Jaclyn Anku, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: On today's episode of In the Know, we'll be exploring productivity enhancements to the QuickBooks Online desktop app, including a new split-screen feature and the ability to have multiple tabs open for multiple clients. Here's what to expect.

You'll see the update in action, and then hear from ProAdvisor correspondents Roman Villard and Nayo Carter-Gray, who share their advice on how you can work smarter, not harder.

Hey, ProAdvisors, I'm Jaclyn, and you're watching In the Know. It's the show designed to keep you in the know on the most exciting updates to QuickBooks Online.

When it comes to working in the QuickBooks Online desktop app, we heard that you want to have multiple reports open at the same time, and that it's a pain to have to switch between companies when you go from working on one client file to another. So here's what's new: You can now split your screen so that you can view and interact with multiple reports or files all at once within a single interface. This is really useful when it comes to comparing documents or referencing multiple sources of data. And that's not all. Using the desktop app, you can now open multiple tabs and each tab can have a different company file. That way, you can work across multiple clients all at once.

Here are the Fast Facts:

• These productivity enhancements to the QuickBooks Online desktop app are available to all users, including accountants and small business owners. 
• You can download the app by visiting the settings in QuickBooks Online, then clicking on Get the Desktop app.
• The app has been available since 2022 to users in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and the team continues to make improvements.

If you find this update interesting or helpful, go ahead and like, comment, and subscribe. It's my pleasure to welcome the product leader behind this update, Radhika, to tell us a bit more about the app.

Radhika Jain: Thank you so much, Jaclyn, for having me here. I'm super excited. 

Let me quickly walk you through on how you can use this feature inside the product. As you can see on my screen, this is the QuickBooks Online desktop app. Once you are in the desktop view, which is a toggle button on the top left, you’ll see the button of split screen in the split screen mode. For example, I want to compare two reports. I have one report open from the left navigation. When I click right, I will get an option to open another split screen. This screen will allow us to show how this product works.

Once you are in the split screen mode, you can search for anything you like and have the screens open, parallel, side by side. Here, there is a report of profit and loss, and a balance sheet open side by side. I can either choose to view, continue to view, compare both of these, or easily change the tasks I'm using in split view. So when I click on the back button, I come back to the home screen. Over here, I have an option to choose anything from my quick access menu, and open that or whichever active screen you have. For instance, currently my active screen is the report section because when you click on it, there's a green outline that helps you identify which screen is active. Each active screen can be changed with the help of the left navigation or the top menu.

Let's look at how you can change it. All you have to do is click on the chart of accounts, which I opened on the left side. On the right side, I took the top menu and changed to windows, so it's very easy to change what you're viewing. Now, the options you have on the screen—which are the five options—can also be customized. You have the option to choose anything up to five. You can reorder them the way you like and start using them. Not just that; once you're done using split screen, you can click on the same button and close the split screen.

I hope that was helpful and entertaining.

Jaclyn Anku: Radhika, thanks so much for joining us on the show. We’re really happy to have you here. We'll turn now to ProAdvisor correspondents Nayo and Roman for them to weigh in. Nayo, Roman, thanks so much for hanging out with us on In the Know. We're so happy to have you on this episode.

Nayo Carter-Gray: Thanks for having us.

Jaclyn Anku: All right. We're talking about the QuickBooks Online desktop app. Roman, do you use this at your firm?

Roman Villard: Yes, I've been using the desktop app for QuickBooks Online for about two years and love the functionality versus the online web application. It's been a lot more efficient for me, and I can happily go into detail on why that’s the case.

Nayo Carter-Gray: I heard about it a while ago, downloaded and used it, but  didn’t really want to have another app on the computer. But in preparation for this call, I knew the app had been updated, so I checked it out. Ever since we set up this call, I've been using it. It's been super, super helpful. I even showcased it to my team in our team meeting. So now I'm encouraging them to download and use it as well. 

Jaclyn Anku: That's awesome. I hope the same goes for other ProAdvisors; when they see this episode, they’ll see the updates and realize that it can help them save a lot of time. Nayo, when you're working in a single client file, we heard about the split screen, which seems like a huge timesaver. Tell me about how you use the split screen or other productivity hacks when you're working on a single client.

Nayo Carter-Gray: For me, split screen is usually in my review process, right? We're looking at financial statements and then asking what’s going on with the data. If we need to make adjustments, the split screen really helps in making those adjustments without having to close the financial statements to see how the reports are changing.

That's how we use it most effectively, especially now that I’m delegating some things and just looking at high-level numbers. Maybe I need to see if there's a receipt attached and maybe even look at who entered the information in the audit log—and then help my team strategize on how we can do things more effectively. But, I love it because, you know, I don't have to duplicate the tab. It's just a lot when you're doing it online, and if we have to look at multiple companies, it just kills the entire screen.

So this app has been really, really, really effective.

Jaclyn Anku: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that. And what about you, Roman? When you're working in a single client, how does the app help you save time?

Roman Villard: It's super similar to Nayo. You know I try to be as efficient as possible and love multitasking, even though I may not be great at it. However, when I'm going through a financial review, I'm typically starting with the balance sheet. So I want to have a full view of the balance sheet, first, and then click into the transaction level detail or individual expenses, vendors, or what have you. By enabling a split screen, I can have both of those at once because there's all these relationships on the balance sheet of how things work together. So it allows me to go that one step deeper without having to toggle in, toggle out, toggle in, and toggle out. I can have those side by side.

And so for me, when you are performing many reviews in a single month, having that ability on a single file within the same screen has been really helpful for me. I believe my team has started using it that way as well.

Jaclyn Anku: If you happen to be working on multiple clients at once, I hear that there's some other productivity hacks within the app, such as having multiple tabs open. Have you been able to use the multi-tab feature and how has it helped you save time?

Roman Villard: For better or worse. I'm a tab hoarder, so I've got 38 tabs in my web application on various things. Now that I'm capable of having multiple tabs in QuickBooks, I can have more than 10 tabs at any given time. I don't work in all of them at the same time; however, there are often things in the review process that you try to maybe push back to the team or you to see corrections made. And while that's happening, if it's going to be in real time with your team, you can then toggle more easily to another set of books to continue the review process.

That's typically how I use that multi tab feature. but I like having multiple tabs. It makes me feel more efficient. It's been helpful for me.

Jaclyn Anku: And how about that color coding?

Roman Villard: Oh, I'm a color coder; it's helpful for me to navigate within the tabs in QuickBooks.

Jaclyn Anku: Nayo, can you relate to that? Are you a color coder? 

Nayo Carter-Gray: I am a color coder, and if I can see a blue versus a red dot, it makes it easier for me to know where I'm going. And I'm like Roman; I am a tab hoarder. When I look at my cell phone and see all the Safari windows that are open, it is so shameful. But with the QuickBooks app, I've been working on this project where we have these clients that are in this group—and that chart of accounts just needs to be precisely the same. There were a couple of clients we set up before we started using the chart of account templates, so I've had to kind of have multiple companies open just to make sure the chart of accounts match: one “s” on gift versus gifts makes a difference, especially when we start doing some of our consolidation projects.

I am thankful the desktop app was reintroduced to me. So thanks, Jaclyn. If you wouldn't have resurfaced this, I wouldn't have been more efficient last week. I know I shaved at least one hour of time off of my project I was working on because of the  updated desktop app. 

Jaclyn Anku: Well, hey, you're welcome. And honestly, thank you for being here. I think this was the perfect overview of some awesome time savers within a client file across client files. It sounds like folk should be downloading that app to save time. So, Nayo and Roman, thanks so much for hanging out on this episode.

Nayo Carter-Gray: Thanks for having us.

Jaclyn Anku: See ya!  And thank you for watching this episode, I'm Jaclyn, the host of In The Know and leader of ProAdvisor Training and Certification. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell so that you don't miss a single episode. We'll catch you next time.

Meet the ProAdvisors

ProAdvisor Nayo Carter-Gray: Founder, 1st Step Accounting

ProAdvisor Roman Villard: Founder, Full Send Finance