WSW - Podcast Intuit Accountant Suite: Pt 5:Future Roadmap
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Dan DeLong: Welcome to another workshop Wednesday, casual conversations for serious workflows by school bookkeeping.com, which is all about helping you learn however you see Fitbit. So today again, I'm, I'm flying solo. [00:01:00] Rachel is living it up in Mexico with her, with so we wish her well. And a safe and speedy return back to the workshop.
So we're wrapping up our series on Intuit account and the talked about the change that is occurring. We talked about navigating around in, inside of into Accountant Suite. We talked about the book Close, which is a feature, for core or, and then last time we talked about the client insights.
So today we're gonna be wrapping all this up and talking about some of the things that Intuit has, has, has mentioned as in their future roadmap, for. Sweet. So first thing I will do screen if I can [00:02:00] find the toggle. There it is. All right.
What’s New in Beta: Intuit Intelligent Agents (AI Companion)
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Dan DeLong: So the first thing that is new the, the thing about this being in beta is, is kind of one of those things that.
There's a lot of changes going on at the same time, right? So some of the things that we saw that were coming soon just a couple weeks ago, are now live and, and in and ha and it happening, right? So, one of the, this intuit intelligent. Agents which is labeled as a beta. But this is now something that you're able now ask questions.
The, the we talked about this a little bit QB power Hour and, and didn't even see this yesterday. So this is changing here. But what you'll see [00:03:00] inside of, QuickBooks Online is. This little icon, it's a companion where you can ask, similar to you, you know, asking chat, GPT ask me anything.
But it'll be, it'll be a sidebar. You'll indicate, or the way that Intuit is indicating this feature or companion, is this icon here. I'll try to zoom in. Okay. There we. So you see this eye, it's like a gradating blue with a an eye in the middle, right, to give you an idea that's intuit intelligent.
Prompts, Pricing, and Core vs Accelerate Differences
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Dan DeLong: But you're able to end in core you get 20, I'm sorry, two, 200 prompts per month where you can just ask questions back up, I believe. Very similar to, you know, chat, GPT, where you go back and forth [00:04:00] with with chat GPT. And each time that you type something that is considered a prompt, I, I assume that's how they're metering this sort of thing.
Time accelerate and into an accountant suite. Core is the number of prompts that you get, right? So you get a thousand prompts with Accelerate and 200 with core. And then this is also, you know, something that you'll see inside of your clients where what we talked about yesterday 25 questions or per month.
And if what the, the, the natural question. Is what happens when you exceed that well, you know, to say something and then it'd be wrong, or it's right today, but they changed their mind tomorrow. What we talked about [00:05:00] yesterday was you can add a hundred additional questions or prompts for $10.
So if that means the same thing for Intuit Accountant Suite. There will be a charge for more questions. So that's I, I don't know what that will be. All of these things are, not beta process anyway, until May 1st. So they're probably trying to figure out how much people are using it before they put a price tag on it.
So we'll see about that. But you'll be able to see this companion. You have an allotment. Of prompts and questions. So I recommend just, that works well. But here, difference in, in the Intuit engines between the two. You'll be able to [00:06:00] ask clients books without switching into their books.
So, so you'll get those insight inside of Intuit Accountant Suite. So. So that'll be a nice function and core. It's really for your, you know, for your for your firm's books, right? Without going.
Coming Soon: Client Portfolio Comparisons & Client-Level Insights
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Dan DeLong: And then this client portfolio comparisons, which is one of those coming soon features. So this is something that's.
Forward future facing, unsure what will actually look like. But the whole idea is again, you know, as we had kind of talked and unpacked, the difference between, QBOA and into an accountant suite is this is into your client's books to get some information, right? So [00:07:00] anything that will allow.
That's where this direction is, is headed inside of Intuit Accountant Suite. So we had talked about the difference between, accelerate and Core. We want to talk a little bit about the things that are coming in down the pike as far as what Intuit had talked about at and announced at Intuit connect October.
It seems like so long.
Future Roadmap: Capacity Planning with Payroll, Time, and Alerts
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Dan DeLong: And a lot has changed since they were talking about, about, you know, things that you'll see in Intuit Accountant Suite will fall all around capacity planning, right? So as, as a, as an Intuit accountant suite user, right? The, for the, the, your books you have, q. CBO Payroll Elite have [00:08:00] Intuit I'm sorry, QuickBooks Time elite Service, and they, they provide.
That all for free, right? So the advantage of is, is all gonna be boiling down to, you know, deeper integration. And if you are using all three of those for your own firm, you know, you'll be able to utilize the, the QuickBooks time for, you know, scheduling people at your firm, right? So we'll. Feed into, right.
And, and, and the, the big advantage of, of some of these things is gonna boil down to you being able to proactively plan for time off, right? So if you're one scheduling, you know, you have that schedule function inside of QuickBooks time [00:09:00] where you can plan out. You know, capacity planning for, for the work that you're doing.
So then you'll start to see some things where QuickBooks could potentially alert you. Like, Hey, you've got tax season coming up, or 10 90 nines coming up, or, you know, this is typically, there's a lot of work being done at this at a certain amount of time and looking forward. Some people have, have, time off, right? So what you might be able to is what they were, you know, laying out the, the possibility of these sort of things is the ability to transition that work or assign that work while it, it's being off. While, while someone is, is off to somebody else, right? So you'll be able to quickly transition that from somebody else to somebody else from, you know, [00:10:00] somebody that might be taking some time off or some planned time off.
Or you might start to see things where, you might be doing more work than you're capable of doing, you know? Burning the candle at both ends, so to speak. And if that's the case you know, QuickBooks could potentially help alleviate that by, you know, if you have, you know, a capacity problem where you know some somebody's left the firm or to be trained in, in your firm, maybe you can supplement that with.
Some Intuit survey, and that could be, you know, enrolling with you know, the QuickBooks Live assisted right? For some of those handling things. And I'm sure there will be, you know, a variety of levers that can be, that can be pulled, which will make it easy, you know, [00:11:00] if we're seeing all of this capacity planning come into accelerate.
You, A lot of times it'll just be a, a dropdown to sign it to the things of that nature. So looking forward to how this plays out you know, in the, in the future. But that is one of the, the major things that they're, they're kind working on.
User Groups & Bulk Team Assignments (Now in Beta)
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Dan DeLong: So to, to do that, you have these user groups that are, that was kinda, coming soon. Now it's in beta where you can assign teams in bulk based on the custom role access that you've signed at your, at your firm. So those are some of the, the four, seeing the future roadmap of Intuit Accountant Suite, and all of this.
Why Realm Consolidation Matters (Avoid Paying Twice)
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Dan DeLong: It is on you [00:12:00] having all of your clients in one place.
And so to help deal with that, you know, some, sometimes you have, you've been invited as a, as a team member for someone else's firm or, QuickBooks online accountant suites, under the same login, or maybe you have multiple logins and one, a certain number of clients or another one has other clients, and you, you're finding that you're having to switch companies in order to do all of that.
So Intuit has resurrected a feature or function. Validation. And so you, you probably might here, if you haven't heard about it before, you probably will in the next coming months because the whole idea is you're gonna get the most benefit of having all of your clients in one place. And if your clients aren't in one place, then you've got this.[00:13:00]
Of experience, right? So if you've got two or more, in both on Accelerate, now you've got two charges for Intuit Accountants. And nobody wants to pay for something twice when they can only pay for it once. 'cause right now the Intuit Accountant Suite accelerate will be $149 a month. Per firm, right? So if you've got three firm and they're all on Intuit, accountant, suite, Accel, accelerate.
Now you've got three charges when you didn't have to. So that's where this realm consolidation comes in play. I put in the comments a resource that Intuit has created, and I've got it up here about consolidation, leading your realms in, into an accountant suite. Pretty good guy. Based on, you know, my experience when Intuit, tried this, a while [00:14:00] ago because that was, you, you, they they had a lot of people, a lot of accountants had multiple firms, for a variety of, but.
Typically, you know, you want all those things in one place, and there were, there was a, there was a lot of friction when it to consolidating clients into one realm and for reason, right? Because the billing information is one big thing. Who is the accountant lead, right? Like, who is the, the person or the team member that xid.
That accountant invitation first, right? They, they, they are designated as the accountant lead. So a lot of these they've, they've had some lessons learned when they tried this the first time. So I think this, [00:15:00] this is pretty straightforward when, when you, when you truly understand it, right? I have had some experience with this.
First attempt. So if you've never, had this whole idea of realm consolidation, if you don't have some kind of PTSD about it, it's all, it's all new so that some of this stuff is, is gonna be, you're hearing about it for the first. Time, right?
Realm Consolidation 101: Key Terms, Source vs Target Realms
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Dan DeLong: So there's some key terminology layout here. You know, what QBO for what QBOA stands for?
What is a realm, right? So we wanna understand the whole idea of what a realm is, right? It's an, it's an alternative term for the QuickBooks Online Accountant or Intuit account Suite account. Now, you know, it's essentially in, in simplest terms, it's the company id, right, for the firm, which [00:16:00] ID for every QuickBooks Online.
It's a 16 digit number that represents at Intuit. What is that account? You know, that, what is that subscription? Is it QuickBooks Online? And then the thing is different, right? Then just a company ID because you can have is associated with that company id. Right. And that's why they call it more of like a realm, 'cause there's services and that's really what we're, what we're referring to.
But in this concept. Of realm consolidation at the firm Id, of, of the QuickBooks online accountant or so, in retrospect, you're gonna [00:17:00] a source realm, which is the realm that, that we'll have Kwan have in that realm. And then you have the target. Realm, which is, you know, the single source of, of truth for all of your clients, right?
So you're gonna need to identify which client or sorry, the source where you're getting source, where you're getting clients from, attending clients to, right? So ultimately, you wanna have those identified, preferred pricing that is. Is available for accountants. That is a huge, consider because if you have firm build clients on both your source and your target, that could be a sticking point and make sure that those things are corrected before, trying [00:18:00] to transfer the, the clients back and forth Billing that's Q B's billing subscription being paid for by another.
Firm which is not quite the same as the pro and preferred pricing, but it certainly could be a factor, right? So there could be something like with third party billing, if they purchase their QuickBooks online subscription from Apple Party billing, that's not Intuit and it's not counted.
So you've got now another. Of the billing that potentially causing an an issue. And then the third party apps. So that's the integrations that they might have connected to the QuickBooks online account.
Before You Transfer: Billing, Apps, ProConnect Tax & Other Gotchas
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Dan DeLong: Here's the biggest thing that you want to make sure that you're aware of before even [00:19:00] trying this.
So today, today the transfer is for QuickBooks Online Accountant to Intuit Accountant Suite, right? So that's the one thing. Make sure that you're in your firm books. So if you have set up, the firm books for, for the in both, like if you have, if you have them under both. They can't be consolidated or, you know, if your target firm, your target realm that you want to keep doesn't have, have the books in it, then that's gonna be something, right?
Because the firm books in the source pulling those clients from, they don't it that move, right? Client connected apps so says seamless. Transfer seamlessly, which makes sense [00:20:00] because those are connected inside of the subscription. So I, I can't see a reason that that would be a problem, but we'll, we'll, time will tell, right?
Firm need to reconnect accountant connected apps, right? So if you have connected. An app as an accountant, then it's gonna need to be readdressed after the fact. We don't recom or we recommend that you do not move into it pro connect to a different realm. So if you're u if that does tax and you have under that target.
Realm, tax prote Pro. It's not recommended that you, that you do do this because ProConnect Tax is a completely [00:21:00] service and that's tied to the realm that's associated with that, with that firm, and that's leapfrog, difference Intuit site service case. And, and you probably don't want to do that.
So saying here, you should not move clients with an open pro. Pro Connect tax online, return to straight right. Tax documents and history cannot be moved. So the providing some context as to, we might not want to do that. Okay. Client is on both the source and the, the realm that has the billing relationship needs to remain, right?
So if the target realm has the client with the billing relationship, do not, not transfer that from the source. Realm alternatively if the source realm had deleted from the target realm prior to moving it to this, to the source realm. So this is one of those [00:22:00] considerations that you Sure. That you're aware of before moving things around.
Right. The client file is A-P-A-P-P and transferred to the target room. It takes up to two billing cycles. To reflect it in the system. So, pro rates and credits may appear on the source and target after the transfer. And then another note here of in Enterprise Suite will be via the client transfer tool in early 2026, which we were in.
So. Don't, don't know where, what early means because we are in it.
Choosing the Right Target Realm: Best Practices & Support Tips
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Dan DeLong: Alright, so here's things sticking to the target realm. So before determining the tar, the realm to opt into, into, to consider the following best practices. So if you're using your books, have rev share or use ProConnect, it's [00:23:00] best that they're all in.
In the same realm, right? So the end up for QuickBooks revenue share. Or, and, and are you and are using your own books inside of QBOA? And also using ProConnect. That would be the ideal stance. If you, all those three were under the same realm, and when you've got them split between multiple realms, then that's when it gets a little tricky.
If any two of the above or in separate realms, we recommend using the in product help icon to. Customer support. So talk to Intuit about that. And they can help you give a better, game plan, right? Or the issue may still be that they're not able to be moved, or you can pick one or the other to, to move them over and, and be a little.
More [00:24:00] prescriptive on how you move the if you only have one of the above, we recommend that QBOA with that functionality opted into an accountant suite. So one, your books, the rev share or the ProConnect, that's the one that you would choose. If you're not, if you don't, don't participate in all three of those.
You have, if you don't have any of the above that are opting into the. Into QBOA with the most client files attached. So that's, so if you don't have any of these things, if you're not using your books, if you're not using revshare and you're not using ProConnect, then just the one that has the most clients, 'cause it's not gonna have as many clients to transfer.
Step-by-Step: How to Transfer Clients to the Target Realm
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Dan DeLong: So here's the, the pro planning, that's all those things to consider above, you know, determin. The main target realm considering the time given the compliance and deadline holidays [00:25:00] and communicate plan to your staff, right? Because the staff is gonna be impacted by that, especially if they're on, if they're only on one realm and not the other, right?
They the target realm. So you confirm. Firm that you've opted into, into account suite logo in the upper left, or you're gonna be green, darker green, cross top. The firm billing is set up and recreate any custom user role roles that you have for your team. Then the move, so you become familiar with the account suite.
Initiate the transfer by log the target realm. So this. Is the one that's going to be receiving all of the as the company admin or primary admin. Ideally, if you're the primary admin on both, that would be perfect. That would be the best case scenario. Do it as a company admin in the [00:26:00] target realm.
So you'd navigate to the gear icon and click transfer client or wrong, right? You choose the source realm, you you must be the primary admin of that source realm, so that's why you understand. Of course, you know, that may not be the, the, the current case, but you can go through the process of making your primary admin if you're working with a cooperative.
Primary admin. We've got blog resources on school, bookkeeping, all about that if you, if you need it, but then you're going to be choosing the the source realm associated users on those clients will be copied to the target realm. So, if choose to do so, right. Two are in separate realms. We'll recommend using and contacting [00:27:00] customer support on that one.
The user already exists. The target, their access to the client, to the client, with the client, excuse me. And then there's a trans that will occur if you encounter an error. That, if you have more than one source realm, then you would repeat this. So if you've got multiple QBO A or Intuit multiple clients that you want consolidated under one you would just have to repeat that, that process again.
And then if you need to invite the firm users. Still requiring access to into the realm that weren't copied during those client transfers. And then the last part is staff. Their move is complete. And the applicable care QBO files are now, well in the target realm, that's that's it[00:28:00]
sounds simple enough, right? Like all I wanna do is move my. But because of all of these considerations, things to consider before billing, user access, apps that are connected, other services role, those types of things, payments, rev share, all of those things are potential, all of this because all you inside of QBOA or Intuit accountants.
And click on this transfer clients icon right here or, and that will start the whole process.
Wrap-Up: Is Consolidation Worth It? Next Workshop Teaser
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Dan DeLong: So what do you think, right? So do you think the juice is worth the squeeze of doing all of this, to have this into, into one place? My question of the day this whole thing. Is, you know, what do you think [00:29:00] about all of the changes in Intuitive Accountant Suite?
Continue the conversation in the comments of YouTube, wherever you watching or, or, or hearing about this today. And we will, we'll, we'll see you next time on the, on the workshop. Hopefully Rachel will be back. But we'll be talking with Rachel about a, you know, really the needs of an firm, portal, right?
Like, what, what is it you need as an account accounting firm so that you have, you know, is this, is this being handled by Intu Accountant Suite, or do you typically need to look elsewhere? So we'll see in the workshop Wednesday and hope you, everyone has a great day.
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