New product innovations announced at QuickBooks Connect help accountants drive small business growth

At this year’s QuickBooks Connect conference in Las Vegas, Nov. 13-15, more than 2,500 accountants learned about many new product and feature innovations that will help them serve their clients through the QuickBooks Online ecosystem.

Across three days of programming, attendees fostered relationships, heard from influential and inspirational leaders, earned CPE credits, and saw the latest updates from Intuit QuickBooks.

“Accounting professionals are our most valued partner," said Jeremy Sulzmann, vice president of the QuickBooks Accountants Segment. QuickBooks Connect allows us to foster deeper relationships with them so we can work better together to empower and fuel small business success. Our 2023 event is doubling down on how AI-driven innovations can help accountants and the small businesses they serve gain insights to make more informed business decisions. Together, we’re unlocking new ways to power prosperity.”

Here is a summary of the innovations announced at QuickBooks Connect.

Introducing QuickBooks Ledger

QuickBooks Ledger is a new, cost-effective product designed exclusively for accountants to help them serve all their clients on one standardized platform, including those with basic accounting needs, including year-end tax filing.

QuickBooks Ledger harnesses the power of automation—streamlining manual workflows so accountants can focus on higher-value services. Features include automated bank feeds, bank reconciliation, financial statements, 1099 tracking, and a seamless transition to tax preparation. QuickBooks Ledger is fully integrated and accessible only through QuickBooks Online Accountant, so accountants can manage end-to-end workflows for all their clients from one place. QuickBooks Ledger will first be available to accountants in the United States, followed soon by those in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

QuickBooks Online Accountant improvements 

QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) is the one place accounting professionals go to manage their firm and their QuickBooks clients. New QBOA improvements announced at QuickBooks Connect further help accountants save time and streamline their workflows so they can spend more time advising their clients. QBOA innovations include the following:

• Expanded roles and permissions: As accounting firms grow and serve more complex clients, more granular, and customizable roles and permissions are needed to access the books of the firm and clients. QuickBooks is currently rolling out new advanced roles and permissions in QBOA to meet these needs. Accountants will be able to manage what their team can see and do on behalf of a client, choosing a role that limits access or views to banking, sales, or expense data. Accountants also will be able to delegate highly sensitive tasks to more experienced employees, such as paying invoices or running payroll to help avoid the risk of mistakes and liability.
• Chart of Accounts templates: Now available in QBOA, Chart of Accounts templates save accountants time by streamlining the creation, customization, and saving of chart of accounts for new and existing clients. Accountants can build templates from scratch or customize ready-made product-based or service-based business charts of accounts. Accountants can also import templates from Microsoft Excel.
• Improved add client experience: Now through the QBOA dashboard, when an accountant connects a new client, they can add QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Time, and soon will be able to add QuickBooks Bill Pay and QuickBooks Payments. This streamlines their workflow and makes it easier and faster to bring the benefits of the integrated QuickBooks ecosystem to their clients.

New QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program 

For more than 25 years, the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program has supported accounting professionals by giving them access to exclusive discounts, tools, training, and events to help retain talent and expand their businesses. The newly refreshed program was built in partnership with the accounting community, and has evolved to provide value to accounting professionals and firms at every growth stage. The reimagined program marks the start of a new era of continued investment in the accounting industry with more than 20 changes, including the following;

• Pre-written email campaigns and templates to support client relationship management and QuickBooks product enhancements.
• New discounts and benefits for full-service accounting firms that also use Intuit® ProConnect™ Tax professional tax solutions.
• New training on third-party app integrations and ProConnect Tax solutions (additional terms, conditions, and fees may apply).
• Premium customer support extended to Gold ProAdvisors (previously only available to Platinum and Elite), accountant approved apps, and special events.
• Newly-designed certification, tier, community, and skills badges to differentiate ProAdvisors’ levels of expertise to potential clients.

Learn more about the new program and benefits.

QuickBooks Online Ecosystem improvements

QuickBooks Online ecosystem improvements that meet the ever-evolving needs of more complex, growing businesses were also announced at QuickBooks Connect. Product improvements announced include the following:

QuickBooks Online Advanced

QuickBooks Online Advanced provides a higher level of performance, scalability and customization for more complex businesses. New enhancements include the following:

• Expanded role-based access controls: Soon, your clients will be able to assign more specific roles and permissions based on what a team member needs to perform their job. A business owner can control who can view, create, edit, or delete transactions, as well as access accounting features such as reconciliation, registers, and journal entries. Access controls will also apply to reports, managing who can view or customize different financial reports, sales reports, receivable reports, payroll reports, and more. By limiting access to sensitive information, there is a more effective separation of duties and delegation of tasks, while maintaining safeguards of financial and payroll data.
• Custom reports and charts: In addition to the breadth of reporting already available in Advanced, QuickBooks is introducing custom calculations and KPIs so businesses can make reports more relevant and drive informed business decisions. The ability to add any report or chart to Management Reports has also been added to help business owners tell a richer data story.
• Fixed Asset module: Advanced’s new fixed asset module will provide business owners with a comprehensive solution for fixed asset accounting. With a new fixed asset hub, batch fixed asset onboarding, and onboarding from expense and bill transaction forms, these capabilities will streamline the process of adding, tracking, depreciating, disposing, and reporting on fixed assets, making it easier to maintain accurate, complete, and compliant financial records.
• Approval workflows: Soon, your clients on Advanced will have access to expanded approval workflows capabilities, helping business owners enforce compliance and organizational policies in an automated way. New estimate approval workflows help businesses get estimates approved before they’re shared with their customers. Multi-level and multi-condition approval workflows help route approvals based on a company’s organizational hierarchy and different transaction conditions such as amounts, classes, locations, customers, vendors, and more. Finally, until transactions are approved, they will not get posted to the general ledger, ensuring accurate and complete financials.

QuickBooks Payroll

New and enhanced capabilities unveiled for QuickBooks Payroll customers include:

• HR tools: QuickBooks Payroll will provide employers with an HR hub that includes features to make it easier to capture employee data and enhance the new-hire onboarding experience, including document management, comprehensive employee records, organization charts, team directories, and a mobile app for employee self service.
• Payroll cost allocation: With payroll cost allocation, QuickBooks Payroll customers soon will be able to split a given employee’s hourly and non-hourly payroll costs into multiple classes, along with associated projects, so that labor cost can be tracked accurately and in detail, eliminating the need for extra journal entries to get granular classifications.
• Payroll item management: The new pay item management tool will soon provide business owners with a consolidated display of pay types, deductions, and contributions assigned to employees in a filterable table. Business owners will also be able to create a pay item, bulk assign, and edit assignment information for all employees in one place.
• Allstate Health Solutions partnership: QuickBooks now has a partnership with Allstate Health Solutions to provide QuickBooks Online Payroll customers with enhanced insurance options for their employees. As QuickBooks customers scale their businesses and grow their employee base, they will have the ability to build the right benefits package, with employee deductions all synced seamlessly with their payroll.

Get more information and details on all the latest updates across QuickBooks Payroll.

QuickBooks Online e-commerce innovations

QuickBooks is rolling out several new and improved e-commerce innovations for QuickBooks Online, purpose-built to help small businesses seamlessly manage inventory across multiple sales channels from one central location. With product-based businesses using inefficient methods—including spreadsheets and pen and paper to track inventory—enhanced e-commerce capabilities help businesses manage orders and inventory with more confidence and less work. Updated features allow customers to sync across sales channels, spot opportunities for growth, maintain accurate inventory, seamlessly replenish low stock, and more.

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