Look What I Found!™: Business Tax, Customer Hub, Payroll Documents

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Alicia Katz Pollock: Hey there. In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks Accountants podcast, I'm going to do a look what I found, where I take a look at some new features in QuickBooks online that you haven't yet found. Now, usually when I do this episode, it's like little changes in the interface and little, little, you know, those fine little details that you may or may not notice. But today I'm going to focus on some big [00:00:30] features that you might not have noticed. This is the time of year when we're all heads down, getting our tax or clients ready for taxes, and there are some new features that are showing up that you might not have had time to look at. So I wanted to call your attention to them. The file that I'm using for my tour of these new features is one of my sandbox files. And as we know, a lot of these features may not be rolled out to everyone, but here are some things to look out for. The first [00:01:00] one is when you go to all apps, look down at the bottom of the list where you tend not to look very often. And there's a section there that says business tax. So when you go to the business tax, I'm going to start on the overview tab. And what this is doing is giving you kind of an eagle eye view of what your taxes may wind up needing to be.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And so it has a list of tasks. So for example, it starts out with a to do to categorize [00:01:30] potential deductions and then to categorize your deposits. So it's looking at the banking feed and noticing hmm. You haven't categorized all of your transactions. It also has a section for missing deductions. And what that does is it uses its AI to look at your industry and then looks at typical deductions for that industry to make sure that you're capturing all the possible deductions that you might need. I just pulled it up [00:02:00] based on my sample company, which the industry is computer training and it says, well, have you thought about online courses for your own instructor self-education? Did you capture all your credit card processing fees? Did you capture all of your professional association member fees? So basically it's saying, I don't see any membership fees here. Or do you belong to any of them? It's also taking a look at depreciation and suggesting section 179 deductions for my equipment. And [00:02:30] then it's also looking at my legal and professional services. And it's noticed that I haven't made any payments to any freelance curriculum developers or any guest speakers. And so it's making suggestions based on what it typically sees from other people in the industry, which is pretty cool. It also reminds you that, did you have any personal expenses that you had personally that might qualify for your business? And then it goes down below the fold and it does suggest, [00:03:00] hey, do you want a file with QuickBooks Live expert tax? Powered by TurboTax.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So of course there is a little bit of advertising in here. Okay. The next section in the business tax overview shows your taxable profit. So it's showing your total income minus your deductions. It is noting that I have transactions in the banking fee that haven't been that haven't been categorized yet, but it is giving me what is my taxable profit so that I can be aware of that. [00:03:30] And it does give you the ability to switch fiscal years, although interestingly, it allows me to see tax year 2025, but it doesn't allow me to see year to date for 2026. It also includes a section for federal tax deadlines. So it's pointing out that my 2025 annual income taxes are due on March 16th. That April 15th is my Q1 estimated tax due, and then June 15th for Q2, September 15th for Q3, and also filing [00:04:00] extension dates on September 15th. So this is pretty handy for keeping an eye on your business taxes. Now that's just the first pain in the business tax section. The second tab is a tax summary. And when I go to the tax summary, it is now giving me a list of to dos. Very similar. It's kind of like broken out into more detail, but it's the same thing like, hey, check your bank feeds.

Alicia Katz Pollock: You haven't reconciled, you haven't entered everything, much less reconciled it. Now, this is actually [00:04:30] pretty cool. There's a section for income from your transactions. And there it's showing me that some of my account names have not been mapped to tax categories. So this is starting the integration with Proconnect tax right from here. So it gives you the ability to map your QuickBooks categories to your Proconnect tax. And then to use the last section of the business tax for prep for taxes. So [00:05:00] for those of you who are tax providers, you can actually integrate QuickBooks directly with Proconnect texts, and it gives you the ability to do reviews and adjustments so that you can take a look at the prior year, the current year, and make adjusting entries. So if you are using tax, having direct access to your tax software through your clients QuickBooks files is very, very handy. So if you haven't already checked out the [00:05:30] business tax section, take a look at it and see if it's useful for you. The next area that I want to take a look at is the customer hub. And that has been built out heavily. Now, I did an episode last late last year called Customer Hubba Hubba, where I spent some time diving into the leads and the feedback and the new features to use your QuickBooks as a CRM, a customer resource management software.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And so all of that is [00:06:00] still there and it has been built out even further. I do recommend that you go listen to that episode, but I go into detail about how when you send an invoice to your customer and they pay it, it gives you the opportunity for them to rate your work and they give you a five star rating or up to five stars. And if they give you a 4 or 5 stars, it asks for a testimonial and referrals to other people who might be interested in your services. And if they rate you one, two, or three stars, then it asks for feedback. [00:06:30] Now, how often do you get the opportunity to get feedback from dissatisfied customers? Not very often. So, you know, usually if a customer is not happy, they just ghost you and it doesn't give you an opportunity to improve your services. So these features inside QBO definitely help. Now, the other feature that I did already talk about is the leads area. And so again, I'm in the customer section down under leads. And this gives you an opportunity to integrate [00:07:00] with your gmail or your outlook. And it actually looks at your email threads for customer conversations. So if your customers are emailing you about things, it surfaces them and especially if it's a cold call and or, you know, an inquiry, then you can actually put it through a pipeline and move it from inquiry to discovery to negotiation to one.

Alicia Katz Pollock: You can rate them by the by the the temperature, are they warm? Are they hot? Are [00:07:30] they cold? You can give it an estimated value and set the stage. So it gives you an actual sales pipeline right inside your QuickBooks online. So you can assign your sales team directly to the QuickBooks to, to manage those inquiries. And it gives you the tools to create an estimate or to add them to your QuickBooks as an actual customer. So definitely check out the leads and see if it's appropriate for you, especially if you don't have any kind of CRM system. [00:08:00] This is also where the customers have been moved. So you're used to seeing customers. Your muscle memory goes to look for them in the sales center or sales and get paid, but customers have been pulled out to this customer's hub for that reason. They've also pulled out estimates as its own separate center. So you have an estimate center for these potential jobs that you're doing. And as a reminder, pay attention to your estimates. And if you don't win a bid, make sure you close it so that it's not just [00:08:30] sitting there. Okay. Now, the reason why I was inspired to include this in the episode are for some new features that have now shown up. One of them is contracts that you can actually create a contract by, either for an existing customer or for a lead, where you can upload a PDF to the file.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And when you upload the PDF, it then gives you the ability to set the client for it. And what you can do in [00:09:00] the PDF is actually add in fields for signatures or initials. So instead of needing to use Panda docs or DocuSign, you can do it right inside the PDF itself. So basically what it does is it includes the ability to put in a signature line or initials. And so literally you just go through the the document and click on initials and add initial boxes [00:09:30] for all the place you want them to initials. And then you can head down to the bottom and put in text fields where they can type in their name and a signature field where they can sign, and then a date field as well for the signing date. And then when you send them the document, it will ask for all of those signature fields. It will upload the finished signed document. And then that way you can now have client contracts [00:10:00] right inside QBO. And the contract is saved with the the customer. So really, really, really nice integration right there. I know that up until now I've never wanted to spring for DocuSign or Pandadoc. And yeah, I know that as part of my ProAdvisor benefits, I did traditionally get discounts with those services, but having it right in line is extremely handy.

Alicia Katz Pollock: The next feature in that section is appointment setting. The [00:10:30] scheduler isn't nearly as advanced as Calendly or acuity, but it does get the job done if you're not already using those where you can set your availability. You know, what are your hours Monday through Friday or weekends and what times are available. And then if you're availability is not just your business hours, you can go in and set separate, um, availability times. Then after you take that step, you also have the settings to manage calendar connections. [00:11:00] You can connect it to your Google calendar or your outlook calendar. So if you have appointments on those calendars, it will block out the time in the scheduler. And then it gives you the ability to schedule either in-person appointments or video calls and you can schedule it yourself, or you can send an invitation to the contact in order to, to schedule the appointment. And so you, you pick it, you send the invite or you pick the time and you and you send out [00:11:30] the appointment. I did just mention video calls and you can actually now do video calls right inside your QuickBooks there. When you're in the appointment center, you can start an appointment and, and have a call right inside your QuickBooks now, right now, it doesn't record it or do anything special with it. But if you don't have a Zoom account, you can now have your appointment video right inside QuickBooks [00:12:00] itself.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Pretty cool. Did you know that was there? I bet you didn't. So in in a nutshell, check out the customerhub. Click through all the features there and see if any of them are useful to you now. You know, I'll keep repeating that a lot of us are already embedded with some of these tools, but if you're a beginning bookkeeper or you don't already have a piece of that puzzle, then why not start with what's built into QuickBooks? The other thing that I [00:12:30] noticed that I was pretty excited about is in the payroll center, I do use Qbo payroll. And actually at the moment, I'm kind of excited because one of the projects that I've been working on is I've started a bookkeeping incubator where I have five new paid interns, but it's a training program. It's a hands on training program that they are all joining, where I'm teaching them bookkeeping through hands on work, as well as my regular courses, [00:13:00] plus my hands on training that starts in July where you build company files, right in using sample QuickBooks files. So that one starts in January, and they're getting a roundtable with Richard Roberts and they're getting a bookkeeping course as well. So it's a whole bookkeeping training program that I've created that they're participating in, but they are also paid interns where I am now paying them.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So for the first time, I, Alicia, get to [00:13:30] learn how to do multi-state payroll. And my team just went from five employees to ten employees, including these new five paid interns. But the reason why I bring all that up is I discovered when I was onboarding them, that there are some new features in the documents area that I was pretty happy to see that you can upload documents like employment contracts and you can even get signatures. I uploaded my employee handbook and turned it into a signed [00:14:00] document and sent it out for them for their signature. All right, inside the employee portal. And that was pretty darn cool to have it all in one place. I was also able to process their i-9s right inside the employees employees area in the documents section. Also new in there, there's a history. So if you change their wages or change their taxes or change anything about the employee, it actually lists [00:14:30] the before and after. You know, I've been using QBO payroll for years, and I've got some employees that have been with me for ten years and it's so handy, or it's going to be handy to now be able to see their salary increases all right, here in the screen, and not have to go turn to my spreadsheets and my files to have to go like, pull them all up and compare them. So I really do like the, that feature in QBO payroll.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So I know that was short and sweet, [00:15:00] but hopefully that gives you some good signs of where Intuit is going. And if you've been wondering why they keep increasing the prices on us every year, it's because they are increasing the feature set. And if you haven't been paying attention, you might not know the features are there, so that might help explain things a little bit. So join us in our LinkedIn group or email me at unofficial QuickBooks podcast and let me know what you think of these features. Are they going [00:15:30] to be useful to you? What's going to be a game changer? Or maybe you're not going to use them? Let me know why. Now, as always, I end with a what's going on in your world and at royal wise, things are wild and wooly and it's also coming up on spring break. So I just taught my baby Got Backups class about how to back up your qbo and export the data so that you have it safe and secure. And my third party apps class where I talk about how to integrate third party apps, and that also includes a full set of [00:16:00] demos from some of my favorite vendors. And then coming up on April 7th is my budgeting class, where I teach you to use the budgeting tools in QuickBooks online. So thank you all for listening and I will see you in the next one.