Jaclyn Anku, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: On today's episode of In the Know, we'll be exploring how you can now use org charts in QuickBooks Online Payroll to communicate team structure and build alignment.

Here's what to expect. You'll see an Intuit product leader give a deep dive demo, and we'll then hear from ProAdvisors Nayo Carter-Gray and Erin Vukelich. 

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. So here's the scoop. Employers and employees alike want to see a clear view of their team and business, so we've built a brand-new team directory feature to visualize and communicate the team structure.

And now for the Fast Facts:

• The team directory launched in January 2024 and is available to users of QuickBooks Online Payroll who are on Core, Premium and Elite in the United States and Canada.
• To access it, navigate to the payroll menu, then employees, then org chart.

If you find this update interesting or helpful, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. 

Let's turn now to Intuit product leader Annie for her to give a deep dive demo. Hey Annie, welcome to the show.

Annie Brennan: Awesome. Thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Hey everyone, I'm super excited to be talking to you all about the org chart feature.

Let's check out what this experience looks like and jump into an account. Here we have my pseudo account, Annie's Apple Orchard and Pumpkin Patch. Here, I went from the employee list into the organizational chart on the right side. In this chart, I see the hierarchy of my team and my five direct reports. I also see that here, at the bottom, there's someone with no manager assigned, Nicholas Guan. I'm going to go into this assign manager experience, and I can sort by manager or employee; I'm going to choose employee. Right now, I can find Nicholas based on his name in alphabetical order. I then select the manager, whom I know to be Varun. Given Nick is a pumpkin picker, I'm going to find the head pumpkin picker, who I know is Varun and select that. I see that automatically saves that relationship, and I click done. I now no longer see Nick at the bottom, and if I click under Varun, I see that Nick is right there, nested within this specific reporting structure. I can see Varun reports to Annie and that Nicholas reports to Varun. I'm able to do this and understand the nesting reporting structures below my own head role as the owner.

In addition, within this experience, I'm able to click into show org chart and workforce. This setting is great to be able to have control over what your employees see in their workforce experience. Once you and your client feel that this is representative of your team and you feel confident about what the org chart looks like, click show Org Chart and Workforce. Then, depending on the privacy needs of your employees, you can include or not include email addresses and phone numbers in this experience. Click apply, and this will then be available for your employees to view in their workforce experience.

I'll hop over here and quickly show what that would look like. Employees would be able to go into their workforce experience, which is a pulled-back version of QuickBooks, giving them mainly personal info on pay and documents. Now they're able to see an org chart additionally shown in that experience, so they're able to leverage a lot of the reporting nested structure functionality, as well as click in and view a larger view of their profile picture. They are able to connect directly by clicking on the email as well as the phone number to be able to immediately connect with their teammates. This does not have some of the bells and whistles, such as editing, so they don't have enough control to be able to make any changes to it.

That's it for me. Thank you so much for having me come and talk about org charts.

Jaclyn Anku: Annie, thank you so much for that demo. That was fantastic. We'll turn now to ProAdvisors Nayo Carter-Gray and Erin Vukelich. Erin, Nayo, thank you so much for joining me on this episode of In the Know. It's so great to have you here.

Nayo Carter-Gray: Thanks for having us.

Erin Vukelich: Thank you.

Jaclyn Anku: Today we're talking about org charts. So Erin, let me start with you. I know that it's pretty rare for ProAdvisors to actually set up the org charts on their clients behalf, but there's a huge opportunity to actually advise clients on how to take care of their team. I'd love to hear about how you have those conversations with your clients.

Erin Vukelich: Usually it starts out with bringing the new clients on and as they're onboarding their team into payroll. Starting with the org chart is incredibly helpful for them, especially if they haven't even considered putting together an org chart. It makes it so clear for the employees to know who they're answering to and where in the organization they need to go, especially with clients who are on a high-growth, fast-growth track. They are going to be adding more team members pretty quickly and immediately. Putting them into the org chart can be so clarifying for everyone on the team.

Nayo Carter-Gray: It also adds a bit of personality, especially with payroll, if employees are adding their pictures. And, when working with clients that have remote team members, it's kind of like a first introduction to the people they are working with? What do they look like? You can kind of see some of their personalities just from those pictures.

Erin Vukelich: I have to second that—being able to see people's image. Before you hop on a zoom call or see them in person, it is so nice to at least have a little bit of a foundation going into that introduction. Like okay, “I've seen this face before.” It's familiar and makes me a little confident, so I definitely love the pictures.

Jaclyn Anku: Erin, I'm curious to hear from you. Some ProAdvisors may be thinking, okay, I get org charts, but how do I bring this to my clients? In the flow of the client relationship, would you bring something like this up?

Erin Vukelich: Really, I think it could happen at any time, such as if they're adding new employees or maybe hiring people in middle management who are expanding the org chart and any kind of conversation about people management. I think you can have this conversation because you're dealing with people and they need to know who to answer to.

Nayo Carter-Gray: I agree. Maybe those periods of time where we feel like we have all of their workflows down, this is one of those services where we can just kind of go and take a look and say, “Hey, we noticed that you have all of these people looking like they're reporting to you, but I know such and such on your team is actually managing them.” It's a good idea for you to be able to move direct reports right underneath of whom they're reporting to, so that any upcoming team members will also know who is  second in command if my manager happens to be off.

We can use it as a resource tool, and it's always one of those things that is never urgent enough that you have to do it right away. But it's also one of those things that you can bring up that really turns into this little delightful moment because they might think, “Oh, my accountant is so smart; they know about all these extra features in the software.”

Erin Vukelich: It kind of builds a little bit more of that relationship—that stickiness with the client. They are aware that you're kind of keeping an eye out for them. I love that. They're usually so impressed and builds confidence a little bit, too.

Jaclyn Anku: So Nayo, you brought up something really interesting when we were chatting earlier, which is that you actually use the org chart or this feature at your own firm. Have you found this helping out your team, and have you been able to then say, okay, we did it at my firm, now we're going to do it with our clients? 

Nayo Carter-Gray: Yeah. It’s super helpful. So my firm is in the process of growing. We hired four new people this year. And so it was really cool for one of my newest employees, when she filled out all of our onboarding documents, to see who else is working in this firm because team members are mostly remote. She's very familiar with faces now, and when she showed up to the first team meeting, she kind of knew who everyone was. So that experience just really highlighted for me the importance of putting your pictures on the org chart so that on your employee profile, you know exactly who's reporting to whom and what that relationship looks like. Having that personal experience always kind of guides how we advise our clients, too.

So it's really like I can kind of point them [the clients] in the right direction and tell them how my employee's experience was with it. It lends to the credibility of why things like this are important, even though they may not be top of mind. 

Erin Vukelich: In my personal experience, I think sharing with the clients that I'm using org charts is good. It really builds the client's confidence in you and in the product.

Jaclyn Anku: Well, those were some really valuable takeaways; when you're able to use things in your own firm, that's the perfect way to learn and experiment. And then you can take those learnings over to your clients. Erin, I loved what you said about how this can be such an easy win and delightful moment when you're onboarding clients to payroll or when you see that their team is growing. Thank you both so much for sharing your insights and your time, and for hanging out on In the Know. It was so great to have you here.

Erin Vukelich: Thanks.

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

Meet the ProAdvisors

ProAdvisor Erin Vukelich: Director of Accounting, Prix Fixe Accounting

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