WSW Podcast - Playbooks in Intuit Accountant Suite
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[00:00:00]
Kickoff And Intros
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Intro: Maybe I should unmute myself if I, if you want
Dan DeLong: to hear me. That helps.
Intro: How are you?
Susan Humphreys: Peachy keen
Dan DeLong: All right.
[00:01:00] I don't, I'm not sure where Rachel is. She's not answering my texts so might just be me today, and you, and Lynette. Today we were gonna talk about... Let me stop sharing this. I did. Do-do.
Playbooks. There's Rachel.
Rachel Dauchy: I'm here.
Dan DeLong: All right. So we're just we're just gonna- Just creeping out of
Rachel Dauchy: my office here, 'cause everything's a mess.
Dan DeLong: That's okay.
Bald Eagle Small Talk
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Dan DeLong: Susan has a, a, a bald eagle about to swoop in and- Take her away. Wow.
Susan Humphreys: One of my favorite pictures.
Dan DeLong: Was that above your house?
Susan Humphreys: Across the street. Across the street?
Rachel Dauchy: Wow.
Dan DeLong: Nice.
Rachel Dauchy: That's really cool. Last Christmas we were up in Seattle near [00:02:00] where my parents live, and, we had gotten a Airbnb kind of at a s- near a ski area, even though the entire ski area was shut down. But we ended up staying at the house anyway.
But there was a bald eagle that kind of would come out and perch right across from the thing every single day. So we sat out on the patio and watched the bald eagle. It was so cool.
Susan Humphreys: It's a beautiful thing.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah, I took a whole bunch of pictures, and I was like, "Yeah, I don't see this all the time," so it totally made it worth it.
What Playbooks Are
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Dan DeLong: So today we're gonna be talking about Playbooks which is a new feature in beta in Intuit Accountant Suite. The purpose of Playbooks is to standardize your practices for your firm. Now Rachel, I assume since all of the different firm practice management tools that you've used in the past, [00:03:00] you probably use those to standardize your practice, practices- Yeah
tasks, those types of things, right?
Rachel Dauchy: Definitely, especially now.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Work Vs Other Tools
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Dan DeLong: Because QBOA, QuickBooks Online Accountant, which has now evolved into Intuit Accountant Suite into two flavors, had this thing called Work.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Which was a tool. Have you ever, had you ever investigated using that in-
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah
in your practice? I did when it was just two of us. Yeah, I was trying to use some of those features, but, I think at that point it didn't really have exactly what I needed, but I like the idea of it. I don't know- Yeah ... what they have now. I don't think it's called Work.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. Their... Work is still there.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, it is?
Dan DeLong: Yeah. I was just looking at that before I before we, w- we went live. I'm like, "Oh, I wonder if it's still there." but essentially [00:04:00] if you are on the Core version of Intuit Accountant Suite or still haven't transitioned over from QBOA to Intuit, one of the Intuit Accountant Suite plans, you will still see it.
You'll also see it in the Core version, and you'll also see it even in Accelerate. But Playbooks is something that's new. What did you find, Rachel, in, in Work that, that really didn't work, really didn't work for you?
That you remember?
Rachel Dauchy: I think it was at the time when I ended up sw- I ended up switching to Keeper for the first time, and I think at that time it was that I could do more things in Keeper than in Work. I don't think it was anything that I didn't have specifically. It was [00:05:00] more like, "Oh, look at all these other things I can do here."
Dan DeLong: Susan, you're all in on desktop. Do you use QBOA at all or for you in your practice?
Susan Humphreys: Very little
Dan DeLong: Very little. And, you're a solo practitioner, right? So it's- Yes ... it's not like you have a- Me, myself, and my clients ... a team to assign, right?
Susan Humphreys: Correct.
Me, myself, and a bunch of people.
Dan DeLong: Client. And the, you and the bird. Yeah. The, bald eagles across the street.
Why Intuit Built This
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Dan DeLong: So yeah, this is where, This is where, Intuit Accountant Suite is trying to not necessarily encroach, but just add feature functionality that are currently in [00:06:00] in other tools like Keeper. The main... A- and we've talked about this before on the on the workshop, is that these features that they're introducing inside of Intuit Accountant Suite are not really designed for people who have already transitioned to something else, like a Client Hub or a Keeper- Yeah
or something else like that. But it's good to know that they're there just in case if you're already utilizing it or needing something new in that, vein that those features are there and you don't have to start looking
Rachel Dauchy: at some other places. I will tell you, if they're able to S- punch up the ability of the 1099, function, meaning when the transactions come in, like if they're able to detect this might be a [00:07:00] 1099 expense and does this vendor have a W-9?
Like some of the things that I really liked, and now it's called Double, but Double/Keeper, I would use more of these things in QBO. But as far as I know, the 1099 thing is just an end of the year, add 'em all up kind of thing. And so that's the advantage of using something like Double, is that it's got this like-
Dan DeLong: Yeah
Rachel Dauchy: alert thing after- They've already thought those things through ... probably. Yeah. Yeah. And so that would be a game changer for me. If they're able to incorporate something like that into work, then I would use it. But for me, the, the features of it are just too, simple that I... It's not better than something I can get from-
Dan DeLong: Right
Rachel Dauchy: an app that's relatively low cost.
Dan DeLong: Now the, [00:08:00] Now what you're talking about with the 1099 dashboard-ish, right? Like from- Yeah ... from an accountant or bookkeeping professional's perspective where they would want to manage the, the 1099s collection, right? Like- Yeah ... setting yourself up so that you can do that, that's part of the books close, features, which is basically a, a per client add-on for, in, in Intuit accountant suite.
But Playbooks kind of incorporates, i- is like an umbrella over top of that. So
Rachel Dauchy: it does put- Oh, then maybe you'll illuminate on exactly what- I'll enlighten you ... it does. 'Cause maybe if it does have something increased that I just don't know about it yet, that would be great.
Dan DeLong: Yeah, this is
Rachel Dauchy: the- 'Cause they keep coming out with this new stuff all the time and this is why I need you to t- stay on top of it all. [00:09:00]
Dan DeLong: Exactly. Yes. Yes, it's hard to keep up.
Rachel Dauchy: We have a major issue with that right now.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. So I did create a blog as more of an ad rather than the Intuit marketing guide that is their website or their their support articles.
But the, this gives an idea of what they are who can use them, what it includes, what sections and what limitations and how to create them, how to apply them, right? So managing. So this is like a one, hopefully a one-stop shop for- Someone that is outside not under the Intuit umbrella, right?
Yeah. But I do reference their article here, if you wanna see, latest and greatest update the article with new topics or things like that you can always get there to [00:10:00] them there. I'm in the process of creating an audio overview that I'll update here, after the workshop.
Access And Pricing Caveats
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Dan DeLong: We're in the Intuit Accountant Mountain Suite. This is my demo account here. The first limitation or caveat to all of this is you have to be on Accelerate, right? This is not something that is available in free level of Intuit Accountant Suite. You have to be on Accelerate, which isn't charged yet.
If, I think the date is January-ish 2027 when they will start charging for these billable features inside of Intuit Accountant Suite. But you won't see this option in, Intuit Accountant Suite [00:11:00] Core, or you definitely won't see it if you haven't switched over to Intuit Accountant Suite just yet.
I had... Where did I have it? Oh, sorry. Where am I? Here. It refreshed. Sorry. What happened here? There we are. I ha- Oh, we go here. This go Here, there we go. So this is my Intuit Accountant suite that's in core. Just wanna bring up those, the firm subscriptions, which you can tell what version that you're in from the subscription and billing and going into firm subscriptions. So here when I go into the firm hub, playbooks o- over here, but it's got this diamond [00:12:00] logo- Yeah, right
icon here, which that means that it's not available and you have to pay for
it. I don't know why a diamond- Oh, it's premium. Yeah. Hence the diamond. It's a premium, It's
Rachel Dauchy: for the VIPs.
Dan DeLong: So here when I go to firm hub, playbooks is, does not have that icon because that's included as part of the plan, right? So let's go in. Where did I go for playbooks? Okay.
Creating A Playbook
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Dan DeLong: I have not created a playbook, so this is brand-new experience for everyone here.
Because I wanted to show you the landing page because this is one of those things that once you bypass this, you probably won't see it again. But gives you an idea of what it is. Can, you can group templates in a playbook, right? So now we're talking about, work templates, I assume. That's the term templates that they're using.
And then [00:13:00] configuring settings for clients across your firm, and then you can apply those playbooks to your templates or to to apply those playbooks to your clients. Let's let's call this test one. You can put in a description Building?
Slowly. All right so this is giving us the, breakdown over here on the, left side. You got an overview, client setup, service delivery, and then firm settings. So let's just go through these things. Okay. So you've got your client
Rachel Dauchy: setup- By the way, I'm surprised that they named it something unique like Playbook.
It's not like them to do that. I thought they were gonna rename it something with the same kind of acronym like, you know, something already existing.
Dan DeLong: Yeah. I think it... I thought originally before I, I started poking around, I thought [00:14:00] this was just a renamed of Work, right? Because Work was where you went in and did these project templates, right?
Intro: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: But, now this is I think a, a higher level of, Okay. Yeah ... Of, an option, so they had to come up with a new glossary term for us to, know.
Chart Of Accounts Templates
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Dan DeLong: So you've got a chart of accounts. So you can, build a template of a chart of accounts.
It only adds missing accounts. No existing data is changed, so you can create your own chart of account template or just use one that's already there. You can... It looks like you can change them, edit them, lock them if you want right here. Okay. Show account numbers. That's pretty cool. Policies.
Oops, let's go ahead and save that.
Rachel Dauchy: Wait, Dan, when you lock them, does [00:15:00] it lock them for your clients so they can't go in there and monkey with them?
Dan DeLong: No. Let's see here. Locking accounts. Let's... Thank God there's a help bubble, right? Locking account makes them unselectable from drop-downs on forms. So this is the when you're locking the parent account, right?
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, yeah. Okay.
Dan DeLong: So, if you, None of these are sub-accounts, right? So- Yeah ... But if you didn't want anyone posting tr- transactions directly to an account, that's what the, the lock would do. Yeah.
Intro: Okay. Cool.
Dan DeLong: Over here you do have the option as well as creating new accounts. And then you can copy, copy accounts or just trash, whatever you want there.
Change the detail type. Let's go ahead and save that.
Policies And Bank Rules
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Dan DeLong: Oh, I can't save that because I left it blank policies is something that you [00:16:00] set how transactions are categorized. So, this is where you can start to create rules by client, right? So this is one of those things that we were talking about, I think we were talking about it last week, or we were talking about, I think...
We talked about, like, how firms can use some, some tools and basically if a client leaves you- they don't take all your hard work with them, right?
Intro: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Things like Double, or tools that are client collaborator tools where you do- where you set up a lot of things outside of the company file.
Should the client leave they don't take all your hard work with them.
Rachel Dauchy: 'cause it's risky setting up all of these rules and memorized transactions and all these things. So it makes firms like me not want to do this stuff in Intuit anymore. So [00:17:00] this is a way to address that, where if you've got all this stuff set up in a template and then they leave guess what?
Now you've got this template
Dan DeLong: So now we've got this new policy. So a policy is not like a policy for Business, it's what those pol- the policy is what, what interactions are, is gonna happen inside of, in QuickBooks. And you have these settings determine transactions, accounting AI marks ready to post.
So this is about those, bank feed rules for you, right? So the required fields- Dan,
Rachel Dauchy: I hope that do not allow anybody to categorize anything to uncategorized asset. Is that in there? I hope so.
Dan DeLong: You could. You could lock that account, right? [00:18:00] Yeah. ... if you go into that account or use that chart of accounts and, lock it, then nobody not, shouldn't even be a the AI or the suggestions or whatever should be able to post to, to that uncategorized asset.
But here you have your required fields the from and the to based on categorization history, always required or never required. Oh, wow.
Rachel Dauchy: I like that. Always required.
Dan DeLong: Man, that's cool. And location. Transactions that might require review, right? You can you can set an, a dollar threshold so if they're over a certain dollar amount, always require a review if it exceeds a certain dollar amount.
The history settings choosing the earliest date from the categorization history that they'll use for these posting deci- decisions. And then notes. So if there's more directions, that you [00:19:00] wanna add in here. Doesn't look like you can add more into this policy other than what's already here.
And then here's the asset and expense policy. So set the minimum amounts to capitalized fixed assets and prepaid expense. Put those in there. Did I save it?
Company Settings Templates
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Dan DeLong: One, company settings. So you can set up the company settings to your liking, right? So you can create a playbook for e-commerce type businesses.
They might have some settings that might need to be set up ahead of time or that you prefer the way that they are set. And you... Let me just expand all of these, see what we have here.
So the first month of the fiscal year, accounting p- method, e- enabling accounting numbers, whether or not [00:20:00] tracking class and locations are turned on pre-filling forms, so au- some automation, and then the formatting for other preferences. So those are some settings that you can set up ahead of time as part of this playbook
Rachel Dauchy: Wait, so Dan, so then I'm guessing that I can create several templates.
I can have template E- Yep ... where I'm not mandating some of these things. And so yeah, I can just pull up whatever template I need or want for any new client coming in. And that way I don't have to go through and calibrate every single one.
Dan DeLong: Exactly. Cool. You can set up these playbooks as the scaffolding- Yeah
Of, setting up a, a, of setting up a company.
Rachel Dauchy: That's pretty cool.
Books Close And Roles
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Dan DeLong: And then of course they want you to throw in the books [00:21:00] close, right? So you've already got- Yeah ... some, the books close templates. You can create those templates ahead of time in, as part of the books close which is available of course in, in Core or Accelerate, but you won't be able to use them in the playbook if you don't have Accelerate.
But you can create multiple books close templates so you can associate these playbooks per client or different types of clients. So these are all the the settings that are- In those templates about as the, task due date, right? So if you want the close to happen on the 10th of the month or the 15th of the month or whenever those dates need to be done, and then your pre-assigned assignee, right?
Which is gonna- be something that [00:22:00] you can set up in those templates, right? You're gonna be setting up the... 'Cause we've now got role-based, team members, right? So you can assign a role to the, to your team member, and then assign them to be a preparer or a reviewer or it looks like all of them are preparer.
But we know there's three different- Three ... Versions of the role. And then you can make different copies in here, and then some settings. Oh, I got-
Rachel Dauchy: Wait, Dan, before you leave that can, you see, does it... Okay, so one of the... Okay, now this is... A lot of these things are coming back to me, why- ... I ended up switching to something else.
Does, this is really, great, and by the way, can I just please tell you, when I first started as a solopreneur, like almost 10 years ago, I... I had worked in accounting always, but I didn't really know, like, [00:23:00] when I was on my own and I was doing the whole full charge financial statement by myself, I was like, "Wait, what are all the things I need to know in closing the books?"
I didn't know. And so I really relied on the guide, if it was a guide in something like this, which I didn't have then. But, so this is really helpful for people that are like, "Oh, cool. Now I've got a step-by-step that I can follow." But does it allow you to put in some of your own custom things?
Because that, I think, is really what I was missing, is like for certain clients I needed to check other random things that maybe weren't in the default list. Does this allow you to do that?
Dan DeLong: Where'd they go? I'm trying to look up the... Here it is. You can. You would have to do that in your books close, right?
Like you can create your books close [00:24:00] template.
Rachel Dauchy: So you can customize your books close, and then in this playbook, when you pull in that books close, it would have some things that you've set up. Exactly.
Dan DeLong: Okay. Exactly.
Rachel Dauchy: Man- So you're gonna have- ... if that, if you can do that, then that takes care of that issue.
Dan DeLong: That's what was missing.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: That's what was missing for you.
Costs And Value Debate
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Dan DeLong: Now, the, the challenge here is that cost implication.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: Because you have to, in Accelerate- Just to even books. Yeah. And then pay per client for the books close. Perhaps double already-
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah ...
Dan DeLong: covers that or whatever I mean, and that's the thing,
Rachel Dauchy: a lot of this stuff adds up.
Yeah. And then g- gosh not even necessarily double g- spreadsheet, just a list of all the things you need to do at the end of the month. I mean-
Sometimes for some folks there's nothing wrong with that. Exactly. So it really it can get as [00:25:00] c- co- complicated as you want or as simple as you want, really.
Dan DeLong: Yeah the, I think the biggest advantage of books close, to, that what I've seen so far is this account reconciliation. Because when it's, when you're doing it within Intuit Accountant Suite, I, do really appreciate that you don't have to go into the client in order to do the account reconciliations.
It's, all within the books close.
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah.
Dan DeLong: That's nice. You can go into the client if you needed to, but this, this sort of I think that this is the best thing about books close is the ability to do things inside in, in, one place without popping into other, you know-
Rachel Dauchy: Yeah ... other places you need to go.
It's really nice 'cause especially if you have confidence that the bank feeds have been done correctly, your [00:26:00] reconciliation should be no problem and you can just bang it all out in one screen. The issue is then if there's a problem, then you have to go into the client and look to see what happened and hunt around.
That is gonna take more time. But if you've got especially if you're maybe Susan or somebody- But let's say Susan was in QBO, not QBD, and she did all of her bank feeds and she knew everything was done to her perfection or her standards. She can just go in and do all those instantly and not have to jump around client to client.
Dan DeLong: Exactly. And Melissa was asking how much is it gonna cost for Accelerate? So I quickly looked it up here. $149 a month. Ugh. Not per person. That's, just for the platform starting in Jan- on January 20th. I'm not sure why... What's, what is the-
Rachel Dauchy: Per in- per Intuit Accountant Suite [00:27:00] instance, right?
Not per client. Correct.
Dan DeLong: Correct. Okay.
Rachel Dauchy: Okay.
Dan DeLong: So it's basically a platform fee, right? For to have the Intuit Accountant Suite, Accelerate platform all team members of, if it's just you or if you have a team of 15, it'll still be $149. Now, if you have 10 clients on the Books Close, do they have the pricing for the Books Close?
Guess not.
Last I saw it was $6 per client if you have more than 50, $8 if you had less than 50 on the books booked. But they may, of course, there's three months between the time that they s- they're [00:28:00] gonna start charging. So who knows what they- what that will be by then. I'm sure they will have, some discounts for early adopters and those types of things as well.
Just like Susan said, it's all about the money. Yes, so got a little distracted there about where we were at there. But yes you can create your own templates for the books closed and add your own custom
Custom templates for the books close to the, to your playbook,
Rachel Dauchy: right? And then- Da- Dan, just to let you know I, have to leave at 1:30 like on the dot today, so I'll-
Dan DeLong: Got it. Okay.
Rachel Dauchy: Bow
Dan DeLong: out right there we're just about, we're just about wrapping it up here.
Client Access And Limits
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Dan DeLong: And then client access. Who will be able to access it?
You can create a user group. So that's a user group that you're gonna [00:29:00] assign to your team members. And as long as they're a part of that user group, they automatically have access to it. And then if there's cl- any client custom fields that need to be added to the, c- client itself.
So those are the pl- that's the o- kind of like a overview of the playbook itself. It's a pretty interesting, thing, right? R- limitations according to the article. The... I just wanted to point those out. It's Accelerate only. You can only create blank templates for now, so you can't like copy a template into another template, so you gotta create it from scratch, so if you have different templates to make.
And then publish updates are not automatic. Editing a published playbook doesn't change client files when you publish the updates. And removing a client is not a rollback, so if you remove a client from a playbook, the configuration already [00:30:00] applied stays in place. They just stop rec- receiving future playbook updates.
So those rules that you're setting up in there.
Rachel Dauchy: Oh, so you can edit and then make changes to it and then publish it- Exactly ... then it'll update it. But you have to- Yeah ... hit publish. Oh, okay. Cool.
Dan DeLong: Yeah.
Next Week Teaser Wrap
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Dan DeLong: So next time on the workshop we'll be talking about- Are you doing
Susan Humphreys: unit testing or is there a reason you're not testing?
What are
Dan DeLong: we talking about? Oh, the QuickBooks credit card. 'Cause they're getting- Come on ... more and more into, money. Oh, Lordy.
Rachel Dauchy: I think so. Susan, come on. You're excited about that.
Dan DeLong: Because as Susan says, it's all about the money.
Rachel Dauchy: I'm... You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna add that list... I'm gonna add that to my list of things of never to get involved in.
Sorry.
Dan DeLong: Yes.
Rachel Dauchy: Sorry,
Dan DeLong: Intuit. Sounds like that'll be an interesting topic next week- ... on the workshop. Hopefully everybody has a great week, and we'll see you next time.
Rachel Dauchy: Bye,
Playbooks: [00:31:00] guys. [00:32:00]
