform, uh, to be able to alleviate some of the [00:30:30] capacity issues that you might have, um, which may or may not be, you know, uh, up your alley if you're doing that sort of thing. But if you need, you know, if again, if you have a whole lot of fires and you don't have the capacity to put them all out, it might be, um, an option instead of, you know, well, I gotta find a, find a find a new employee to, to do this.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. It's almost like Intuit positioning themselves as a staffing agency in times of, in times of crisis [00:31:00] that, you know, Intuit's party line has always been about the expert assist being designed to be assistance to us when we need it. You know, like the, the, the, the, the QuickBooks Live paid support that $50 a month thing. Their whole idea with it is that we don't have to answer the basic questions. We can have a team member answer those questions. And the the portal does actually keep a list of [00:31:30] all of their help calls, so that you can actually see the conversations that they had with, uh, with QuickBooks support. And, you know, then you know what was talked about. If you need to make any comments or refine the process, you have that insight. So they are, you know, trying to stay conscious of that. Now, you know, I have I have mixed feelings about turning to intuit as a as temporary help or additional help, and a lot of people are going to dismiss this as advertising [00:32:00] for them. But regardless, capacity planning is something that, you know, as a as a small bookkeeper myself, I don't have capacity planning. I have a long list of tasks that I'm never going to get to.

Dan DeLong: That's what it boils down to, right? It's a lower priority.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. So for all these reasons, I'm glad to see that they're paying attention to how how that works [00:32:30] or how that's going to work. Um, another change to IAS is ProAdvisor Academy. More like enhancements, more than changes. Jacqueline Anku is the head of the ProAdvisor Academy, and she's the one who does the monthly in the nose. And so she is really conscious that the industry is changing and that the ProAdvisor program needs to also stay relevant to today's firms as we move into advisory [00:33:00] and human intelligence. And bookkeeping is being folded into CAS, which is being folded into tax practices. And so they're really conscious of the different needs that a multi bookkeeping firm needs for training. In addition to the ProAdvisor individual trainings that they have always offered. So they are integrating all of this into into an accounting suite. And there's a whole ProAdvisor widget. And if you are in a firm and you have multiple [00:33:30] team members, you're going to have its own screen where you can see all of your staff. At a glance, you can see how many of your staff are certified. You can see how much points you have in the ProAdvisor program, and how far you are from the next level, that basically you go into my apps and the team tab and then into Manage Training and you'll see all the different certs, the different recertifications, the bookkeeping certifications. You'll get [00:34:00] transcripts to see all the courses that every employee has taken, which certification modules they've passed, which self-paced trainings they've done. You'll be able to see their progress. You'll be able to assign courses to them and send them reminders, and you'll even be able to assign the training to the entire firm or on an individual basis, including setting due dates.

Dan DeLong: And again, it's, you know, it's it's it's consolidating or leveling up for a high level view [00:34:30] of a dashboard as opposed to going into each one individually and seeing and, you know, taking the time to do that individually.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right? Which was particularly challenging because everybody's ProAdvisor certifications and trainings belong in their own edition of their ProAdvisor tools. Um, and so there wasn't really any way for a firm to be able to manage that at all other than self-reporting. Yeah. [00:35:00] So another edition is, uh, the Client Advisory Service Foundation Badger Cass Foundation badge. So this is brand new. It's available right now. And you can get a badge for becoming a Cass specialist. There's five different programs. These programs, some of these were already there. So the bookkeeping certification that's been there and the QBO level one certification is part of this foundation's badge. But there's a new course, there's AI [00:35:30] for accounting. It's a three hour course, one CPE for understanding AI in general, and two CPE for using into its AI agents, and this is available right now. There's a communicating to build trust module. So communication training and then analyzing and interpreting financial reports. Another to CPE. And so that's really good solid training communications AI and interpreting [00:36:00] reports.

Dan DeLong: Things that you don't you know, get taught on at uh accounting school. Right. Um hum.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right. Um there and there is no test out option, unlike the certification test where you can try and take the test without doing the trainings. These you actually have to go do the trainings to earn them. Um, another addition in the resource hub. If you haven't been to, um, your your ProAdvisor benefits for a while, you should go take a look [00:36:30] in the benefits in the resources. There's new marketing collateral with PDFs that you can give your clients. There's templates. There's product workflows. There's presentation scripts. So if you're giving trainings to your clients, you've got some tools that you can use. And they are going to update the the content so that as the product evolves, the content will stay up to date. The ProAdvisor certification and trainings are going to be updated quarterly [00:37:00] to include new screenshots and new releases.

Dan DeLong: They realize that it's hard to keep up with their own changes.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, and it's hard. And it's hard enough for us content creators. But but they have their own the same problem internally as well. Okay. So I think that about wraps up everything in my notes from Intuit Accountant Suite. Um, Dan, any last words?

Dan DeLong: Yeah, I [00:37:30] think the I think the the key takeaway is, is that this is leveling up from individual details of having to go into each of your clients, or having to go into each of your staff members, or having to go into, you know, all in one place for you as a as a firm owner, to be able to manage not just your firm, your clients as well. So to have those dashboards in one place, [00:38:00] uh, is, is going to allow you as a, as a firm owner, to be able to do these things a little bit more succinctly and make your game plan and plan accordingly.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, there's so many time saving features just by rearranging it and giving us these high level dashboards. So thank you. Intuit some some really good stuff here. All right, Dan, what's going on in your world?

Dan DeLong: Well, uh, you and I are wrapping up a cohort on, uh, passive [00:38:30] aggressive income for accountants. Looking forward to our last week, next week. Um, and, uh, and one of the things that that, uh, came out of Intuit Connect was, uh, I ran into an individual, uh, who is building or has built a, a, um, an advisory tool, uh, for, uh, for accountants. And we're going to be talking about that on our next cube Power Hour. He's going [00:39:00] to be coming on to that. But, um, what he's done there is, is is so different than what I've seen out there. I mean, walking into Intuit Connect, and they had that sign that says, you know, something to the effect of, you know, you can't imagine what you're what what we're what they're doing. Um, I didn't even think of this, uh, this as a solution. And he's, um, I'm really looking forward to seeing what next year brings, uh, for for him and [00:39:30] his, uh, his tool. Um, it it I'm trying not to be, um, distracted by that shiny ball and, like, go full force into into that because, you know, we've got other things that we want to do, too. But it's really tempting for me to, to really, like, double down on what it is that he's, uh, and trying to help help him spread and socialize the what, what he's, he's able to do.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Uh, do we get to know who this is?

Dan DeLong: Yeah, [00:40:00] it's called AI Growth Advisor, and he's able to, um, apply business strategies from books into, um, into books, uh, into QuickBooks. Um, and you're able to, to, to come up with strategies that way.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Um, if we miss the event, is there going to be a recording?

Dan DeLong: Absolutely. Yeah. We'll have a we'll have the recording as well as the podcast as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Let's make sure we get the link in the show notes for sure.

Dan DeLong: Absolutely. Okay. How about you? [00:40:30] What's going on in your world?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, since we're coming down to the end of the year, I'm already beginning to prep my first two classes for January. I'm going to start with the 1099 Wizard the first week in January, and then follow up with my one of my favorite classes to teach my, uh, how to clean up your Books for taxes class, which is basically when I do an end of year file review. What are the ten things that I go look for to make sure that the data is accurate so that I can sign off for it as reviewed [00:41:00] and handed over to the tax preparer. Um, so I will have links to both of those two classes in the show notes.

Dan DeLong: Always busy you are.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Oh.

Dan DeLong: Is it?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. I even worked on Thanksgiving. I'm so busy. Okay. All right. So, uh, thank you, everybody, and we will see.

Dan DeLong: You in the next.

Alicia Katz Pollock: One.