QBO Snooze You Lose!

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Alicia Katz Pollock: Hey, everybody, this is Alicia Pollock from wired.com. And in this edition of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, we're going to take just a few minutes and talk about some of the announcements that Intuit has made about updates to QuickBooks and some events and training opportunities as well. So let's go ahead and get started. The first is [00:00:30] that Intuit is going back on the road. I personally cut my teeth back in 2018, 2019, 2020 on the Intuit Road Show, which is when we used to travel around the country teaching people how to use QuickBooks and doing certification trainings. And after Covid, those went away, but it looks like they are bringing them back again. And now they're calling it the Better Together Tour. And it's got four stops in, um, late May and June and [00:01:00] into July in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas and Miami. And they're there specifically for firm leaders navigating growth for small and medium sized accounting firms. It's a half day workshop and a trade show style setting, and it's only $49 a ticket. So they'll be in Atlanta on May 28th, Los Angeles on June 2nd, Dallas on July 23rd, and Miami on the 29th. So there's some hands on workshops [00:01:30] with actionable solutions. There's some AI driven innovation demos, and of course, an opportunity to make some connections with your peers and your local community. And you can earn 2.5 CPE credits, and you can find out more about that at firm of the future.com. I also wanted to let you know that Intuit Accountants Sweet Training has been has been released in ProAdvisor Academy.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now I myself have a course coming out on [00:02:00] Qbo for Pro Advisors, which includes some of the features in the new accounting suite with actual demos. But if you really want to make sure that you've got Intuit's what Intuit wants you to know about it, you can definitely check out their new courses. So one of them is switching from QuickBooks Online Accountant to Intuit Accountant Suite and guiding all your team members through key updates to the interface and the core workflows. There's one on managing [00:02:30] your clients Intuit Accounting Suite so that you can manage your client lists, custom fields, and customer hub. Then they'll do a demo of books, clothes, and showing you how that workflow works to manage your multiple clients efficiently. And then using Intuit Accounting Suite for client insights, which is that accelerate dashboard for anomaly detection and Intuit Intelligence. They're also going to be releasing a few more courses about [00:03:00] using the work center and how to move to accelerate. But for now, they've got those four. And if you want them all, in a nutshell, with CPE, you can take a lot of that information from my course@royal.com. All right. Next announcement is one, I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know, but they have now fully sunsetted the classic report experience. And now modern reporting is no longer called modern reports. It's [00:03:30] just reports.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So, you know, we've been talking about this. We just did an episode with Hector going into detail all about it. But what they're really trying to enforce to you is that the new experience retains all the previous functionality, but now includes includes seamless drill downs, custom settings, the reports automatically refresh and that they honor GAAP aligned account orders and hide unused [00:04:00] zero balance rows so that it's cleaner. Now, I also want to remind you that if you find anything in these reports that aren't what you need them to be, please go over to the canny board@quickbooks.kanae.io and put in your feedback so that they can keep refining the process for us. Now, the next announcement has me very slightly puzzled because they're positioning it as now you have the ability [00:04:30] to get paid up front by collecting deposits right on your invoices. And it says on the page, do you have clients with event or appointment based businesses? Taking payments up front can improve your client's cash flow and help avoid cancellations. If your client runs on event based businesses such as wedding photography or partying, planning, last minute cancellations can be tough. So now you can get paid the moment that you create an invoice with invoice deposits. And [00:05:00] so I'm kind of looking at this, and I'm kind of a little puzzled because this does not seem new to me. We have had been able to, uh, to take deposits on invoices. I think the difference here is that now it's being held as a liability instead of turning it into an initial payment on the on the invoice.

Alicia Katz Pollock: In the past, what it did is it made a combination of an invoice plus a sales receipt, but [00:05:30] now you can take these payments right there and it can be a deposit, but it can also just be a payment early. So that's also why I'm not quite sure why this is news in any way. I do see that it's opening up a panel on the right hand side in order to process the payment, instead of going to a receive payment screen. I don't know. Maybe that's what's different about it. But they're trying, I think, to remind people that you [00:06:00] can take payments and deposits right from the invoice, right when you're talking to the client. What I want them to be able to do is be able for me to, to send this invoice, have them put in the payment information, and then me be able to use that payment information in the future. So I'm hoping that that is where this is heading. One of the changes that you might notice is that when you do send an invoice to a customer [00:06:30] for them to pay it and they click the review and pay button, now they actually will see all of their open invoices and they can choose which ones to pay or pay all of them all at once. Now this is a major change to the workflow.

Alicia Katz Pollock: This is a really great thing that it used to be that if you sent one invoice, they could only pay that one invoice or if you sent a statement, they had no way of paying the grand total. So now you do. When you go, [00:07:00] you can. When they go into the interface to pay, they can see all of their open AR. Now, I did hear from somebody on a Facebook forum that that workflow is not going to work for them because they actually create future dated invoices so that they can track upcoming payments. Those are going to show in the portal. Now those due dates are going to be in the future. And hopefully your your customer looks at that and says, oh, well, I don't need to pay that. [00:07:30] It's not due yet. But do know that if you have an invoice in the system, it will show up in this interface, even if it's a future invoice, and even if it's a placeholder invoice that you didn't want them to see or pay, there's no way for you to exclude which ones show up here. So, you know, this is something that you're going to be able to find a workaround for. You might have to shift your workflows. But know that they did make this change. And for the vast majority of use [00:08:00] cases, this is a great benefit. Just watch out if you are an outlier using QuickBooks in a creative way. The next announcement is about garnishment tracking in QuickBooks Online Payroll.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now you've been able to add a garnishment up until now, and it would hold it in a liability, but now it actually has a workflow that helps you with your compliance. You can associate each garnishment that you're setting up with the agency that's expecting it, so that you can [00:08:30] track the accrued amounts by agency, you know who to pay and you know when to pay. So this is beyond payroll. This is now turning it into an accounts payable workflow, which I think is great. One thing to know about QuickBooks payroll and the way it treats these garnishments, is that every time you add a garnishment to one of your employees. It adds a separate garnishment to the chart of accounts so that you have a liability for each of the employees. Now [00:09:00] it's going to be organized by the agency. So that is a huge improvement. Now, I haven't seen it in action yet, so I don't know if it's going to change that chart of accounts structure, whether now you're going to have the best of both worlds, where you're going to see the individual employees liability on the on the balance sheet and the payroll tax center is going to show which agency you owe, or if the chart of accounts is now going to have it by agency. [00:09:30] But I'm really looking forward to this transparency. So you can see who you owe and then mark it as paid.

Alicia Katz Pollock: You still can't pay the garnishment through the interface, but you can see the dates that they're owed and who they're owed to, and then mark it as paid when it's time. Another feature that has evolved is bill pay premium and elite subscribers can now make up to 50 payments in one batch. The previous maximum was 20 payments, so now [00:10:00] you can pay 50 bills all at the same time. And you still can customize the the type of payment and the speed of the payment on each one, but you can check them all off at once and then make group adjustments. The next announcement I found actually a little interesting. I'm going to be a little cynical on this one, where they are announcing what is now coming soon to QuickBooks online, and they lead with, uh, promoting Intuit intelligence. [00:10:30] But then what they also say is that this is actually all about Intuit experts. So for those of us who are bookkeepers, you have noticed and complained about the fact that Intuit is pushing into IT experts and their bookkeeping services and clean up services in product. Well guess what? It's going to get even more so. So now, um, they're, they're trying to position it so [00:11:00] that we as bookkeepers can partner with intuit experts. If you don't provide that service or you don't want to provide that service. So that's the kind of their I don't, I don't know if whether it's goal setting or marketing speak, but I think their idea is that if you don't want to answer your client's basic questions, that you can subscribe them to intuit experts for the little nickel and dime kind of questions that they need.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Or if [00:11:30] you aren't an expert in onboarding them for a new QBO account, that Intuit experts can help do that for you. So for those of you who either are overwhelmed and you need a little bit of extra support, or you're new to the product and you don't have the expertise. These Intuit experts are a way of partnering so that you can provide excellent service to your clients. However, for the rest of us, this is [00:12:00] notices that the client can then click through and pull services away from us. So here's what they're saying about it. So the first one during setup, businesses can instantly connect with Intuit Expert or schedule an appointment for confidence that books are set up correctly. The payroll AI will also include a payroll AI payroll tax companion for tax related setups and analysis. So basically during the setup, you're [00:12:30] going to see, hey, would you like some help? Go ahead and click and it will move them to Intuit experts. The next one says increase accuracy with with bookkeeping and transaction categorization. Use Intuit intelligence combined with credentialed Intuit experts to review data for clean up to date books. So that basically means pop up ads for our clients to connect with Intuit experts as they're using the banking feed.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And the last one, [00:13:00] get proactive tax estimates. Businesses can receive timely tax projections from Intuit experts, helping them plan for payments and reducing the risk of penalties. Okay, so tax estimates, that's something new to the software. I'm not sure exactly how that plays out in this in this. And then the next announcement is new tools for cash flow. Your clients, you and your clients will soon be able to surface actionable capital insights exactly where they're needed with the new cash [00:13:30] flow lending AI also coming soon. Oh! Drum roll for this one in Intuit Business Credit Card, which syncs transactions in real time to automate reconciliation with each swipe and to get clients get paid up to four times faster. We're also adding buy now, pay later via a firm for invoices. So we've already we did a whole episode about the buy now, pay later. [00:14:00] Very excited for that one myself. The business credit card. That's kind of interesting. I assume that that is linked to the QuickBooks checking account, but maybe it's separate. But your clients can now get, um, have credit cards right inside Qbo that are Intuit credit cards and the cash flow lending AI not sure exactly which one they're referring to for that one, but we will find out. Now, [00:14:30] the last thing that I discovered is this cash revenue calculator. It's at firm of the future.com. You should be able to find it. But if you wanted the direct URL it's from of the future.com/advisory slash dash revenue dash calculator, and I am.

Alicia Katz Pollock: For those of you listening, I will have this up on the YouTube channel as well. And so the first thing that you do is you put in your input. It wants to know your, um, information [00:15:00] about your firm. So what size are you, are you small with 1 to 10 employees. Are you medium with 11 to 50 employees. Are you large with 51 to 200 employees. Are you enterprise size with 201 or more employees? So I'll go ahead with mine. I'm small. All right. The next thing it wants to know is your total number of clients. And it's even it gives me a prompt here. Average for small is 25 to 150 clients. So let's say [00:15:30] that I support maybe 35 clients on my bookkeeping side, okay, annual revenue. And then it puts in a little placeholder text average for small is 150 K to 500 k. So let's say my annual revenue is $350,000. So I'll put that in there. And then it wants to know the staff count. And because I chose small firm size, it says the average staff count for a small company is 1 to 5 employees. And I do have five bookkeepers, [00:16:00] so I'll put that one in there. The next thing it wants to know is what current services do you offer right now? And your options are tax preparation, audit, bookkeeping. I'm going to check that one off financial statements.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I do that as well. Payroll. I help with payroll although I don't run payroll. But I'll go ahead and check it off. And basic advisory. Yep, I provide that. So the only things that I don't have checked off are tax prep and audit. Okay. Then potential services, select the advisory [00:16:30] services you're considering adding financial forecasting. Sure. Kpi dashboards. Sure. Budgeting and planning. I don't really want to do that myself. Business strategy. Yes. Fractional CFO services and technology consulting. I'll check that one off, too. Okay. The last section is pricing structure. What is your preferred pricing method for CAS offerings? Is it hourly rate. Is it a flat rate meaning a monthly subscription? [00:17:00] Is it value based pricing or a hybrid model. Well I'm not even sure exactly what the difference there distinction would be between flat fee monthly subscription versus value based pricing. I guess flat fee would just be the same rate every single month. And value based pricing. If you ask the firm to do something, then they might charge you based on that project. Maybe it's more project based. You know what? I'm going to do a hybrid model just to be safe. Then I'll click Calculate potential [00:17:30] revenue. Okay, so this now gives me a dashboard. There's a second tab for results. And it gives me a button that I can download the PDF or just look at a summary. So it starts with an executive summary. Revenue opportunity. By implementing client advisory services, your firm could potentially increase annual revenue by $29,925.

Alicia Katz Pollock: That's oddly specific, representing a 9% [00:18:00] increase from your current revenue base client adoption. Our analysis indicates that approximately 30% of your existing clients would likely adopt advisory services. I wonder how they knew that profitability CAS offerings typically achieve 55% profit margins, significantly higher than traditional compliance services. Well, that's good to know. And then they take that executive summary and they break it out in three different boxes. So there's a big box for projected annual revenue [00:18:30] growth $29,925. And then another box for the estimated client adoption at 30% and the projected profit margin at 55%. Then it gives a visual analysis. And so it has a revenue comparison. Projected increase is the basis for this at 9%. And so it has a gray bar that says current revenue $350,000. Then it has with Cass in Green, [00:19:00] $379,925. And then it has a blue bar, which is actually showing me the industry average of $400,000. So even with the estimates that I put in, it's saying you're actually still a little bit below the the industry, which makes me wonder if I need to change those parameters. The next graph is a Cass service breakdown revenue distribution by service type. And basically what this is saying [00:19:30] is that of those options that I checked off that I want to include here is the percentage Breakdown that I would want to implement to be successful. And it came in. The biggest one was financial forecasting at 26.3%.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Then that was followed by business strategy. And actually this is interesting. Business strategy is on here twice as both green and pink. [00:20:00] Hey Intuit, I found I found some issues on this. Um, then there's a technology consulting is also on the chart twice at 13.1 both times. Uh, and then followed by KPI dashboards at 13.1. So hey Intuit, your calculator is giving me six categories with only four things on it. So, um, we, that pie chart needs to be broken up a little bit [00:20:30] or needs to be consolidated a little bit. All right. Then there's some interactive scenarios. So there's a slider for client adoption rate and for a pricing multiplier. So the slider my client adoption rate, they had said, well 30% of your clients would adopt these services. And then I can slide it up and slide it down to see how that would adjust my revenue. What if only 20%? So [00:21:00] at 30%, that was that oddly specific 29,925 number. If I knock it down to 20%, then it goes down to $19,000. If I move it up to 40%, it makes it 399. So you can take a look at the client adoption slider. And then there's also a pricing multiplier. Although they don't define the terms for what they mean by pricing [00:21:30] multiplier. So I don't know exactly why they would move that up to up or down. If you know the answer to that, please go to this video on the LinkedIn group or go to the LinkedIn group and let me know, because I would love to know.

Alicia Katz Pollock: The next thing that it does is have an industry comparison, comparing my firm, the industry average and top performers. And the benchmarks here are SaaS revenue per client. The profit margin on [00:22:00] CAS, my firm says 55%, the industry average says 55%, but top performers have a 68% margin on CAS, the number of class clients per staff. The calculation that I gave it broke it down to three clients per staff. The industry average is ten and top performers have 14. So that tells me that I can take on more clients for the number of staff that I have. And then the growth rate, my percent, [00:22:30] mine was just 4%, whereas the industry average was 18% and top performers were 28%. So that basically is telling me that I am operating under capacity and my sites are a little low and I should set my sights higher, whether that's by pricing or by the adoption strategy. So the growth strategy recommendations are number one, start with financial forecasting. It's the highest demand among most client bases. The second is to bundle services package [00:23:00] KPI dashboards with budgeting for higher adoption. The third is to target the top 20% of clients. Focus on larger clients first for maximum ROI. And the fourth is invest in technology, leverage automation tools to increase capacity. So then they gave me a recommended pricing strategy. Wow. That is actually pretty cool here.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So based on the, the parameters [00:23:30] that I gave it about my practice and the additional services that I'm interested in adding. The recommended pricing strategy is that my basic pricing package starts at $750 and goes up to $1,200 a month. If my standard package should start at 1200 to 2000 a month, and then my premium package would be 2000 to 3500 a month. And then there's a little call out there that says that industry data shows that flat free [00:24:00] pricing increases average client value by 42%, which basically means make sure that you are charging enough so that you build in your profit. So this is an interesting exercise for you to take a look at how, at your pricing model and your service offerings, and your firm capacity and the number of clients that you have, and actually do some benchmarking to see where you fall. Are you below industry average? Are you at industry average [00:24:30] and what little features can you tweak in order to make more money for your firm? So I like this calculator. This is pretty cool. Okay. Well, that wraps up the announcements that Intuit wants to make sure that everybody knows. Let's finish off with what's going on in your world. Well, I am delighted to announce that my third annual hands on training class is scheduled and ready for enrollment. This [00:25:00] is a really unique opportunity where instead of one of my one off classes or my community membership with all of the individual trainings, this is my hands on training based on my textbook that was published with Kristeva Consultants and used in colleges all across the country.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And actually, for those of you who have been at this for a while, it's based on the bones of the Sleeter book from way back in the day that some of you actually cut your teeth on. So that was the bones of the [00:25:30] entire curriculum. Anyway, my hands on training class is a 12 week class that goes from July 21st all the way through October 8th. We're going to meet on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 9:00 to 12:00 Pacific time. So it's a three hour class. And in that class we are going to build companies from scratch. I'm actually going to give you free QBO shells just specifically for this purpose. [00:26:00] And the book goes literally click by click and step by step through all the things that you need to do, from creating a QuickBooks file to setting up your customers and your vendors and your products, to doing your routine transactions, to additional accrual accounting steps. And then we even get, we do banking feed, we do reconciliations, we then get into inventory and the project center and you actually make and run projects [00:26:30] and we even run payroll. So it's a really dynamic course. And so basically, the way the course works is that for the first maybe two hours, I'll demonstrate how to do it. While you follow along, you get a copy of the books in as part of the course, and you'll follow along and watch as I do it in Craig's Landscaping, and then you'll turn over to your book and you'll go through and and do the steps [00:27:00] yourself in a real company file.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So it is the best way to develop that muscle memory, whether it's that you're new to QuickBooks or whether the new interface is breaking your brain, this course will make sure that you know literally everything that there is to know about successful use and best practices in QuickBooks online. So you can head over to royal.com and look for the hands on training class, also called the hot [00:27:30] class and go ahead and enroll in it. And it is a 72 CPE class because there's a lot of contact hours. And everybody who completes the class also gets one of my little alleys that I make. I make little, um, resin owls with little books in their wings. And so if you complete the program, you earn an owl. So I would love to see you all in that class. Um, it is $2,500 and [00:28:00] again, 12 weeks, three hours on Tuesday, three hours on Thursday. A lot of contact, a lot of contact time. Um, and we're expecting maybe 40 people in the class. So I would love for you to be one of them. So look for the link in the show notes. This is Alicia Katz Pollack and I will see you in the next one.