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Intuit Plans Online Practice Management Product

Intuit showcased a series of products and services at a press event in New York on Tuesday evening, including a new online practice management system it has been testing.

The company plans to launch ProLine Practice Management in the summer or fall, according to senior product manager Aaron Brady. “It was built by accountants, for accountants,” he said. The system includes time and billing features and will be able to integrate with QuickBooks and Lacerte. The system has a similar interface as QuickBooks Online. Intuit has been testing the system with about 1,000 accounting firms and approximately 5,000 users. Features will include iPhone and iPad interfaces.

The company is also planning to expand its QuickBooks Online service internationally, starting with the United Kingdom and Singapore. The U.K. version of QuickBooks Online goes live next week, according to group marketing manager Barb Anderson. The system handles value-added taxes and multicurrency features. The company has been beta testing the system with about 880 users. In Singapore, Intuit will be partnering with telecommunications provider SingTel. After the U.K. and Singapore, Intuit plans to expand QuickBooks Online to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, although the dates for availability have not yet been set.

Intuit showed off Mint.com, the online personal financial planning service it acquired in 2009. Last week, the company added home loan features to the service that suggest other types of mortgage arrangements that users might want to set up. Users can also set various goals, like reducing their credit card debts and map expenses like restaurant bills against their budgets, according to Mint.com manager of business development Carrie Cronkey.

Intuit also showcased ProLine Tax Import, which allows users to easily import tax information into ProSeries and Lacerte, according to marketing manager Luis Sanchez.

Intuit is going mobile and demonstrated its Small Business Mobile Suite. The suite includes payroll software, the company’s GoPayment technology, QuickBooks and more. The applications can be accessed by phone or tablet. A version will be coming out in the next couple of weeks for accountants that will allow them to process payroll for clients from a mobile device, according to product manager Colin Roper.

Also on the mobile side, the company showed its SnapTax app for the Apple iPhone and Android phones. The company has seen 350,000 downloads of SnapTax since it was introduced in January. Two weeks ago, the company also began offering an iPad version of TurboTax that can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store.

The company also demonstrated an innovative new collaborative system for large enterprises called Intuit Brainstorm. The online system was originally developed for internal use at Intuit, according to product manager Tad Milbourn. Intuit is now selling Brainstorm to other companies, and it is being used to help teams develop new ideas and projects across locations.

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