As business moves increasingly to the cloud, Intuit is hardly lagging behind. QBO {QuickBooks Online) continues to gain subscribers and add features – just as the desktop version did decades ago (I first used QB desktop in 1997). Alternative cloud accounting software from competitors like Xero (www.xero.com) once seemed more nimble, but at least some experts believe that Intuit has once again gained the upper hand.
QuickBooks Self-Employed
The mobile features in QuickBooks Self-Employed are a good example. QB SE is basically for the increasing numbers of one-person contractors and freelancers out there, such as professional photographers, musicians, heavy-equipment repair specialists and event planners.
One great new QB SE mobile feature is that these types can drive all over for both business and personal purposes while the QB SE app records the various distances by collaborating with a smartphone and GPS to keep trip journals that will even impress the IRS. When a trip stops, QB SE just asks the driver to swipe left for business or swipe right if the last trip segment was for personal purposes. (Compare this to the average calculation these days where the tax preparer is told “well I think I drove about 20,000 miles last year; make that 35,000 miles, and I’d say about 80% was for business purposes. Can I get away with that?”)
QuickBooks Self-Employed to QuickBooks Online
As these features are proven, tuned and incorporated into QB SE, Intuit seems to be increasingly picking out the most powerful and sending them to QuickBooks Online (“QBO”). QBO is actually the more mature and robust of the two products, and aims to remain relevant, especially to accounting professionals.
Transaction categorization (aka “Auto Categorization”) is another example of this inexorable QB-SE to QBO migration. As QB-SE users add their bank and credit card accounts to QB SE, the systems will talk and automatically categorize all incoming downloaded transactions into the designated accounts, and continuously estimate the contractor’s tax refund (or, more likely, the increased amount due) at both the state and local levels. Auto-Categorization, now being used and tested in QB-SE, is expected to be available by the end of 2017 in QBO.
QuickBooks International
Additionally, Intuit seems intent on keeping international growth on-par with the U.S. by deploying these new features faster than ever. Accounting and tax rules in most countries differ somewhat from the U.S., but these differences can easily be coded, especially if a top player like Intuit wants to remain ahead of the competition around the world. And that is exactly what is happening. (I work with an accounting firm in India, for example, and they are big fans of QuickBooks Online – both the U.S. and India versions).
QuickBooks Accounting Firms Must Adapt
As small businesses increasingly turn to the cloud for accounting – and as Intuit stands ready to assist them with powerful, accurate and easy-to-learn products – it is important for accounting firms to adapt. The days of booking lots of hours at handsome rates for basic data entry on stodgy desktop systems are waning. Accounting firms must refigure a renewed raison d’être in providing even better and more relevant information and reports to clients of all types.
There are many great solutions and value-adds that await aspiring and forward-looking accounting and bookkeeping firms. This is where growth and success lie in the years ahead, as the days of traditional accounting services fade.
