Intuit has released the latest updates for its QuickBooks Online Advanced product, including an upgrade to the points system for ProAdvisors.
The updates come at a time when Intuit is under the microscope for testing a new bookkeeper-for-hire program that some believe would put contracted bookkeepers in direct competition with QuickBooks ProAdvisors. Rich Preece, QuickBooks U.S. country leader at Intuit, told Accounting Today that this will not be the case, as the first people Intuit will reach out to for this new program will be ProAdvisors themselves. Nonetheless, Intuit continues to add more incentives to its ProAdvisor program which allows certified QuickBooks experts to list themselves in a directory to generate leads on potential clients.
There is also a detailed points history available via a link on the ProAdvisor "Benefits" tab in QuickBooks Online Accountant in the U.S., Canada and Australia. Firms can see at a glance every action that has resulted in points being either added or removed from their points balance.
Finally, the QuickBooks Accountant Education team will be releasing two new QuickBooks Online recertification courses and exams in late March: one course/exam for Core Certified ProAdvisors and the other for Advanced Certified ProAdvisors.
Other key updates for QuickBooks Online Advanced, an offering launched last year targeted at small to mid-sized customers, include:
- Accelerated invoicing, which combines the new multiple invoicing and import invoicing features. This is meant to help Advanced users optimize repetitive invoicing tasks. This feature is available exclusively in QuickBooks Online Advanced and allows users to:
- Create hundreds of invoice transactions at a time by importing a .CSV file into QuickBooks.
- Streamline the creation, editing and sending of large amounts of multiple invoices. Users can also send the same invoice to multiple clients.
- The client overview feature is a dashboard now available inside a client’s QuickBooks Online Advanced file. The dashboard guides accountants directly to relevant transaction reports, specific bank accounts and the reconciliation tab.
- Enhanced custom fields, which allow accountants to make use of multiple field types, which are translated to reporting throughout the books.
- The ability to add up to three accountant users (other versions of QuickBooks Online enable only up to two).
- Custom user permissions that give users selective access to work in one or more areas, such as sales transactions, expense transactions, sales reports, expense reports and bank deposits. It also allows users to configure permissions in different ways to manage access to sensitive data. Selected access for sales transaction such as invoices or estimates will also be introduced.
Those interested in QuickBooks Online Advanced can take it for a test drive here:
