QuickBooks Live Expert Assisted: A ProAdvisor’s Perspective

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

Hector Garcia: Welcome to the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast. I am joined by my good friend Alicia Katz Pollock, the original, the one and only Qbo Rockstar CEO and founder of Royal White Solutions.

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

Hector Garcia: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, we're [00:00:30] going to talk about QuickBooks Live assisted bookkeeping again. So we talked about this a couple of months ago. They introduced a new service that's $50 a month. Whether you're in QuickBooks online, Simple Start or QuickBooks Online Advanced. Doesn't matter which version of QuickBooks you have, you have the option to add for an additional $50. This new service called QuickBooks Live Assisted Bookkeeping, which might be rebranded to something like, quote, Live Experts. Essentially what [00:01:00] this is. And again, you can set this up at the very beginning when you set up the file, or you can add it afterwards in the future. But essentially what this is is an extra $50 a month. So QuickBooks users can get enhanced support. Now they're calling it, or at least the first name that they came out with was assisted bookkeeping, which kind of ruffled some feathers, feathers in the accounting bookkeeping community. And we kind of let that go. We're like, okay, fine, some people will have that, some people won't. But recently they [00:01:30] did a webinar where where, uh, Intuit had a bit of a change of tone and a change of verbiage, and it felt like a, like, like a different thing, like a different narrative. And what they essentially changed is for years and years and years and years, we've been told, hey, if the client has an accountant attached to it, we're not going to market additional services to make basically letting you know, accounting community.

Hector Garcia: If you are working with a QuickBooks online client, it is your client. [00:02:00] Intuit still feels is a shared client, but they weren't proactively going to market any additional services to it, allowing you, the accounting professional that's attached to the file to to sort of control that experience. In this webinar, they told us that there's going to be a little bit of a change of narrative, which is Intuit will market this to every single QuickBooks online client, whether they have an accountant or not. And this particular thing cost us the accounting [00:02:30] community to make a much bigger deal and dissect and analyze and go deep into like what the repercussions of this is. So like literally, if they hadn't made that little change, we probably would have just like forgot about it. But that's a really important, important, pivotal change. And Alicia, um, has her own feelings about this, and she wrote an article and posted an article and I'm going to have Alicia just read the article out loud to create the context, and then we'll add some commentary. So, Alicia, how are you? And, uh, the floor is yours.

Alicia Katz Pollock: How [00:03:00] am I? As a kind of a tricky question overall. Um, I am good about this. Now, I want to frame what we're about to talk about in two different ways. So first, I have this article, but that's more like commentary about the industry. But we also have a list of hectares in my ideas about the whole big picture and how it affects people. So there's going to be kind of two pieces to this puzzle right here. So where [00:03:30] I'm starting with and so this is kind of challenging. So forgive me for being a little passionate about this. Is that. The there's a I think there's a bigger picture. I think there's a whole underlying context happening in the industry. So we'll talk about the services and the ramifications. I want to just kind of look at the big picture, the underlying picture, the the eagle eye. And one of the things that I feel really strongly about [00:04:00] is that we have an entire accounting economy that's built around the ProAdvisor community, and it was Intuit that built this sub economy. Their initial strategy of onboarding as many proadvisors as possible was a really solid one. And that goes back, you know, ten years, 12 years, 15 years when I first started doing this. And, you know, Hector was long established even before I showed up.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And that was their strategy because one bookkeeper brought to them somewhere [00:04:30] between two at a dead minimum and, you know, hundreds of clients. So one educated, enthusiastic, qbo centered bookkeeper would generate thousands of dollars for Intuit every single year. And there was a lot of enthusiasm around that. Um, Intuit built a community that focused on support and education. It fostered camaraderie and bookkeeping, went from being an isolated occupation from when [00:05:00] you were alone at your desk or in your firm to now social media, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and then the conferences where we got to know each other. So because Intuit was focusing on the community and the Proadvisors, there's hundreds of expert level professionals who built their careers and their thriving businesses around QuickBooks online. You know, Hector, Seth, David, Veronica Wasek me. And [00:05:30] I'm leaving out many, many of my of my friends and colleagues and also all of the apps the whole app universe developed because one enthusiastic user found a problem that they could solve. So they created apps. And then the conferences like QuickBooks connect going back to 2015, that's what brought us face to face. And we started strategizing together and collaborating together. And we grew our firms together, and we laughed together as we forged new [00:06:00] friendships. And Intuit deluged us with swag and fun activities. And they treated us like royalty.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And we responded. Over the last 12, 15 years, we responded by onboarding as many clients as possible, meaning new Qbo users for Intuit. Now I know that times are changing. The industry is changing. We have a shortage of accountants. We have a shortage of bookkeepers. New businesses are being opened more rapidly than [00:06:30] there's financing and there's professionals to support them. And so I get that Intuit is evolving with the times. I get that they have new growth strategies. Mailchimp, TurboTax, um, Credit Karma. But what I don't think the shareholders or the C-suite are taking into consideration is that at the same time, well, there's actually another piece of other news, the same this same week they disbanded [00:07:00] the Trainer Writer network. And I don't think they're taking into consideration that at the same time of disbanding The Twin at the same time, they're releasing this new training and coaching program. They're alienating their evangelical core. They're alienating their influencers, the educators that are active on social media, the people who are dispelling the misinformation, the people who are answering the questions, the people who are providing [00:07:30] all the good advice about how to use Shvo and how to fall in love with qbo. What into it's not taking into consideration is that in a way they're kind of sucking the soul out of their audience.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Um, a couple of years ago, they revamped the Intuit logo, and it used to be that the the T's in the logo had little heads on it. There were little people in Intuit, and when they revamped the logo, the the heads were gone and the letters were all the same size. [00:08:00] So I made a joke at the time that there they literally took the people out of Intuit. So it kind of is emblematic of the shift in strategy. What the executives are also not taking into consideration is that the software is getting a little bit buggy. I've seen some reports that the numbers aren't as accurate, or that people are having to do the work twice, and we all know from being on support that sometimes [00:08:30] we have to take extra hours of time trying to figure out why something isn't working like we would expect. Is it a bug? Is it that the feature isn't full blown? So it becomes challenging and it takes more time to actually use QuickBooks? And what my concern is, is that if the software is not reliable and if the software isn't still designed for delight, that people aren't going to want to use it. What they're also not taking into consideration is that by adding a done with you and [00:09:00] done for you services, they're actually actively dismantling this sub economy that intuit themselves built with our careers and our businesses in our lives.

Alicia Katz Pollock: There's four pillars in Intuit's Foundation QuickBooks, TurboTax, MailChimp, and Credit Karma. It's like, you know, a house or a stool. If you break one of the supports, the whole thing can fall. So well. I don't personally have any issue with the new QB expert assisted [00:09:30] services, even though it's directly related to my company's role as in QuickBooks training. I think Intuit is asking the wrong questions as they guide their future strategy, and the feedback that they're using to inform these future strategies is coming from asking the wrong questions to the wrong audience. So again, I truly do believe that this service does help solve two issues that we do have in our industry. [00:10:00] We have a shortage of bookkeepers and accountants. And there's the issue that QuickBooks is not so easy that anybody can do it, which is how they used to advertise it. So. As always, our industry will continue to modernize and evolve, and that creates new opportunities for all of us to thrive. This allows us as proadvisors, to walk into the open spaces, create new and better services for our clients and for all of us so that [00:10:30] we can all succeed beyond our wildest expectations.

Hector Garcia: That's great. So this is an article that you actually published in your social media or your website.

Alicia Katz Pollock: It's on my blog, and we'll make sure that we have the link in the notes.

Hector Garcia: Awesome. Okay. So let's go into analysis mode. So I really appreciate that you that you were able to articulate, you know, how you felt about this and, and probably how many, many of people in the community feel about that. I do want to get into the technicalities. [00:11:00] So we so we have let's take some passion out of it and let's just talk about the technical aspects of it. So a couple of things, um, and you layered and juxtaposed two things at the same time. One is we're going to offer this elevated service for $50 a month. And if your business model is uniquely QuickBooks training, this could be a potential competition to you. And by the way, if you are an accountant and you're attached to that file, we don't care. We're going to offer that service anyway. Um, [00:11:30] is it the same as custom training and support that we advanced proadvisors and qualified trainers at influence Give? Absolutely not. Let's let's talk about the differentiation. So number one, when a client hires you to do training, you're always going to be the one doing the training. So you're going to build up context. You're going to understand the needs of that client. And the client is going to tell you remember that weird transaction we had three months ago? Okay, I have a similar one, but different can you help me? And you could probably do that in five minutes. [00:12:00] Ten minutes. And you're going to save the client tons of time.

Hector Garcia: If they go to a big box service or if they go through Intuit service, there's never a guarantee you'll get the same person. And even if you do, that person is dealing with so many clients, they're not going to remember. Um, and I don't think this is meant for them to, uh, create a ticket and keep a history like a CRM system of everything that they've helped you with in the past. If they do, that's kind of amazing, but probably not. This is essentially support, technical [00:12:30] support where they're going to have better, more qualified employees. They're going to have people with accounting experience with more contextual experience in terms of what it means to do whatever the person wants to do. Um, in Civicbooks, I want to peel the onion for a second because there's something that you need to truly understand. And this is the most difficult part about running support for a software company. I have a software company. I'm living this firsthand, so I can tell you, for the user to differentiate a [00:13:00] problem with the software versus a problem with them. Understanding how to use the software is almost impossible, okay? And it takes additional education for the user to understand what is a software problem and what is the person using the software problem, or how Alicia says the problem exists between the, uh, the screen and the keyboard into the chair and the keyboard and keyboard?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Pebcak.

Hector Garcia: Absolutely. So what has been happening over the years is a QuickBooks user [00:13:30] and by the way, not a QuickBooks user with an accountant, because that's never going to happen when they have an accountant, a QuickBooks user without an accountant. It's in the reconciliation page. They heard something about having to reconcile or whatever or something. Then they'll call support and say, hey, I'm on the reconciliation page. I don't know what to do next. And support can can read the screen and say, well, there's six buttons you can press is what each of the buttons do. Um, go ahead and press them and you're good to go. And then the user is going to be like, [00:14:00] but I don't understand what I'm doing, why I'm doing it, what does it mean to do what I'm doing? And am I doing it right? And that's what technical support has to draw a line and say, look, we're here to support you on how to use the software, the means to help you find where the buttons are. But we're not help you. We're not here to understand the context of what is your accounting, what industry you're in, how to categorize things you know, if something doesn't reconcile, if old balance from the past has an error and you have to make a high level decision to make an adjustment and amend [00:14:30] last year's tax return, etc., etc., there's all sorts of complexities that happen from the from the moment that you decide that this is not really just a technical support issue, this is a bookkeeping and accounting issue.

Hector Garcia: So for Intuit has been very, very difficult to solve this issue. But actually it hasn't because as Alicia alluded to, there's a ProAdvisor community. And for the technical support people, it's very easy to say, hey, it looks like you need an accountant. It looks like you need a professional. It looks like you need someone that can understand and follow [00:15:00] the context. Go to the ProAdvisor website and find an accountant. Our job here is done. We show you how to get to the reconciliation. Then you need a professional to help you how to go about completing a reconciliation. So what I think Intuit is trying to do is somehow trying to fill that gap between that, between the technical support person and the professional ProAdvisor with this product. Now, I'm pretty certain that for $50 a month, you were not going to be able just economically [00:15:30] speaking, you won't be able to replace what normally costs three, 4 or 500. A month at the very least to hire a pro in a monthly basis. So the economies are not going to match here. What I think this is going to be in the long term is Intuit finally being able to charge for a little bit better support, getting the funding to get a little bit better employees that understand accounting a little bit better and possibly and this is the tiny mini conspiracy theory behind this, [00:16:00] which is the same one I had with QuickBooks Live existed is by having people more engaged in the bookkeeping side of things, they're going to understand more the context of what users need, what ails them and what pains them.

Hector Garcia: And by having the people working with the employees in these things day to day, whether it's with this $50 a month elevated support or with the monthly live bookkeeping, they're going to learn about what we do so they can program that into QuickBooks, into the AI, [00:16:30] and then take away our ability to do that. Now, I'm not saying that's a bad thing because, um, like 200 years ago, 90% of people were in farming and now 2% of people are in farming. And we as a society are better off, okay. Technology moves us and evolves us. So I think I could totally see a bright future where category where we look at categorizing individual transactions as a completely Neanderthal task. Okay. And I think we can get to a place where AI [00:17:00] and computer systems and QuickBooks or whatever can automate all that. The big challenge here, and I think this is like what where the crux of the problem is, is that this is all happening in the backdrop of one broken promises, right? We will not market to your clients.

Hector Garcia: That's a huge one. Two, uh, price changes in the past five years to QuickBooks online three effectively, in the process of killing desktop, which not only changes a platform and some people are not ready to move to online, but also [00:17:30] the price difference between managing multiple clients in desktop two online is really big, so there's a complete perception of like money grab or increase in pricing. There is the dismantling of the Trainer Rider network that that Alicia mentioned, which is only like maybe a couple hundred people. So that's in the great scheme of things. It's 0.0001 of the power users. But this group of people had a really, really big megaphone. People like me and Alicia and Seth and Veronica and all these people that she mentioned and many people [00:18:00] that were that we haven't mentioned. We have a megaphone, and we're the ones that tell people this is how QuickBooks works. I know it's frustrating when you click on this button or that button, it doesn't work. Don't worry. Here's a workaround. Here's the context refresh. Do this, do that. And we ease the pain that the users have, and we ease the pain that QuickBooks support had with pointless phone calls. So I totally agree with Alicia that if Intuit essentially dismantles the ProAdvisor community, which by the way, this is not what's been announced.

Hector Garcia: This is not the [00:18:30] news ProAdvisor community very much exists. The ProAdvisor program is not being dismantled, period. However, anyone can see, okay, increasing the prices. Uh, not accounting centric and not accounting friendly marketing to my clients. You you have a product called QuickBooks Live bookkeeping. It has the word bookkeeping. Word bookkeepers. Sounds like you're competing with me. Oh, you're also selling TurboTax to our clients. Oh, I'm a tax preparer. It also sounds like you're competing with me. Um, you know, dismantling the trainer writer network. The reseller channel has been getting [00:19:00] less and less commission friendly for people that have been basically building this reseller system for years and years. Almost everything looks and feels like little by little, they're chipping away at what we felt was a very strong 5050 win win type partnership. Like, I think a lot of us are feeling that the, the, the, the proportions of benefits for this partnership are skewing towards the their direction and at our direction or are not balanced. [00:19:30] And in the backdrop of all this, this simple $50 a month enhance service is misconstrued and misunderstood and felt much different. So Alicia, that's why I wanted to give you my part. This is like my answer to your article. Um, I'll let you, um, tell tell me your thoughts on that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Sure. I mean, there's so many things in there to dissect that for me. I think the biggest reason why they're going in this direction is that up until now, Cube-e care support has been [00:20:00] supposedly focused on problems with the software. And the people who are support reps don't aren't accountants or bookkeepers themselves, most of them. And so they weren't able to answer the questions that are the common. Like, you know, how do I handle this particular situation? And so that's where this live assisted comes in and fills a need that it's expanding their support services and allowing them to kind of silo them. This is about software. This is about using the software. [00:20:30] I think I also agree with you that this gives them an opportunity to actually. Get paid for support. So now they have a paid support option which is specific to solving that particular need. So I think those are good moves. I think that's a good position for them to be in, uh, where I want to see it go is that they need to include us in the process. That okay. They've they've determined that there's a need [00:21:00] and they've determined that it's an unmet need, that it's the the 40% of business owners who sign up for QuickBooks without being related to a ProAdvisor or attached to a ProAdvisor.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And so they're trying to get them, get those people served. Now, what I would like to see happen, these are some ideas that I have. And it would be actually in addition, if they're going to put their services on the page, [00:21:30] they also should put the ProAdvisor locator up on the page. Also, are your needs more complex? Go to this website and search for a professional near you and put that up in not just two columns, but now have three columns on the page. I also think that they should give us referral credit. For some of us being able to refer those low end questions out to somebody else, that frees up our time, that allows us to focus on more clients, bigger [00:22:00] clients, more complex jobs, advisory instead of like, how do I make a credit memo? And so if bringing the this service into the ProAdvisor discount program would be great. So if I sign up, if I sign up one of my clients for it, then I get a cut of it, then everybody's happy. I also think that it's another opportunity for oh go ahead.

Hector Garcia: Now I do want to add something [00:22:30] specifically to that. Um, if so. So first of all, giving us credit, like paying us a commission per se, for this. That might be kind of farfetched, Alicia, because I don't think that there's any spreadsheet that anyone at Intuit has made where this thing actually makes them money in the midterm. Like, I don't even see the mechanics of how this can make people any money. I think the only way this can make intuit any money is that they're hoping that people pay for it, and they don't use it. That's the only [00:23:00] thing, only thing I can think of because, look, I believe the average that they pay a QuickBooks Live bookkeeper somewhere is somewhere between 20 and $30 a month. Um, the assistant bookkeepers, the ones in this level, I'm going to make the assumption they get paid even a little bit more because they not only have to know bookkeeping and know QuickBooks, they have to they have to know how to talk to people. Right? So that's going to be there's less of of people with that skill. So they might be getting paid somewhere around maybe $30 an hour. Again, I'm speculating. [00:23:30] I don't know how compensation works. I didn't do it, but I'm just being realistic. Plus all the benefits that Intuit offers to Intuit employees, which is incredible.

Hector Garcia: I have people that work at Intuit that tell me, and it's it's amazing. Intuit is a great company to work for, but essentially what I think, you know, plus the pay and the supervisors and and the and the leads and all that stuff, I think that if if a user, if every user that pays this $50 a month makes one phone call, and that phone call takes 30 to 45 minutes, I don't think Intuit [00:24:00] can make any money with this period, so Intuit has to kind of hope that people pay for this like an insurance, like, hey, I'll pay the extra 50 bucks just in case I have this elevated question and then only use it once or twice a year. Maybe there's a business model there. I do have a couple of challenges in general, specifically to what you said in the article, which is, quote, this solves the the accountant shortage issue. Actually, I think it does not, because there might be a lot more qualified bookkeepers that we, [00:24:30] the small firms could hire that now we can't hire because they're going to be recruited at Intuit. So I don't think necessarily that for us, it solves the it solves that, that problem. So I wanted to address that as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So another place where this actually turns into a benefit though, with what you were saying is it's also an opportunity for supervised training that we have a lot of bookkeepers who are coming into this as a side hustle, or they want a career change and they don't. They're not trained bookkeepers. [00:25:00] They haven't been to school for accounting and bookkeeping, but they love doing it. They think Kubo is really cool, and so they want to hang out their shingle as a bookkeeper. By all means, put them in this program, be that staff. You know, they're not ready to have their own firms and, you know they don't have a lot of experience yet. So this is an opportunity to bring in new bookkeepers and have them get supervised training. Now that's kind of a two edged sword because [00:25:30] a lot of us know that they have. We've opened up files that Kube Live Bookkeeping has done, and the books are a mess, and we get a cleanup job out of it. And so, you know, originally when the original Cube-e live training announcement came out was that five years ago, people were freaking out about it, and now we're like, oh, it's okay. They don't do a good job anyway. Now I know, I'm sorry. I apologize to, you know, Ruby and my other friends who work [00:26:00] for Cube-e live and really stand by the product. There are some excellent, excellent bookkeepers in the program, but our experience from the outside is that the majority of clients aren't getting good answers or good bookkeeping out of the bookkeeping service. So if we can actually have a place to get people experience. Where they have supervisors and they have people reviewing their work and listening to these phone calls and building up training, [00:26:30] I see that as a win.

Hector Garcia: I also see an opportunity as a small firm to hire out and poach from into employees that work here. So, I mean, you know, like if I wanted to stuff up a bookkeeping practice and I'm looking and I'm trying to find, uh, I'm trying to find qualified employees and I can't find them because I'll work for Intuit. Well, what's going to end up happening is now firms are going to try to poach from Intuit, just like Intuit is going to try to poach from firms. And I want to add some context to that. I'm not sure if [00:27:00] this is something I can say that Intuit tried to poach from firms. I don't think that was ever the strategy, but I do remember every single ProAdvisor getting an email that says, hey, by the way, we, you know, come work for Intuit. And inadvertently, they were emailing both the individuals that maybe would benefit from that. And they were they were also emailing employees of my firm. Every single employee of my firm, uh, you know, brought up for me. So, hey, by the way, Intuit is recruiting. Check this out. So obviously that adds to that consternation of, hey, [00:27:30] you know, like, are we partners or are we not? Um, because you know what? Intuit can steal a client. Let's just call it that.

Hector Garcia: Intuit can take a client with live bookkeeping from me, and I would be kind of sad, but if Intuit takes an employee, I would be pissed. Right? So this is the this is the real challenge that we have now, is that my software partner is now in the same line of business that I'm in, and our interests are no longer 100% aligned. There's actually [00:28:00] a cross in which our interests are in the exact same place, where both interested in giving our clients training and support. We're both interested on giving our clients bookkeeping, monthly bookkeeping services where both interested on preparing tax returns, and we're both interested on having qualified, trained, skilled QuickBooks users professionals to work in our firm. So in many other places, our interests are aligned like they want to go to the cloud and improve, you know, accounting [00:28:30] services and add accounting tools. And we want to move our clients to the cloud and we want to collaborate with them. So there's some areas where Intuit and I are great partners from that perspective. But then in these other areas now we are in a in the same arena and we're combating for the same thing. So this is going to be a huge challenge for 1520 year experience. Quickbooks users and QuickBooks, sorry, QuickBooks power users and accountants to feel that the partnership now is the same partnership that [00:29:00] was ten years ago or promised 15 years ago, etc..

Hector Garcia: So this is the crux of the problem, is that it is going to be very, very difficult to coexist in this area. Um, and it not be a crutch or a wedge. Again, QuickBooks Live bookkeeping will never compare to the bookkeeping my firm can do. Quickbooks assisted Live experts training would never compare to the training that my friend would do, period. But it's an option and it's available for the user, and it's right [00:29:30] there staring at you at the face. And there's tons of emails of marketing that product. So it's one more conversation that I don't want to have with my client. It's one more time wasted that I have to spend, talk to my client and explain them. This is this, this is that. Go try it. If you don't like it, come back. I mean, this is all adding additional wasted time that we don't want. So when accountants in social media stuff are saying, I'm done with Intuit, I'm done with QuickBooks. It's not because they don't like QuickBooks, they just don't like the additional work [00:30:00] that it takes to be a QuickBooks centric accountant. Okay, QuickBooks is adding additional weight on our shoulders.

Alicia Katz Pollock: You know, I've seen three different reactions from the professionals getting this news. There's some people who understand where the the need is and are adaptable and changeable. And they're like, okay, we'll just keep on keeping on. Then there's a group that are like, well, if that's how it's going to be, I'm, I was already thinking about retiring, [00:30:30] so maybe this is a good time. And so there's going to be bookkeepers leaving the industry. And then the third reaction are the ones who are reacting with vitriol. They're angry. They're like, well, I'm just going to go look for other software. I'm going to go over to FreshBooks or Xero or Sage or some of the other ones. And I really actually think that there's some danger here of bookkeepers actually abandoning the platform, that people are frustrated with all the things that you just said [00:31:00] and don't want to be competing with Intuit at that surface level. And so they would rather take their business to somebody else. And I think that's in some ways a responsible reaction to it. I personally would not want to transform my whole firm from one piece of software to another piece of software at this point in my, in my career, but I, I, I actually think that it's kind of like, you know, voting with your dollars in a protest and saying to intuit, hey, [00:31:30] some of the decisions that you're making affect me in ways that you didn't expect, and you no longer serve me, and so I'll no longer serve you and they'll they'll move. Now, I think into it probably did the math. Okay. Now, how many bookkeepers am I going to lose? How many clients are they going to take with them? And no, that's not going to be as big a loss as the gain that we're going to get from offering this service. I'm sure that they did that math and it considered that acceptable casualties. [00:32:00] But it's you know, I don't think any strategy that includes acceptable losses is a win for anybody.

Hector Garcia: Hmm.

Hector Garcia: That's a good point. Um, on the math situation, I think the math is on Intuit's favor. Um, I have Intuit stock. I have the majority of my investments in Intuit stock. Um, I will keep them. I'm not going to sell my stock or anything. As a matter of fact, I think my stock will be worth more in the next couple of years because of this. So as a shareholder [00:32:30] in the mid-term, I think this will be a net, uh, positive thing. Actually, I completely see Intuit stock going to $800 in the next couple of years as you start adding an extra $50 per month per user, you know, to the bottom line on the revenue part. Forget about the whether this particular segment is profitable or not. That's really not that important. What matters is top line, are you getting more revenue? Because typically the more revenue, the more customer loyalty believe I mean, loyalty, believe it or not, the more customers spend in a company, the [00:33:00] more likely they are to keep spending and stay there. So I actually think as a shareholder, the net benefit to Intuit is there 100%. As an accountant, you already heard my feelings about that. And Alicia, what are your thoughts?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Well, you know, I actually do believe that stock wise it's it's good for Intuit. But I also really, you know, that introduces the whole idea of ethical capitalism and is is it ethical that is it all about the greatest [00:33:30] return for shareholders? You know, again, Intuit intentionally built an entire sub economy around their software. I mean, how many other software packages are there out there that have entire conferences built around them and communities? And, you know, there's small ones, but QuickBooks is enormous. There's QuickBooks communities on every single social platform out there. And there's we have an economy. There's thousands and thousands [00:34:00] of people whose business is created and designed around elements of what was missing from Intuit. And I don't think that Intuit is taking that into consideration as they're developing this, these new offerings. So I do think that there is a way that they can not just aim to increase our stock, but increase our daily lives as well. And I think that, you know, that, like I said, about taking the people out of Intuit, [00:34:30] I think that is something that they really should consider and bring back into their conversation.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. And while I don't disagree with the spirit of what you're saying, uh, we might have a difference in sort of the fundamental mechanics of, like, how capitalism, uh, should work in essence. So, like, I think every company should be ethical. But at the same time, uh, the ethical thing to do is to maximize shareholder value. It's always the most ethical thing to do. That's what [00:35:00] corporations are meant to be. There are big corporations. There are other types of corporations that are structured in a different way. But Intuit specifically is not structured that way. It is. It is obvious. It is known that this is a profit seeking corporation, and the more money, the more money into it makes, the more profitable they make. Uh, the more. The more attractive it would be to a competitor to come in and do things different. So you [00:35:30] can't force into a not to do something that's uh, uh, shareholder centric, or you try to like, slow down or stifle the growth for the sake of ethics because you actually hurt you actually sort of social engineer, uh, economics and capitalism. I think that the more into it pursuits shareholder value only and ignores uh, partners, customers, etc., etc. via, you know, breaking up the partnerships, competing with accountants or making the product worse and worse like they've been doing in the last couple [00:36:00] of years.

Hector Garcia: That is going to further encourage a competitor to come in and create a better product. So we are in agreement in spirit. And my message to Intuit is, hey, let's put all, all, all of our efforts into making product best in class, making the product in class, making the product incredible. Then after you make the product incredible, you can mock an experiment, an a, B test with all sorts of crazy things. But at the end of the day, you can say, but we give you the best product, best in class product. [00:36:30] The challenge is that that's not a position that Intuit is in. So in the backdrop of a buggy, faulty product that gets released and beta tests live on people, and there's ten different versions out there, and trainers like me have to rewrite and redo our videos and rewrite the books over and over. In the backdrop of all this, you add more and more and more, uh, consternation to my relationship with my client. That's what makes it hard. So not so much of a like the ethics of and the economics of this. It's more about long term, what are clients going to want and long term, [00:37:00] how exposed Intuit is going to be to competitors.

Hector Garcia: And that nice moat that Intuit has been building was actually that moat was actually dug, dug and built by the accountant community. So the same accounting community can now block that moat and basically start you can start leaking some customers through it. So because Intuit doesn't have the loyalty and the trust that accountants have. So if accountants start telling in unison, jump ship [00:37:30] customers will, I'm telling you, I know Intuit doesn't believe this, but customers will. And it might be a small chunk in the in the great scheme of things. But the minute a competitor comes in and is fully, fully accountant centric and basically copies from the playbook and says, hey, let's build an ecosystem around all the millions of accountants out there serving clients with all these high trust. Let's help them build an ecosystem. They're going to drive business to a QuickBooks competitor. So I think, again, I [00:38:00] see the good things and the bad things. But my biggest fear as a shareholder is long term, maybe not mid-term or short term, but long term. Intuit can threaten their entire livelihood if the accounting community doesn't feel like they are true, true, true partners.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I think that's that's really true. And it was, you know, part of that article is that it it all comes down to is the software good that all these other things that we're debating about, training and ethics and economics and [00:38:30] um, and all of it, it all comes down to does QuickBooks online work well and is it delightful to use? And it did. And it was. And they're in transition as they're moving it to the future programing languages. So I know that right now we're kind of in a flux where, you know, it's the live beta testing everything on us. I really hope that they settle the software down so that it is easy and obvious [00:39:00] to use so that we can enjoy the work that we're doing and continue to do it so that we're satisfied with this whole entire big picture situation.

Hector Garcia: So let's end in a in a good note and some, uh, themes of encouragement. Number one, the QuickBooks Live assistant, live experts, uh, assisted training, whatever they're called, they're never going to be like you, like the power users that listen to this podcast. Uh, they're not going to have the industry experience. They're not going to have the context, and they're not going to be building that trust over time, individual [00:39:30] 1 to 1, human to human, with your individual clients. So this will not compete with you. Yes, it might cause a difficult conversation. It might anchor the price down. It might it might just add some obstacles on the way. But they will not compete with you. This is not competition. Second. For my staff, for my employees. I would love to pay 50 bucks a month and have them call support and not call me. Okay, I would love [00:40:00] that. That's an absolute bargain. But you know what? I won't do that because they're not going to give them the right answers because I don't trust, you know, the experience and the training that they get versus the one that I get. So to me, it costs ten times more to spend an hour with one of my employees versus them paying $50 a month, uh, to, to into it. But I prefer to train them. Right. So at the same time, again, this is not a threat. It's a potential mini opportunity. If this service is really good in high end, I would pay for it at least to have my staff trained. Furthermore, [00:40:30] if this is a good service, I actually love the opportunity to pawn off all these QuickBooks questions that my clients have for us to them, and include that as part of my monthly bookkeeping services.

Hector Garcia: And I can have a client that I do monthly bookkeeping and say, hey, by the way, I know we work together sometimes, especially during tax season. I can't answer the question about how to apply the credit memo to the old invoice from last year that had sales tax, etc. you know, hey, there's A18 hundred QuickBooks. Call them. It's part of the ecosystem that you are [00:41:00] are are buying through our service. If that doesn't work, then you escalate it to us. So I do see an incredible opportunity to partner with Intuit with this, but it needs to be a good service. Okay, so that's the last that's the last thing I'll say to intuit it needs to be a good service. If this is a bad service like QuickBooks Live bookkeeping was in the first couple of years, like, you know, outsource overseas support has been for a very long time, not a good service. How QuickBooks [00:41:30] Online Payroll started or broken and all jaggedy compared to desktop wasn't a good service. Like if you actually if the way QuickBooks online works from a stability perspective is not a good service. So if this particular service behaves exactly like the past 4 or 5 years worth of Intuit services, then this is not going to be a net good thing for me. So I will give into it the benefit of the doubt to say, hey, if you execute this plan, execute it right with good people, with good staff, with good training, this could be a net win for everybody.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I'm [00:42:00] going to reinforce what you just said, because I really think it's the path forward for so many people. Build this service into your offerings, up your rates by 50 bucks, pay for it on behalf of your clients, and then have them answer the quick and easy stuff that you know your time is better served. Answering more complex stuff. I think there's an opportunity to incorporate it like that.

Hector Garcia: Could have said it better. That's awesome. So Alicia, with that being [00:42:30] said, what's going on with your world?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Uh, I have been doing trainings fast and furious on what is actually up and coming for me is I'm going to my first BDO Alliance conference. Royal wise recently signed on with the BDO Alliance and we're now offering our trainings through BDO. So if any of you listening are BDO members, go to your BDO Alliance portal. All of my classes are now available through there and I will be at the BDO conference talking to firms [00:43:00] about how to provide the ironically and interestingly, how to provide QuickBooks online training to your staff and in a cost effective way. And so that's one of the things that Royal Wise offers is, uh, accounting firm level QuickBooks training. So come find me at the BDO Alliance Evolve conference. How about you, Hector? What's going on for you?

Hector Garcia: So we're very excited that our Reframe conference in Hollywood, Florida has officially announced a date change. The conference [00:43:30] will be, uh, October 16th to October 19th. Uh, the official conference conference dates are actually Thursday through Saturday, the 17th to 19th. And we're going to have a pre-conference day on October 16th in the afternoon, which will be a tech update. We'll talk about, uh, QuickBooks app ecosystems. We'll talk about ChatGPT. We'll talk about all other sorts of technologies that affect our world. We're going to start the conference by just kind of like summarizing what's going on in the world of technology, how it affects us. And then the [00:44:00] next two and a half days will be focused on influential conversations for accountants. How can accountants get better at delivering their value, communicating their value, talking to clients, talking to each other, talking to software companies, which would include Intuit or anybody else in the Intuit ecosystem. And we're actually getting the sponsors, the app developers involved in the conversation as well. We're going to teach them how to talk to us, how to ask the right questions. Not when you go to a conference. [00:44:30] The first question they ask you is, how many clients do you have? It's like, Jesus, can you get a little more creative, you know, build a relationship with us first before going to the question that somehow, uh, allows you to put it in a spreadsheet somewhere and project out what that relationship could be worth like, we need to build relationships with each others as humans, with our customers, with our colleagues, with our employees, with our software app partners. And that's what reframe 2024. It's all about influential conversations for accountants by accountants. [00:45:00] So this conference will sell out. Last year's sold out this conference will sell out. So go to reframe 2020 4.com reframe 2020 4.com. And I'll see you there.

Alicia Katz Pollock: All right I'm looking forward to it I'll see you there.

Hector Garcia: Thank you. And we'll see you in the next one.

Alicia Katz Pollock: See you in the next one.