Navigating Your Intuit Account: The Ultimate Guide

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

Alicia Katz Pollock: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, Dan DeLong and I are going to do a deep dive into in QuickBooks accounts and Intuit accounts. This is a topic that not a lot of people even consider. So I think you're going to find a lot of really useful information out of this today. [00:00:30] How are you doing, Dan?

Dan DeLong: I am doing great. I have finished my drive across the country only 150 miles short of 5000. So that's definitely a road trip and I am exhausted or exhausted from doing that. And I'm glad to be in one place for a little bit. And hopefully I have good internet where I'm at because I'll be here for the foreseeable future. Right.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, you just went to the Super Bowl and I hear that you [00:01:00] had some unexpected good fortune.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. Um, there wasn't too much traffic because we. We got there really early. Um, fortunately, we found, you know, face value tickets, which were large. It was a large face still, but it was it's not the, you know, exorbitant fees that get added on from reseller tickets, but everything that we did, it was it was it was just a nice surprise. We had great parking. [00:01:30] Um, they closed the road down right after we got there. So we just got in and then we got Re-accommodated and we got Re-accommodated right behind the the home for us, the Eagles family members. So it was really a really great experience.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So you actually got to watch the game with the family members of the players because you had some Ada accommodations.

Dan DeLong: Yes, yes. And I actually sat next to a guy who worked for the NFL, [00:02:00] who has been to every Super Bowl since 1980.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Wow, wow. Well, not only did you get a lifetime a bucket list of going to the Super Bowl, but then you got the Ritz experience as well.

Dan DeLong: Exactly. Yeah, it was really the top ten things of bucket list items of things that we've done. So it's really cool.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Excellent. Okay. Well let's go ahead and and dive into this topic. [00:02:30] And what we're going to be talking about today is managing your Intuit account, which is basically you, you as a human being inside the Intuit ecosystem. And a lot of people don't realize that there's actually a couple places you can go to to manage your personal information and all of the QuickBooks files and other software that is associated with, with you. And that is by going to accounts.intuit.com. [00:03:00] And if you're sitting in front of your computer right now, I recommend that you go ahead and go to accounts.intuit.com and check out what we're talking about. So what we're going to do is we're going to start by combing through all the things that you can do@accounts.intuit.com. And then we're going to talk about some, some research and some things that Dan has learned about accounts even in the bigger picture. So let's [00:03:30] go ahead and get started. When you log in to accounts dot Intuit com, you do that with the same username and password that you are used to using just to log into QuickBooks online. And then when you get there, it gives you a hello and it gives you the option of working with your user ID.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And Typically people use their email address for their user ID, but I actually pre-date all of this [00:04:00] and my user ID is just is. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but it's a word instead of an email address back when you could pick just a word to use. And so now they give you the ability to change that as well. So if I didn't want to do that legacy, if I wanted to use an email address now, I could. The next thing that it asks is, is your email still the same email that if you have a change of email address, you can change [00:04:30] it? And this is a question that a lot of people have had is if maybe you changed your place of employment, or maybe you rebranded your business. And if you want to change the email address that you use to log in with, you no longer have to call support. You can do it right from here. So it gives you the ability to just change your email right here. Really super easy. And then from then on, that will be your new login.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. And I wanted to talk a little bit about just dovetail off of what you said earlier [00:05:00] about having a different user ID as opposed to an email address. It gets really confusing when people have a user ID and an email address, but their user ID is is an email address that's different than their contact email address, because they start to think that, you know, that's the email address that they'll get communications to, but it's actually [00:05:30] the email address that it's tied to which which will unpack a little bit later. But just knowing that those things can be different and gets, gets uh, gets definitely into the weeds sometimes. But the user ID, I think the easiest way to remember is the user ID is something that has to be unique, and the email address does not need to be unique, which is why you can have multiple [00:06:00] logins tied to the same email address.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And when that happens, when you log in with that email address, you'll see a dashboard. When you log into QuickBooks, you'll see all the different accounts or realms that are associated with that email address, so that you can easily go from one to the other or pick the one that you need. So when you are looking at accounts intuit.com, then there's a sign in and security area. And again that's where [00:06:30] you can change your user ID, you can change your email address. You can change your password. You can update your phone number. You can also something that's new is add authenticator apps. And if you are using, for instance, one password or LastPass or different authenticator apps. That helps you not have to remember what passwords are, and you can use pass keys and fingerprints and different ways [00:07:00] of authenticating. So now this is actually pretty new. You have the ability to control that experience. Next there's an option for turning on two step verification. This is extremely important in today's day and age. We are hearing more and more about all the different creative ways that people are committing fraud. And if you want to make sure that somebody else isn't logging into you, turning on two step verification so that it has to [00:07:30] either text your phone number or use an authenticator app, that's going to give you that extra layer of protection, and your Wisp policy may even require it your security policy. So, Dan, any comments about two step verification?

Dan DeLong: Do it. That's probably the easiest thing to be because especially accountants and ProAdvisor in the accounting community you have, you are your login is potentially [00:08:00] connected to a lot of sensitive information social security numbers, credit card information. Um, eins, a lot of personally identifiable information is there. And in the cloud accounting realm, um, the only gatekeeper for that is the login that you're using. So the more secure that you have that information connected or locked down, um, so that it [00:08:30] can prove who you are or when you're signing in, that is it's just a paramount thing to, to be to have in place. As annoying as those codes are, as another step to getting into, you know, the keys to the castle. It it's really important for for that to be, you know, for them to be able, you know, for the login, to be able to verify who is logging in and that you're supposed [00:09:00] to be there.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And while Dan was explaining all of that, I turned on my my two step verification. So, um, thank you for that reminder. Okay. Um, the the next thing are linked identities. And if you have identities with either Credit Karma or TurboTax or any of the other Intuit products, you can use the same identity across all of them. And so it [00:09:30] will show you all the different pillars of intuit that you you have used that login for. Okay. Then there's a way of controlling your passkeys and that's you're using facial recognition or your fingerprint or your screen locks. So whether if you're accessing from your phone or an iPad or a fingerprint on Max, I love that thing. Then you can control all of those as well.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. And if you have an Apple Watch, [00:10:00] you can just show up close to your computer and things get unlocked.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yes. And it's so it's funny to me sometimes because I do have that set up on my watch and it logs me in automatically. And sometimes I have to remember myself. Wait, this actually is secure and identifiable. It just happens to be me. So it becomes invisible, which is nice. And if you're not wearing your watch, then all of a sudden it gets a little bit. You realize how secure you have become. Okay. And [00:10:30] then at the end of all of these authentication methods, there's an account activity, and you can actually see all the places where you have logged in and all the different devices. So I just clicked on it and I can see that I'm active in on my MacBook and an iPhone and a windows computer. And so I can see the dates and the different machines and even what apps I used, whether [00:11:00] it was Chrome or whether it was the QuickBooks app or what browser I came in on. And that way you can see if somebody else has logged in to your account from a different computer. That's not you. It tells you the time, tells you the place tells you the browser. This is pretty cool.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, they they've done a lot of work and enhancements on this particular site that, you know, quote unquote. I'm using air quotes for those of you who are listening, uh, people don't even know that this site even exists. And [00:11:30] there's there's just a lot of resources and information that you can access there just for your sign in or your login account.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Um, So everything that we just described were just the section for sign ins and security's tip of.

Dan DeLong: The.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Iceberg. Yeah, that was just that was just the first the second menu item. We've got six more to go through. The the next area is your profile and that's who you are as [00:12:00] a person. And so there's a section for your name. And so you can see what your name is in the system and change it. And your date of birth and your occupation and your address and your social Security number. So this is all your personal identifiable information about you. And this is where you can go to update any of those things if needed. The next section is the business profile. And when I click on this one interestingly, it is actually pulling up [00:12:30] every single QuickBooks client I have pretty much ever worked on and been attached to as an accountant user. And so this is not just my business profile, but all of the clients that you work with. You have access to them as well. Wow. That's pretty impressive. I have actually not worked with some of these clients in ten years. So this is literally everybody whose [00:13:00] file I have ever logged in in my entire career is still on this list.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, I'm not sure if these are active connections, but it might just be a breadcrumb trail of of anyone that you had. Because I know when I worked there, you know, sometimes even if you're, you know, deleted as a user or inactivated as a user, QuickBooks online and, and Intuit in general doesn't like to delete things because then things get severed. So you may see [00:13:30] an inactive customer that that it's in, it's inactive on their end as opposed to just completely severing the connection between your login, and then you're able to like if you were actually to try to access one of these that no longer has access to you. You may not not be able to access them because you are inactive, but you would see it there as a as that breadcrumb trails still exists.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I think that's a good way of putting it, because I know that I am not [00:14:00] associated with some of these files anymore at all, and haven't been. In fact, I don't even recognize some of the names, which means they may have changed the name inside the company.

Dan DeLong: Right.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Moving to the next section is Data and Privacy. So these are your privacy settings. And there's some really interesting things in here. And this is actually what inspired me to want to do this episode. So the data privacy part of it. One thing here is that you can actually [00:14:30] download all of your personal data. You can see what data they're collecting. And I'm going to go ahead and initiate this. It's not immediate. It takes a sometimes up to 15 days to get it, but it's going to give me an example of what all my personal data is. So I'm going to go ahead and initiate this. It's now asking me what my email address is. So I'm going to have it send that information. And [00:15:00] that's cute. Right now it's saying it's unable to do it. But I did this recently. So there it is okay. So now when I tell it that I want to do the download, it's saying, okay, well I have Intuit products, I've got mint, I've got TurboTax, and then I have all these other companies associated with my account. So I'm not going to choose all of them, just the ones that I want to. And then I click continue and it [00:15:30] gives me also lets me know that I have connections with Credit Karma and MailChimp, and I can just keep clicking through this, but it's going to eventually send me an export of my personal data that so that I know what they have on file.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now, the next section after downloading your data is to delete your data, and that includes it says here your data includes personal data you've shared with Intuit. Once your data is deleted, [00:16:00] we won't be able to get it back for you. Not sure you want to delete your data? Here are some other options. Cancel a subscription and then also that download your data that we just did. So I'm definitely not going to do this right now. I don't want to delete my data, but after I have downloaded it and I see what I have, I do have the option to delete it. And then there's another option about correcting your data. So if you find errors, it gives you a link to correct it. Although that just takes you back to that first [00:16:30] section that we were in when we started with all of the personal data. So this is basically giving you insight into what data Intuit does have about you and how it's being used.

Dan DeLong: Were you able to look at this in the past, where you take a look at what they were actually collecting there?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, honestly, I did the download and then I forgot to look at it and it expired and I never went back in to redo it again. So if [00:17:00] you are going to download your data, make sure you look at it before in the safe, in the safe zone. And then after that it's not accessible anymore. So I'll get back to you and let you know what it found out about me. Moving on to the next section is Products and Billing. And when I click on Products and billing, it talks about all of the different software and which packages you have. So for [00:17:30] example, it's mine starts with my name and then it says QuickBooks Online Accountant standard QuickBooks cash, QuickBooks Online Payments QuickBooks online advanced QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite Full Service AC, QuickBooks capital, QuickBooks time. It's basically showing me pretty much all the different parts of my QuickBooks online subscription, because QuickBooks, Intuit considers all of them different apps or different add ons. There's the subscription itself, and [00:18:00] then there's payroll, and then there's, you know, payments. And so this is basically giving me insight into all of not just the services that I'm using. But now while I was talking, it pulled up all of my wholesale clients as well. So now I can actually get to the same subscriptions and billing information that I can from my gear when I'm in my QuickBooks online for accountant. I drilled into that account and now it's showing me [00:18:30] everything that I would see there as well is available here.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. One of the, um, double edged swords of, of Intuit is there's multiple ways to get to the same place. Here is something that is completely outside of, you know, QuickBooks online accountant that you're able to access just by logging into the the accounts section as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Mhm. Okay. So that was the products and billing, which is the same as going into subscriptions and billing from [00:19:00] Qbo. Except that if you have more than one Qbo A account, they're all here under one roof. Next is payment methods. And here it shows you all of the different credit cards and payment methods that you have used to pay for anything in inside the entire Intuit ecosystem anytime, over time. And when you go into any, It'll tell you if something's expired. It'll give you the ability [00:19:30] to pick different payment methods, edit them and manage them and delete them. Now the last part is a documents area, and it's broken up into two sections a business section and a personal section. And when you go into the business section and you select a business, it shows you all of the different QuickBooks online accounts that you have access to. And then when you click on either any of them, it says View Documents. And lo and behold, I now have a list of all [00:20:00] of my attachments. It's got receipts that I've uploaded. It's got I've been playing with the new AI tools and dragging things in so I can see those as well. So you can add documents from here. This is giving you now a new place where you can manage your documents. You can download them as well. So if you are looking for additional ways of accessing attachments for any file. You can even do it now through here without logging into the files directly. [00:20:30] I wish there was a way to rename these though. That's always been one of my pet peeves is that the the codes that it gives every receipt are, um, there's no way of actually knowing anything except the date on it, but at least you do have the date. So if you were searching for something from a particular date, you can at least find the find them that way.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there's a naming convention that makes sense to someone, [00:21:00] but it doesn't seem to be very discernible from that. I think. I think there's a company ID in there or, you know, some other identifier. Uh, besides, besides the date in there, what's under that drop down under under add documents. Is there an option to oh just different ways that you can get the document there But you can't manage these documents other than downloading them. Right.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Downloading them. Right. This the under the add documents. It's the same [00:21:30] ways that we're used to in the receipt center where you can upload from the device, you can connect to it says cloud. Cloud apps. But in this case we know it's Gmail or Google Drive or Add from a mobile device. So it's pretty much the same as going up to the gear and going to accounts. And you are right, by the way, this arcane code that I'm looking at, I know that that is my company ID, so if anybody is ever interested in knowing how your attachments are named, it's your company [00:22:00] ID underscore the year, underscore the month, and then that creates a folder. And then inside that it'll tell you like okay, this is an invoice. And after that it gets arcane and weird. But you can look by date. All right. So that is our tour of accounts dot Intuit. Com and so if you did not know that you can manage your account information, [00:22:30] change, update your account information, manage your privacy settings and access information about the businesses. Now you know.

Dan DeLong: And just one thing to keep in mind of all of this is when you're this is only the things that you will see that's tied to the login that you've just logged into this area. Right. So many, many people can have multiple logins. I'm sure Alicia, you have several. I have several hundred. [00:23:00] Uh, from being on from being on both sides of the of the Intuit badge. Right. I had several logins internally, and I had several logins since I left into it. So knowing which login you're using when you sign in. Um, so if you're not seeing something that you're that you expect to see, like, hey, I just saw this in my QuickBooks. You may be logged in into a different login, right? It's a I [00:23:30] like to use Dan allergies. Um, is that the login is like the key or your driver's license and the what you actually want to drive is the, you know, the car that you're actually getting into, right? You may they may have some things that are very similar seats and wheels and stuff like that. But of course they handle differently and those types of things. So your driver's license allows [00:24:00] you to drive multiple vehicles. It's just what vehicle you happen to be sitting in, which is the experience that you're going to be having.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now there's another website that I want to make sure that people know about and that is called camps dot Intuit. Com. Bill.com. And I knew about camps before. I knew about about accountants. Whitcomb. So let me go ahead and get logged into this. But if you want to start telling me everything that you know about Camp Stan while [00:24:30] I get logged.

Dan DeLong: In, like first is, what does it stand for? Um, and it's right there on the screen is customer account management portal. I don't know what the S is. I guess it's just because there's more than one camp to go into. Um, but that's where you would go typically. And what we would, uh, how we would explain it when, when, when people would call in. That's where you just go to manage your, your account based off of what it is that you wanted to see. [00:25:00] And typically this was where we would send people to log in to manage their desktop because this has a is the external facing view from, um, you know, the, the air or the, the CRM that Intuit would use their large companies. So they would use Salesforce, right? So this is the way that you'd be able to see what you can access from Salesforce.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now this is really [00:25:30] interesting because when I first log in, there's actually several tabs going on. The first thing that it asks you is manage your QuickBooks. Select the product or service you would like to manage, and I see five of them across my street. Quickbooks desktop, QuickBooks online for accountants. Quickbooks online, QuickBooks payments, and Intuit Online Payroll. So there's five different service departments that are all connected here. And I went ahead and I clicked on desktop, which I haven't used in a really long time. [00:26:00] But when I go there now, I see all of the the different QuickBooks desktop accounts that I've had or all of the what else is in here? Quickbooks for Mac QuickBooks Data Recovery Service.

Dan DeLong: Free solar charger.

Alicia Katz Pollock: 2014 free solar charger. I wonder what that's about. But all of the different versions of QuickBooks desktop that I've had and some that I've had for clients as well. [00:26:30] So basically by going to camps, you can look at your entire ecosystem from the perspective of which product am I using? So instead of going by account, you're filtering by, you know, tell me about all of my QuickBooks payments associations. So definitely pretty handy.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. Again, the main thing to be concerned about or the main thing of what you'll see there [00:27:00] is you'll see what's tied in, what's tied to that login that you happen to sign in with. Right. So if you're not, you're not seeing something that you would expect to see. It's probably tied To a different login, which, um, you know, when we talk about personas or company users or, you know, things like that, we will kind of unpack that as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Now, something super cool that I just found is when I clicked on QuickBooks payments, it took me into [00:27:30] the portal where I can literally see all of my clients. And what it's showing me is my QuickBooks payments pricing and how what the fees are for every single one of my customers. So it's showing me the transaction fees and the swiped fees and the chargeback fees and the ACH fees, because depending on when you signed up and how you signed up, you're going to get different rates. And this is awesome because I was just looking for this [00:28:00] information yesterday with a client where I could not find they had they were signed up for QuickBooks payments, but they hadn't used it yet and we didn't know what their fees were. And I was looking around in merchant centers. Intuit QuickBooks. There's another URL for you merchant center Intuit QuickBooks. That is the back end for the merchant services. But even there I couldn't find their rates and I just found the rates.

Dan DeLong: There you go.

Dan DeLong: This is something you can put on the. Look what i found.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. I [00:28:30] just have to remember how I got here. So this was camps.com and then clicking on QuickBooks payments. Okay.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. And I believe that that green button of payment service center that will take you to the merchant center. Yes. Intuit. Com but it's really nice that and you can print it from here. Um, but again, if you're not seeing a company in that drop down that you're expecting to see, it's because it's not tied to the login that you use to get to camps to begin with.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Got it. Okay. Well, that was super [00:29:00] cool. Okay. So now we have taken you to three back doors to show you insights into your Into it, an ecosystem and how Intuit sees you. So now what I want to do is, um, Dan has talked about this topic on Cube Power Hour before, and he wrote this excellent article that we will link to in the show notes. Through School of Bookkeeping. Com and talking about all the different, [00:29:30] um, as much as you could possibly want to know about all of this. But before we dive into it, the one thing I want to mention is I was on a call with, um, with Roundtable Labs, and Alexis Sadler was telling us a story about how one of her, one of her bookkeepers lost complete access to [00:30:00] their qbo. They would go into log. They would go to log in to Qbo, and it was just flat out not working. And they were completely locked out. So they were working with Intuit to get back in. Again, nobody could figure out why it happened. And my blood ran cold because it was like, well, shoot, if I get locked out, I literally can't do my job. Yeah. And we came up with a way of creating a back door for yourself, for [00:30:30] emergencies, so that you have a way in, even if you don't. Even if your main domain is locked out. And what you should do in all of you should absolutely do this is go add yourself as a different email address to your teams inside Qbo. So when you're in your QuickBooks online for accountants and you look on the left hand side, it says team. Add yourself as a team member, give yourself full access [00:31:00] to your books so that you can get to your own qbo and then assign all of your clients to yourself as well. And then that way you have an alternative username and password that you can get in in case you're locked out from the front door. You can get in through the window.

Dan DeLong: Yeah.

Dan DeLong: We've I've I've experienced that that frantic call when when people have have called in. And there's typically [00:31:30] a good reason for it. One one person I was working with, they were you know, there was their login was was compromised. Right. I mean, like, you know, when they're when their login is actually being logging in from, uh, you know, some foreign country regularly, uh, that, that is one of those things that, that Intuit collects data on. Right. Like, where are you signing in from? Um, and if it's popping [00:32:00] all over the country now or in my case, you know, outside of the country, then they may deactivate the login to require, you know, you to prove who you are or when you, when you sign in because your login is, is typically connected to multiple things and sensitive. And Intuit would like you to only have one login because everything that they have requires you to sign in. So [00:32:30] it does make sense that you know that login with all of the things that is connected to payment methods and all the things that we just just unpacked and talked about, that if that is suspicious, then those those logins can get deactivated.

Dan DeLong: And then it's, it's a it's a pain. And I'm sure you know, we can we can talk all sorts of things about trying to prove who you are. Uh, [00:33:00] is, is is is definitely a pain when it has crossed that threshold. Um, you know, I had, uh, someone who was living overseas and their ProAdvisor profile got deactivated because they were it was them, but they were logging in overseas because that's what their living arrangement was. And of course, that, uh, that's a no no. Right. Proadvisor login should [00:33:30] be us. Uh, so, you know, after a while that, you know, of logging in overseas, they had to deactivate the, you know, take down the profile, um, until it was discovered. Oh, this is what's really going on, but you have to prove that sort of thing. So then it's, you know, sending and submitting and somebody has to verify and actually get it reactivated. But that's a good, um, good work around, uh, to be able to provide yourself a [00:34:00] backdoor into your clients because that's that. Those are the keys to the castle getting logged in.

Alicia Katz Pollock: One of the other things that I wanted to bring up is the concept of primary admin. With your qbo files, your primary admin is the person who is responsible for the account. And when you are an accountant user creating it for your client, it gives you the option whether you're going to be the primary admin or your client [00:34:30] is going to be the primary admin. And some bookkeeping firms will say, well, I'm the one who's doing all the work. I'm the one paying for the subscription. Therefore I am the primary admin. But really, Intuit's platform is that the primary admin is should be the business owner, even if they're not the main user, even if they're, um, It. It's their data. [00:35:00] You're the person who's creating the data, but you don't own the file. They own the file. So if you're in the situation where either you're the primary admin and you need to transfer it to the client, or the client is already the primary admin, but maybe the person who was responsible is leaving the company, or is no longer going to be the person with the main responsibility. You want to always make sure that your primary admin is the responsible party.

Dan DeLong: Yeah. [00:35:30] It's um, you know, the the Intuit definition of who the primary admin is, is, uh, is in reality is the first person to touch that service. Right. And so, um, that's that's not all the time. That's the that's who it should be. Right. But it's, that's, that could be delegated to somebody, you know, office manager. Hey, sign me up for Or, uh, payroll or sign me up for a [00:36:00] service. Or it could be the accountant doing it on behalf of of of their client. So that that can always be, you know, it's really easy to become the primary admin because you just sign up for a service. And that's, again, the first person to do that. Whatever. Whoever that login is then becomes that, that primary admin, with the exception of something like what you were just saying of, hey, I'm creating a QuickBooks online subscription for my client, and you have [00:36:30] that option to make me the primary admin as the as the accountant or make my client. But there's this limbo at that point where, you know, they're they're sent a, an email and they have to accept it. It's not just automatic because, you know, we they don't know the login that's going to be tied to that primary admin until All, somebody accepts that, you know, you're passing the baton to your client, [00:37:00] but they have to actually grab it and take it. So if they never either get the email or they never accept it, which is typically the case. Oh, it got buried in, you know, either junk or spam or just never got addressed. Nobody's the primary admin. And then that becomes a that certainly becomes a challenge when it comes to, well, who's who.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, I think that whoever was the primary admin stays until the until the request has been fulfilled. Now, I [00:37:30] do have one exception to my rule about the business owner being the primary admin. And that's if they're working with QuickBooks Commerce, because QuickBooks Commerce integrations can only be set up by the primary admin. And I have three clients where I actually have to have their QuickBooks login so that I log in as them in order to do my commerce work, which I still think is the right thing. To do under this particular circumstance. [00:38:00] It's not like I'm getting any keys to the kingdom, because, you know, I'm just doing the same work I would be doing ordinarily. But there's some things in QuickBooks online, like apps that can only be connected by the primary. So if you are the the person in charge of all the apps, then you do need to be primary. But otherwise I make it the the business owner.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, that's a good that's a good point. Um, you know, because there's not much that a company admin or somebody with full control, like you were saying with the [00:38:30] other option to being able to get in, they can't do. But when it comes to sharing QuickBooks data with something else, then that is something that, that that typically the primary admin or at least, you know, the app developers would prefer, um, you know, we've had all sorts of challenges when when accountants try to do these things on behalf of their clients and they can't because again, you know, there's there's real [00:39:00] world implications for, you know, for these things to, to actually happen. But typically the primary admin is the only thing that they can't do in or a company admin can't do with full control is modify the primary admin. It's like, you know, right. Sauron's ring. Right? It's A11 login or one person to rule them all is the primary admin. But, uh, you you just can't take that from, [00:39:30] uh, from somebody. They have to grant it or give it to somebody else.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Right. And so what Dan's basically saying is that if you need to change the primary admin, the only person who can do that is the primary admin has to log in and then pick another user. And next to the drop down it says transfer primary admin. And then they accept that invitation. And then that's how primary admin is passed from one person to another. If you don't have access, if that person's gone and you can't, then you [00:40:00] actually do have to talk to Intuit. And, um, there's kind of a legal process. You have to justify ownership of the file. So it's not immediate. You have to jump through some hoops.

Dan DeLong: Yeah.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, it is a legal process because they have to reach out to whoever is listed as the primary admin. That could be, you know, a prior, prior accountant, uh, or you know, someone who's deceased or somebody who's no longer employed with the company [00:40:30] or somebody who doesn't have access to that email again anymore. So, um, and they have to wait the prescribed amount of days before that, actually, uh, before they can take the next step. So typically, you know, 7 to 10 business days is, is the expectation, uh, if that person is responsive, then of course that time time frame should be should be less than that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now, the pretty much the last thing that I want to say about that is I [00:41:00] see a threads on the socials periodically from a bookkeeper who is being let go by the client, and they are the primary admin on the file, and their reaction is, well, I did all the work and I set up the file so it's not theirs, it's mine. And then they refuse to let go of the primary admin. Don't be that person. That's petty. You're burning bridges. It's the client's data. They paid for it. They didn't [00:41:30] just pay for the service. They paid for the results. And the results are the data. So if you are the primary admin and you're separating, be the bigger person and and make the business owner the primary admin or better yet, don't be the primary admin unless you have an app situation requiring it.

Dan DeLong: Yeah, because Intuit will side on the side on the business owners side of things provided they provide to them. You know, the legal, the legal documents [00:42:00] that that are, that are necessary. So it is a losing battle when it comes to that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. So save yourself the hassle and and just do it right in the first place. Yeah. Okay. So that was a tour of accounts dot intuit com camps dot Intuit com and the and a conversation about the role of primary admin. Again if you have not logged in to any of these places, you will experience some [00:42:30] delight as you discover insight into how intuit, what Intuit tracks about you, how they track it about you, and ways of accessing all the different accounts in your own universe in a way that you did not even know that you had. So definitely check those out and we will have links to Dan's very thorough article in the show notes as well. So, Dan, what's going on in your world?

Dan DeLong: Well, um, you know, working [00:43:00] in the Power Hour as well as school of bookkeeping. And one of the things that we're working with there is I'm working with my friends over at Makers Hub, um, to provide or create a almost like a cohort of I in accounting. Um, you know, because, uh, AI is not something to be trifled with or thought about lightly lately. Um, but [00:43:30] it's not something to be scared of either. So, um, that's, that's a core course or cohort that we're looking to put together of how to, how to how to tame the beast, so to speak.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Excellent. Well, I will totally look forward to that.

Dan DeLong: What are you up to, Alicia?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, I just taught my my banking class for Qbo, and now I'm moving on to reconciling. And so I have an hour and a half class on reconciling because, [00:44:00] as we know, many business owners think that reconciling just means checking off everything that's on the statement. And we all know that reconciling means a lot more than that. What are all these other transactions and why are they there? And are they supposed to be there and await? They're not supposed to be there. How did they get there and how do I fix it? So my reconciling class is not just what's a reconciliation, but it's how to trick out all the tools in the [00:44:30] interface and use them for prime efficiency, and also how to do the the diagnostic diagnostics and forensics and how to fix the errors that you commonly find it's going to be a two hour class, it's going to be live on March 18th from 9 to 11 Pacific time. And if you can't make it live, the recording will be available. It's two CPE and you can register for it. We'll have the link in the show notes, and you can also go [00:45:00] to learn.com and either explore and find it or click on the calendar.

Dan DeLong: That sounds like a really useful class for this really, where the rubber hits the road when it comes to what it is that you're doing for your clients.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, when you're proactive about making sure the data is right all the way through, then you don't need the big pretax cleanup. It's just rock solid as you go, and reconciling is the time to do the work. Right. All right. Well, with all that being said, [00:45:30] we will see you in the next one.

Dan DeLong: Take care everyone.