Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast

Alicia and Hector cover the latest QuickBooks news, including details on QuickBooks Connect 2023, the end of the Business Planner in Desktop, and a new Assisted Bookkeeping offering.


  • (00:00) - Welcome To The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast
  • (04:22) - QuickBooks Connect News
  • (05:51) - QuickBooks Virtual Conference
  • (08:18) - Payroll News - Per Hour Worked
  • (09:40) - Desktop News - Business Planner
  • (11:30) - Assisted Bookkeeping Beta Test
  • (36:56) - Upcoming Events

Send your Questions/Comments (we could read/answer them on air) ask@uqapodcast.com

Links/Apps Mentioned in this episode:

This podcast is independently operated and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Intuit Inc. or QuickBooks®. Any references to Intuit and QuickBooks products are made solely for the purpose of discussing the topics related to the company and its software. 

Creators & 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.
Host
Hector Garcia, CPA
Hector Garcia,CPA is the Principal Accountant Quick Bookkeeping & Accounting LLC, a globally-serving Technology-Accounting firm based in Miami, FL (USA), specializing in QuickBooks Consulting, but also providing traditional accounting services such as: Bookkeeping, Payroll Processing, Tax Return Preparation, and General Business Advisory. He has over 10 years of experience working with small business finance and accounting, along with 3 Post-graduate degrees from Florida International University (FIU) in Accounting, Finance and Taxation.

What is Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast?

Stay up-to-date on the latest QuickBooks news, tips, and updates with Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors Hector Garcia, CPA and Alicia Katz Pollock, MAT. Hector and Alicia 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.

Warning: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding!

Hector: Welcome to the Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants podcast. I am joined by my good friend Alicia Cat Pollock, the original the one and only Rockstar CEO and founder of Royal White Solutions.

Alicia: And I have the privilege of collaborating with Hector Garcia, CPA, the founder of Right Tool for QuickBooks.

Hector: In this episode of the Unofficial [00:00:30] QuickBooks Accountants podcast, we're going to talk about QuickBooks and Intuit News for the month of September, creeping up up to October of 2023. Let's start with QuickBooks Connect News. Alicia, what do you got for us? Well, I.

Alicia: Noticed that they've posted the speakers on the website and I saw a familiar face up there. I see that you're speaking.

Hector: Yes, I'm teaching a QuickBooks Online advanced reporting class, which covers some of the core reporting features. I'm going to show some tips and tricks on that, [00:01:00] but then I'm going to go deep dive into the advanced edition of the reports. And this was like a similar session that I was supposed to do last year that Alicia, you actually covered for me last year together with like three other sessions. But it was weird not to see you in the speaker list. What's going on there, Alicia?

Alicia: Well, I've been speaking every year since 2016, and last year I did four sessions. So at last year's QuickBooks Connect, I literally didn't do anything except go from session to session. [00:01:30] So if I get a year off, I'm okay about with that, You know, give somebody else a chance.

Hector: Yeah, I do. I do really wish that they bring back your brainchild or I think you were one of the people that came up with this idea to do this, like sort of advanced tips and tricks and hacks riff off. And this was very popular last year, although there were some tech issues with people switching their computers because there was like ten percenters in the room. But this is really cool. Like, can you tell us the premise of what that session was and then maybe somebody from Intuit [00:02:00] listening, listen to me, we need that session back.

Alicia: So one of my favorite things is hacks and like ways that you can gain the QuickBooks system. So I had I had suggested it as a session and then they turned it into a contest where we got two teams of three. And I was with Deborah Kilsheimer and Liz Scott, and we came up with our favorite tips and tricks and hacks. And then they they pitted us against another team and we all presented. But the tech people had no idea what to expect. And so we couldn't actually [00:02:30] demo most of our tips, which kind of defeated the purpose. But it was so much fun and we did pre-record the sessions. And so I'm hoping that we can bring it back again and maybe we just show the prerecorded demos. But you know, when when we won last year, I got a crown and Deb and and Liz got tiaras and I'm hoping they actually bring us back so that we can, you know, defend our title.

Hector: Yeah, for sure. Plus, there's always new, new little things here and there that we pick up that like I think one of the [00:03:00] valuable things about going to a conference of other accountants or other professionals is when you kind of pick up on this like different point of view that people have or different angle or different ways that they approach solving a particular issue. So I get so much more out of like maybe like a two minute tip and trick on the way somebody like a workaround to fixing a problem versus a lot of these like 100 minute sessions where somebody is talking about like practice management or whatever. So I want to see more [00:03:30] like sort of practical like who are the experts in the field doing creative things on QuickBooks? That's like really what I get out of the that's what I get the most out of the conferences.

Alicia: Yeah, I have a whole course on my website called QBO Hacks and being able to see what other people are doing. Just, you know, that's my my absolute favorite thing about using QuickBooks is finding those little, little ways that you can game the system and get creative with it.

Hector: Absolutely. So moving away from QuickBooks Connect, [00:04:00] which I hope I see everybody in November in Las Vegas, I got a $2,000 bill from from Intuit last week, and I was like, What in the world is this? Like, I don't even know. Like what? What cost a flat $2,000 into it. I was like, I don't have anything that I buy from Intuit that I that I was aware that it's $2,000. And I dug deep into it and it turns out it is my desktop ProAdvisor program. [00:04:30] So I have the QuickBooks Desktop ProAdvisor with Enterprise. So this is the version that comes with both desktop and Accounting Edition and QBO desktop enterprise. But I also have the enhanced payroll add on where I can add up to 50 companies in QuickBooks desktop payroll and I can manage their payroll sort of after the fact. And I only got like 2 or 3 customers still in that payroll. And don't ask me why I shouldn't, but I still have a couple still there, [00:05:00] so I don't want to cancel it. And that's 1300, 700. That's the $2,000. Now, one of the things that happened last year is they announced that if you stop paying for that desktop subscription for payroll, that's $700.

Hector: It was 500 then, now it's 700. You can't reenroll. So like that FOMO of not losing that that skew where I can have one desktop payroll subscription that allows up to 50. Eons to be run through it. That form [00:05:30] of basically this allows me from moving those 2 or 3 customers to payroll because every year there's always a customer that I need to like go back and do a 941 for or like I have to do a correction over 941 like with the 941 X So every year I've had to use that one in for one particular sort of resolution for payroll and there isn't a lot of really good software out there for just doing like sort of one time payroll. So that's why I need that enhanced payroll desktop subscription for 700 bucks [00:06:00] plus the 3000, that's 2000. I'm not happy, but I paid it and I'm not requesting a refund. But for 2024, I might have to think about whether that's worth it for me or not.

Alicia: Yeah, I mean, you got to look at your economies of scale on that. I actually you know, I've been in the desktop ProAdvisor program for years and years and years, but my reason for being in there was actually for the QuickBooks for Mac Edition, because we do Apple training, so we need the Mac version of it. And then it finally dawned on me that at this point, because of the cost [00:06:30] of the program, that it's actually just cheaper for me to go buy a copy of QuickBooks for Mac, since I personally don't need the enterprise level for my clients. And so I've kind of shifted away from it so quick.

Hector: Quickbooks for Mac 20, 23 and 2024. If they do come out with the 2024 version is 650 a year and the ProAdvisor program without the enterprise is seven, 99 is 800 a year. So yeah, that makes that makes total sense. At some point it was actually cheaper to do the [00:07:00] ProAdvisor program, right? Versus buying the software, which is, which is interesting. Alicia, have you heard about any virtual conferences that QuickBooks is putting together?

Alicia: Yeah. On October 11th and 12th, Intuit is having a virtual conference targeting mid-market firms. And so if you are a bookkeeper who wants to support larger companies, then this is going to be a great conference for you. Michelle Long, Bryce and Raymond and Liz Scott, four of my favorite trainers are [00:07:30] going to be speaking about value billing and how to migrate and all the different considerations that you need to think about. What are some of the tools in QuickBooks Online advanced for these larger companies? So I'm very much looking forward to it.

Hector: Now, I can tell you something, I I'm sure the conference is going to be amazing. The speakers are great. Quickbooks always puts together great virtual conferences. The education level is going to be top notch, but I have a particular complaint to make usually, which [00:08:00] is on the use of the term mid market. I believe that Intuit has not done a good job at saying this is what we think mid market is. Honestly, it's a problem across all industries where mid market is a sort of nebulous term and it's sort of meant for it to mean whatever you want it to mean. My problem with that is that the QuickBooks Online product is not designed for the mid market. That I, Hector Garcia, know [00:08:30] to understand what mid market is. So I believe that there's a sort of a misconception in some cases where Intuit says, hey, it's a mid market conference and they basically going to talk about moving people from QuickBooks desktop to QuickBooks Online advanced. And you have some clients that are sort of creeping in this real mid market world using QuickBooks desktop enterprise. And they're happy using QuickBooks desktop Enterprise and they're going to push them into QBO just because you want to push them into QBO. That's a general challenge that I [00:09:00] have. And I think part of the problem is and again, I'm not criticizing into it for wanting to move people to. My problem is just not having a well defined. A way to describe what mid-market really, truly means. That way, it's easy to communicate with all the stakeholders accountants, IT professionals. What do you think?

Alicia: Well, the Harvard Business Review defines mid-market as businesses that that earn between 10 million and 1,000,000,000in revenue in annual revenue. And that is [00:09:30] not into its target market for QuickBooks Online advanced. So I think they like they came up with a phrase that sounds good, that represents bigger than small business, but it's not necessarily probably the most accurate term that they're using in their advertising. Right?

Hector: The accurate term would be the upper echelon of the small business. That's just so many words. It's just not marketing sexy, right? Mid-market is just sexy. It's easy to say and announce. So that's the only thing I have to say about that. I'll [00:10:00] still attend the virtual conference. I'm still wondering exactly how are they going to angle and frame this. And I recommend everybody that if you are working with the upper echelon or the small business or the lowest echelon of the mid-market, that could potentially be a good candidate for QBO advanced because there's no inventory and because there's no sort of heavy job costing, this could work. But the thing is that it's really it's really small substrate of that mid-market group that could really do that. So let's move on to maybe app news. [00:10:30] Or you said you said you found something interesting in apps.com.

Alicia: Yeah, this is kind of more like a look what I found where I was on ABC.com which is the website for all of the different third party apps that plug into QBO. And I noticed that there's a new deals tab. So when you're up at the top, you can go ahead and click on deals and they've highlighted the ones that are giving Proadvisors discounts where you can get 30% off or several months for free. But their goal is to get proadvisors to try out the different apps for them, ideally for themselves, [00:11:00] so that they can get to know them and then recommend them to their clients. So I thought that was an interesting new approach.

Hector: I think that's great. And you also posted in one of your Facebook channels that you found something in payroll related to per hour worked for.

Alicia: Go ahead. So this came out earlier this year, but it didn't really make any big news. But when you're calculating your employee deductions and contributions on payroll, in the past, [00:11:30] there was no per hour worked option and they finally, finally allowed you to accrue it by hour, not just as percentage of salary or flat rate.

Hector: Could you think of a particular benefit that would be tied to per hour work? I mean, other than vacation time?

Alicia: I mean, maybe they're trying to do their retirement based on hour works.

Hector: That's interesting. I haven't seen an actual business where they've requested, hey, this particular benefit is based on per hour worked. But I could [00:12:00] I could see how that could be useful for, for some for some companies.

Alicia: I just appreciate the flexibility that that way if you do have that need, you've got that ability, you're not hamstrung by it.

Hector: Sometimes. Sometimes the hardest thing to tell a developer is I don't have a use case, but the flexibility can create the use case. It's like one of these things that if you build it, they will come type of things. I believe that a lot of businesses end up molding their business models based on the limitations of their current ERP system. [00:12:30] And because they don't have that like button that could press and and choose an alternative way, they can't even think of an alternative to how they do things. So sometimes when the when the ERP company just says, hey, I'm going to build a couple of options here, regardless of whether or not I can find a use case, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised when people start using those options for something.

Alicia: Yeah, well, I would love it if any of our listeners who are using the per hour worked option for their employee deductions and contributions, [00:13:00] Please do send us an email. There's in the show notes, there's an email, it's Hector. Can you give us the email for listener mail?

Hector: Is ask at you for an official Q for QuickBooks A for accountants podcast.com. Ask at you Q a podcast.com. Awesome.

Alicia: So I would love to get some listener feedback about how that particular option would help you. [00:13:30]

Hector: Yeah, for sure. Now, I saw an interesting post that you put in the in the in your Facebook group about the show categorization feature in QBO bank feeds. Now this show categorization feature has probably been there since the pandemic. I remember showcasing this 2 or 3 years ago, but it's limited to 12 months. And like this is something that like really irritates you. Yes. Can you tell us what your what your thinking on this is?

Alicia: Yeah. [00:14:00] So when you're in the banking feed and you click on a transaction, if you look across the bottom, there's like 3 or 4 little links down there. And as soon as you put a vendor name in the transaction, it will pop up a link that says Show categorization and it will show you all the different ways that you've categorized that vendor over the past year. But I was trying to categorize something that only happens once a year. It was an annual charge, but because it was only every 12 months and it was like 12 months and three days, [00:14:30] I actually had to go look up the vendor to go find the charge. So I it needs to be 13 months or maybe even two years. But so what I want, this is what I want. I want everybody to flood feedback. I want everybody to go right now up to the gear in the upper right hand corner and tell them that in the banking feeds the show, the show categorization feature is awesome, but it needs to be [00:15:00] 13 months. And so if all of you did that, I bet in a couple of months from now we would have that ability in the feature, right?

Hector: And what's funny is if everybody puts a feedback saying we need more time, it needs to be longer, it should be more than 12 months might not be as effective as everybody saying it needs to be 13 months because that's such a such a weird number to pick in terms of feedback. So if you have so many people saying 13 months, I think that might jump out at them more than just saying, hey, it's not long enough because [00:15:30] I would just imagine there's all sorts of feedback around bank feeds that if everybody says 13 months, I think it will basically, if the I were to if there was an AI reading feedback and they were to look for patterns, I think it would flag that as, hey, this seems to be a common thing. So yeah, yeah.

Alicia: And putting in feedback really does work. They meet every Friday to look at everything that was put in. So if we can get, you know, 50 people, a hundred people saying, please extend the length of time on show categorization in [00:16:00] the banking feed, I bet we can make that change.

Hector: To 30 months to.

Alicia: 13 months. Awesome. Okay. And Hector, is desktop still a thing?

Hector: Quickbooks Desktop is still a thing. Quickbooks Desktop 2024 will be released for Proadvisors at the end of September. And I know what the new features are because I've been beta testing, but I can't mention them yet because we haven't. We recorded this prior [00:16:30] to release but will dedicate an entire episode to QuickBooks Desktop 2024 and the new things they came up with that with the New Year edition. But I got a really interesting phone call the other day. It was just really interesting. Somebody called me from Intuit and I guess, you know, I must be in a million databases insight into it, But somebody's coming from Intuit, not knowing who I was contextually when it comes to social media or YouTube or whatever, they just I was a regular customer using QuickBooks desktop, and [00:17:00] they called me to say, Hey, by the way, the business planner feature inside QuickBooks Desktop will not be renewed in 2024. And I was like, That's an odd phone call. And I looked at my phone again. It's like, Is this Intuit calling me? Like, I don't understand why somebody would call me To say some obscure feature of QuickBooks desktop will not be renewed in 2024.

Hector: And I go, okay, tell me more. I'm interested to know what this rabbit hole takes me. And then she says, Well, when you upgrade to QuickBooks Desktop 2024, [00:17:30] you no longer will have the business planner feature. However, if you convert to QuickBooks Online, there is something similar to the business planner using an app called Life Plan, and it's a third party app. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. I'm like, Is that free? Is that included with the subscription? They said, No, no, no, you pay that extra. And I'm like, okay, all right. Is that it? Is there anything else? They're like, No, that's it. We'll send you an email following up. And then I got literally I got an email with the exact same thing [00:18:00] as the phone call with a link to converting to QBO and a link to life plan. So that was interesting. That was really interesting. Like I really imagine QuickBooks would do such a thing, but that was just very interesting. What do you think about that?

Alicia: Well, first of all, I don't I have to profess that I have never even heard of the business planner in QuickBooks Desktop. So no wonder they're deprecating it. I can say that I actually do use Liveplan myself, so I think that's great. So it makes me wonder if the link [00:18:30] in the email that they're sending you was an affiliate link and they have an agreement with Liveplan and they're just kind of priming the pump with the phone call.

Hector: It's not an affiliate link. It was it was a regular app.com landing page to to life plan. There was nothing nothing like there was nothing sexy about it, really. It was more like, I don't know if somebody set it into it in the office and they said, By the way, guys, we need to cover the business planning users in QuickBooks Desktop and this could be a great opportunity [00:19:00] to move people to QBO. I don't know, like why they would make a phone call like that. But again, if they did it for this thing, that means that they'll do it for any other thing, that they will phase out or deprecate the QuickBooks desktop.

Alicia: Well, even though I haven't even though I haven't used the business planner feature, I would imagine that if there is somebody who's using it, they're probably relying on it. And so that's kind of nice courtesy that if you're going to get rid of a feature completely and you know that you have a couple people who are dedicated to it, that they reach out. I've got some respect for that.

Hector: True. [00:19:30] True. Alicia were coming towards the end of the episode here. Do you have anything else for us?

Alicia: Oh, well, it's the end of the episode, but I can spout on this one for a while. I just heard about a new feature that they are in beta testing on. Not really a feature. It's more of a service called assisted bookkeeping, but they haven't really made any big announcements for it. But I actually originally heard about it from one of my not clients, but one of my friends [00:20:00] who started up in in QuickBooks Online, and I offered him the opportunity to for me to go take a look at his setup and make sure he's all dialed in. And he's like, Oh, I don't need you to do that. I'm like, Well, most people do. How come you don't? And he said, Well, because I'm paying 50 bucks to for somebody that I can just call up and ask questions. So like, huh, I wonder what that is? And it turns out that there's a new branch off of QuickBooks Live called Assisted Bookkeeping. So it's not like the full service bookkeeping from [00:20:30] QuickBooks Live. It's more like kind of like upgraded support where you can just call and you will talk to a bookkeeper who's on staff at Intuit so that you can ask questions and they'll answer them for you. So it's called assisted bookkeeping or do it with me where you're you know, when you call regular support, they can't help you with the bookkeeping. But if you call these people, they're not going to help you with the troubleshooting of the software. They're going to [00:21:00] help you actually with your bookkeeping questions.

Hector: You're right. You open up a can of worms with with this comment. Okay. So let's let's break this down. When you buy let's say you're an end user, not not an accountant. When you buy QBO and you pay 30, 60, 90, $200 a month, you get free tech support. Right? Right. That's one side of the spectrum. If you add live bookkeeping, there's an employee or a set of employees assigned to your account, and their job [00:21:30] is to see bank reconciliations through the end. So it is kind of assisted bookkeeping because you're still using the end users are still creating invoices. And I assume that the live bookkeeper is matching those payments to the bank and that sort of thing, like a traditional bookkeeping service. And that service, I believe, is anywhere between 200 and $800 a month in between these two into it. So an opportunity for having like higher [00:22:00] skilled people than regular tech support that understand bookkeeping a little bit better or or probably the same people as QuickBooks Live, but not actually take on the responsibility of closing the books, of doing bookkeeping, collaborated with the client. They're just sitting there waiting for a phone call for those clients that decided to pay an additional $50, regardless of whether they're in simple start or advanced. So it sounds like it's a flat fee and it's unlimited tech support with a higher tier [00:22:30] person that's more of the bookkeeping level. And they give this the name assisted bookkeeping right Now, could this be giving our customers like your friend, a false sense of security that this is the same as having a professional look at their books? Or is there anything non professional about QuickBooks doing this?

Alicia: Yeah, well, I think their goal is to answer people's questions, but they're not going in and looking at the books. So if they see other problems inside the books, they're not going to bring [00:23:00] it up. They're not going to say, Oh, by the way, I noticed that you created these extra categories in your chart of accounts, or they're not going to say, Hey, I realized that you miscategorized this transaction. All they're going to do is answer the questions. So somebody who's subscribing to this service may not know that there's problems in their books because they don't know what they don't know.

Hector: So like, I'm trying to create a distinction between what tech support like this is all speculative because neither one of us work for into it. But like if you were [00:23:30] in the QuickBooks side, how would you how would you create a distinction between one or the other? Like, like how would you draw the line? What's tech support and what's assisted bookkeeping? That's a very difficult thing, a very big challenge to have.

Alicia: Sure. I mean, in my head it actually makes sense that I think about it in that Intuit has now three different services. So when you call support, you're calling support because there's something that's not working in your software. There's a bug, there's missing information, there's something you can't figure out how to do. [00:24:00] There's a problem that you have, but regular Intuit support can't help you with your bookkeeping. Then there's QuickBooks Live, which doesn't help you with your software. They help you with your bookkeeping and they're doing a lot of the bookkeeping on the back end For you, this service is kind of like right in the middle where it's on demand and it is bookkeeping questions, but you're initiating the question. It's not a team of people who are keeping an eye on your books. It's the the user who [00:24:30] is going in and saying, Hey, how do I take a client deposit? And then they'll help you set up the structure to do a client deposit, something like that.

Hector: But if you. Okay, hang on. But if you are a regular customer and you call QuickBooks Tech support now, you don't have the $50 assisted bookkeeping and you ask, how do I do a deposit? Wouldn't they walk you through doing that?

Alicia: Anyway? They'll point you to a help article for it and they may walk you through it, but that's technically they'll, they'll tell you that that's not their job, [00:25:00] that they're not a that they're not a bookkeeper.

Hector: And do you think they're going to proactively now sell people a assisted bookkeeping? Because I know it's just a test right now and maybe they just randomly pick some people. But do you think this might be a potential revenue channel where tech support people are now trying to upsell assisted bookkeeping? What do you think?

Alicia: Well, it's definitely geared to people who don't have an accountant user associated with their file. So they're really trying to do this for the people who [00:25:30] are just, you know, the people who like log into QuickBooks on their phone and they create their account on their phone or they're creating their account just cold and trying to do it themselves. So I think it's kind of a happy medium. I mean, if this was my business, I think this service would be a no brainer. My concern is that are the people going to get served well? Because if they're instructed to just answer questions and not, you know, help with other things that they see, then I'm not sure that it's [00:26:00] in the best interest of the of the client.

Hector: Right? I mean, there's a lot of times where somebody will ask you a direct QuickBooks question and then you say, I have an answer for you, but I need you to close your eyes for 15 minutes because I'm going to go in and I'm going to clean some stuff. I'm going to move some things around, and then I'm going to create like a baseline. And then I'm going to look real quick at what went wrong and. I'm going to put it updated to date and then I'm going to answer your question. And if I answer your question with like this is all work that it takes to clean that to then answer [00:26:30] the question, you're going to lose the customer at the time you answer the question, they forgot the question that they asked in the first place. So I wonder how much of that is going to play into it, like exactly what you're saying, where the customer is just not going to be truly, truly served. And again, assisted bookkeeping, it's a big name. It's a it's a it's assisted. The word assisted is a it's a thing like it's life and death for some people. Like if a blind person is sitting on a on a crosswalk and you literally grab that person and assist them to cross, [00:27:00] you might have saved that person's life. So like assisted could be a big thing or it could not be a big thing. And I find that that it's a strange place for QuickBooks to be in, especially it's $50 the right price tag. Should that be different depending on the subscription level? Because $50 is more than what simple start is, but it's only 25% of what advance is. So do you think that price might change?

Alicia: I think it's a reasonable price for getting people hooked in it, for sure. I mean, as [00:27:30] much as people complain about the prices of QuickBooks already being too expensive, but $50 for being able to ask an unlimited number of questions is pretty darn cheap. But, you know, like you said, when people come to me and, you know, I'm $225 an hour when somebody comes to me and I look at their books and they're asking one specific question, but then I see all this other stuff that needs to be fixed or repaired. I can like you, like you do go in and just I'll [00:28:00] say to the person, okay, just trust me for a minute. I'll go in and do a bunch of stuff and then I'll say, Okay, now let me train you on how to do it right. I don't train them on how to do all the fixes, and most of my appointments work that way so the person gets way more service than what they thought they were calling about. I find all the other problems in their file. And so while I think this service definitely has value, I think it's kind of a cool approach. I think it's [00:28:30] shortsighted in that the customer gets a false sense of security, that they're doing everything right because they don't have a ProAdvisor or a regular bookkeeper looking at their file to do all the rest of the things. That's not in their purview.

Hector: So the natural progression to a customer calling in in this assistant bookkeeping service and the person that being being able to help them because of this examples that we put in. So the natural progression is for them to upgrade the $50 assisted bookkeeping to [00:29:00] then QuickBooks Live. Right, Yeah. Which means that there really isn't a natural progression to send this customers to a professional independent partner of Intuit ProAdvisor.

Alicia: Now they'll upsell their own services through it for sure.

Hector: Well, no wonder why so many accountants are apprehensive about Intuit's relationship with accountants. And like you said, this wasn't a big splash. This was like sort of like it happened and there wasn't communicated [00:29:30] properly to accountants. What this means, because I think, quite frankly, they want to avoid that conversation. It's just it's an awkward one.

Alicia: Yeah, Well, you know, here's one of the perspectives that I have on it is that we're simultaneously experiencing a bookkeeping shortage at the same time that all of us bookkeepers are looking to grow our practices. So it's kind of this this strange continuum. And so if this kind of solves the problem that most of the bookkeepers [00:30:00] that I know are at capacity, I know very few bookkeepers who are looking for clients except the people who are very beginners and just getting started. So personally, I would like to see the beginning bookkeepers sign up for this program so that they can learn how to do the bookkeeping under a controlled environment, under Intuit, and then when they go to develop their own practices, then they've got that expertise. So maybe this actually solves a problem that we have in the industry of being short [00:30:30] staffed. And this gives us. That's interesting.

Hector: That's interesting. But but I think you mentioned earlier that they're testing this with only accounts that don't have an accountant attached to it. So if you are an accountant and you signed up to go through the ProAdvisor program with the 30% discount or whatever, there's probably no mechanism to add assistant bookkeeping or you would have to pay retail price to be able to do this. And again, this is not available for everybody. It's just a test. Okay. That's awesome. Alicia, [00:31:00] maybe last comments on artificial intelligence. And do you think that this assisted bookkeeping has any correlation to what's happening with Intuit, Assist and the movement to AI?

Alicia: I bet it does, because this is going to give them an opportunity to see what people are asking questions about and see where. Are the problem spots in the software or what are the needs of the community, the business owner community that they're not addressing. [00:31:30] So I think this is a great opportunity for them to gather data about their software.

Hector: Awesome. Alicia, thank you for ranting about all this stuff with me. Anything going on in your world?

Alicia: Oh, there's always something going on in my world. I am getting ready to teach my QuickBooks Fundamentals boot camp class in October, so it's on October 18th, and this is going to be I teach this class once or twice a year. And right now, because this the interface is undergoing [00:32:00] so many changes, this is going to be a great opportunity for people to kind of see the whole comprehensive scope of what has become versus what it was. And what about you? What's happening in your world?

Hector: Yeah, so I still have nine tickets left to sell for my conference. The Creative business models for accountants in Miami. So we're close to selling out. That's alt accounting.com alt accountant. Com will put that [00:32:30] information in the in the show notes. And also it's going to be October 25th to the 27th. And at QuickBooks Connect on November 12th we're having a write tool users party all the right tool users get an email with a link to be able to sign up. There's a limit to 100 people and we're going to have we got a little VIP lounge, We're going to have some some light refreshments and be able to hang out and talk to each other about why we love [00:33:00] Right tool and why we love QuickBooks Online, etcetera, etcetera. Well, that's it.

Alicia: For me. I'm a huge right tool fan, so I'm really glad that you're throwing me a party.

Hector: I'll see you then.

Alicia: All right. I'll see you there.