Tech News: Intuit introduces subscription-free QuickBooks Money

Intuit has unveiled QuickBooks Money, a payment and banking solution with no monthly fees or minimum balance requirements, available to small businesses in a mobile and web-enabled experience without a subscription. The product is aimed at small business owners who may not initially need the QuickBooks platform's full range of financial management and accounting capabilities but are still seeking a tool to get paid and manage their money. Once someone opens an account, they gain the ability to send a personalized invoice or payment request and let customers choose a payment method that's convenient for them — credit or debit, ACH bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal or Venmo. Eligible payments can land in the user's bank account the same day, on nights, weekends and holidays. They can use the free QuickBooks Visa business debit card, which enables access to over 19,000 Allpoint ATMs nationwide; use envelopes in QuickBooks Money to save for expenses and earn 1.75% APY on envelope balances; FDIC insurance coverage of up to $5 million via a deposit sweep feature, which works in the background to sweep balances above $250,000 to a network of FDIC insured banks; and track business income and expenses in one place to view how their business is doing and make financial decisions. Future planned enhancements to QuickBooks Money include subscription-free access to other QuickBooks small business solutions such as bill pay, in-person payments and lending. QuickBooks Money customers can upgrade to QuickBooks' subscription-based services such as accounting, payroll and more anytime.

Online accounting and tax community TaxBuzz announced TaxBuzz AI, touted as a "vertical" search engine designed to answer tax and accounting questions for both American taxpayers and industry professionals. TaxBuzz AI is an artificial intelligence-powered generative search tool that identifies answers to both basic and complex tax queries using material sourced from trusted sources, including a community of over 700,000 CPAs, EAs and tax professionals within TaxBuzz's network. TaxBuzz AI was trained by a database of over 150 tax guides based on the U.S. tax code, thousands of articles, and a library of insights authored by industry experts. Each search result generated through TaxBuzz AI is vetted and peer-reviewed for accuracy. If a topic is not yet in the TaxBuzz library, TaxBuzz AI will scour the web for accurate, authoritative responses that will be fact-checked by human experts. TaxBuzz began developing TaxBuzz AI in the fall of 2022 and has been working closely with industry experts to create a vertical search system in the tax and accounting space. 

Financial transformation solutions provider BlackLine added AI-enabled intercompany accounting capabilities. Intercompany Predictive Guidance will be integrated into BlackLine's family of financial management solutions. BlackLine's Intercompany Predictive Guidance uses artificial intelligence, built upon a machine learning model, to analyze an organization's transactional data. The applied AI then predicts where issues are likely to arise and pose a risk to financial close processes and data accuracy before the transactions are booked. It highlights high-risk transactions, explains risk factors, shows accounting teams where immediate corrections are possible, and provides guidance for future transactions. Intercompany Predictive Guidance will initially be available for BlackLine's Intercompany Non-Trade solution, which manages and automates services-related transactions.