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AI Won’t Just Speed Up Your Close – It Will Eliminate It Completely

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“I want it gone.”

Aaron Harris, CTO of Sage, isn’t talking about making the financial close faster. He wants to eliminate it completely. No more monthly scrambles to lock the books. No more accountants working late to reconcile accounts. No more rigid cycles that control how businesses operate.

He shared this goal during his recent appearance on The Accounting Podcast, recorded at Sage Future in Atlanta. Harris has been a returning guest since 2019, and his message has stayed remarkably consistent: artificial intelligence will fundamentally change accounting processes and how businesses operate.

Harris isn’t just talking about automation making things faster. He’s challenging the basic business cycles that have defined corporate operations for generations. He envisions a future where annual audits become continuous, where quarterly tax filings disappear into real-time government systems, and where rigid business cycles give way to always-on, intelligent operations.

From Simple Tasks to Autonomous Operations: The Three Waves of AI

Harris breaks down AI’s evolution in accounting into three distinct waves, each building toward his vision of eliminating business cycles completely.

Wave One: Task-Based AI

The first wave focused on very specific jobs like reading invoices or classifying transactions. These systems worked like sophisticated scripts. They could automate tasks, but they needed humans at every step. “You can’t really interact with this AI,” Harris explains, “and because these are sort of very narrowly defined models, they can’t do a lot very flexibly.”

Wave Two: Generative AI

This wave brought conversational interfaces like Sage Copilot. Suddenly, AI could interact naturally with users and work more flexibly. This opened up possibilities for people outside the accounting team to use these systems. “The two big things are now you can interact with the AI,” Harris notes, “and it’s those underlying capabilities allowing that interaction that allow the AI to work more flexibly.”

Wave Three: Agentic AI

This is where Harris sees the real transformation. These systems can plan, execute, and operate on their own. They can access tools and interact with other systems without constant human guidance. “The real breakthrough comes with Agentic AI, where we’re now equipping these large language models. They think through how to plan something start to finish and execute on that.”

The progress has been dramatic. Harris tracks the journey from two to three weeks for financial close in 2019 to just two to three days today for some customers. But he’s not satisfied with just making things faster. “There are some breakthroughs, and we’re going to reach a point where businesses say, you know what, we’re just not going to operate this way anymore,” he predicts.

Sage already has AI systems handling complex tasks autonomously. Their outlier detection works across accounts payable, supply chain operations, and construction bidding. These systems don’t just flag problems; they prevent them by catching patterns humans would miss.

This evolution leads Harris to ask, if AI can keep our data accurate all the time, why do we need to “close the books” at all?

Why the Financial Close Needs to Die

Harris challenges something most accountants take for granted: the need for periodic closes. “Why do I need a close?” he asks. “Isn’t that kind of an archaic concept? Like, I’m locking up the books so nobody can access them anymore, and so that the data is memorialized forever. That’s ancient.”

This isn’t just theory. Real examples around the world show businesses moving toward continuous operations. In Brazil, every invoice must be filed with the government in real time. The UK’s “Making Tax Digital” (MTD) program requires businesses to upload their general ledgers to government servers quarterly, with AI automatically coding transactions. “Fundamentally what happens,” Harris explains, “is your general ledger gets uploaded to a government server. When it comes time to file the taxes, you’re just signing something, because they already know what you owe.”

These government requirements force businesses to modernize in ways that make continuous operations inevitable.

Harris’s vision for continuous auditing might be the most radical change. Instead of annual audits that review old data, he sees auditors providing ongoing assurance with technology constantly monitoring books. “My vision for continuous auditing is that the auditors are going to make a lot more money than they’ve been making,” he predicts. “It’s going to be continuous assurance.”

This would transform the relationship between businesses and auditors from periodic validation to ongoing collaboration. Instead of finding problems months later during annual reviews, continuous auditing would catch issues immediately and help fix them in real time.

Building Trust: Making AI Accountable

The biggest challenge is psychological. How do you get CFOs to trust AI systems with decisions they’re responsible for?

Harris understands this deeply. “You have to understand that psychology to design this experience,” he explains. The key is creating a “trust journey,” gradually giving AI more autonomy as users gain confidence through transparency and proven results.

Sage’s answer is its AI Trust Label, which Harris compares to a nutrition label. Click on any AI feature and you can see exactly how it works: what models it uses, how it handles data, security measures, and whether it uses your data for training. “We’re not saying here’s how much you should trust this,” Harris clarifies. “We’re saying here’s the compliance we are subject to and we are meeting and here’s the models we use.”

This transparency is crucial for complex tasks like accrual processing. Before a CFO trusts AI to handle accruals alone, they need to see the system’s suggestions, verify it contacted purchasing about pending invoices, and understand how it decides what to accrue. “I want to see in a very transparent, auditable way what the AI is doing before I say ‘yep, you can do it now’,” Harris emphasizes.

Sage’s careful approach reflects what customers really want. Harris cites a survey showing 75-80% of businesses want AI companies to “take it slow and get it right.” This finding shaped Sage’s strategy of gradual rollout rather than rushing autonomous agents to market.

This approach contrasts sharply with competitors like Intuit, whose AI agents Harris criticizes as trained on community forum content rather than authoritative sources. He describes Sage’s strategy as “a lot less reckless,” emphasizing their focus on serving CFOs who demand absolute accuracy. “We’re ruthlessly focused on the accounting profession. That CFO needs to trust us and they’re not going to use something they don’t trust.”

Instead of using general-purpose AI models, Sage is developing specialized accounting expertise through their partnership with the AICPA. These smaller, fine-tuned models focus specifically on accounting knowledge rather than trying to be good at everything. “I want it to be an expert at a very narrow set of things,” Harris explains. “You want it to be as capable as a CPA.”

AI in Action: What Sage is Building Now

Harris shared several examples of AI already working in Sage products, showing how these concepts are becoming reality.

Sage Copilot has been rolling out across different products over the past year. It started with small businesses using Sage Accounting, then expanded to Sage for Accountants, Sage 50, and now Sage Intacct. The system helps with three main areas:

  1. Close management. Copilot keeps users informed about what’s preventing the books from closing and helps them through the process
  2. Budget variances. It engages budget owners outside the finance team to understand performance and explain variances
  3. Product guidance. Users can ask conversational questions about how to use the software instead of searching through help files

Outlier Detection is Sage’s first major AI investment. Harris explains they built this capability first because “when we talk to finance teams and CFOs, the thing that comes through loud and clear is that they need to be trusted. The thing they care about the most is that their books are accurate.”

The system works differently for each company because “an outlier for company A is not the same as an outlier for company B.” Examples include:

  • Accounts payable. Detecting vendor impersonation, unusual billing patterns, or duplicate invoices using fine-tuned models that create “fingerprints” for common vendors
  • Supply chain. Warning about potential fulfillment problems by spotting irregularities in supply chain activity
  • Construction. Helping estimate projects by recommending which subcontractors to get bids from and flagging unusual bid amounts

What’s impressive is how these systems work together. Harris notes that building AI isn’t just about creating one model. “You’re building a system, and that system is going to have traditional tech. It’s going to have AI. And usually, when there’s AI in it, there’s a lot of different pieces of AI that work together.”

The Bigger Picture: Reimagining Business Operations

Harris’s vision involves fundamentally changing how businesses operate in a real-time economy.

Consider the implications: When we can continuously validate financial data instead of reviewing it annually, investors get unprecedented confidence in business performance. When tax compliance happens in real-time instead of quarterly bursts, businesses can allocate resources more strategically. When companies can predict supply chain issues and prevent them instead of discovering them during month-end reviews, they can maintain customer relationships without the traditional firefighting that defines many finance roles.

For accounting professionals, this means preparing for a future where the monthly close might become as obsolete as manual ledger books. Annual audit cycles that consume enormous resources could give way to continuous partnerships between businesses and their assurance providers. Rigid approval workflows that slow decisions could be replaced by intelligent systems that understand context and risk better than static rules ever could.

The early signs are already here. Harris points to the international examples, Sage’s current AI capabilities, and the continuous monitoring being deployed across industries. “The question isn’t whether this transformation will happen,” Harris suggests, “but how quickly businesses and professionals will adapt.”

What This Means for You

Harris’s predictions might sound futuristic, but they’re grounded in technology that’s already working. The measured approach Sage is taking—building trust through transparency, developing specialized expertise through professional partnerships, and prioritizing accuracy over speed—suggests this transformation will happen thoughtfully.

Accounting professionals should start preparing for a world where traditional business cycles might disappear entirely. The skills that matter won’t be about managing monthly closes, but about interpreting continuous data streams, collaborating with AI systems, and focusing on strategic analysis that only humans can provide.

The future Harris describes isn’t just possible; it’s already beginning. Understanding this evolution and preparing for it might be the most important investment accounting professionals can make in their careers.

Listen to the full episode above to hear Harris’s complete vision for how AI will reshape the fundamental rhythms of business.

June 2025 QuickBooks Updates: Inventory, Square Integration, and What’s Coming

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Picture this: You’re an accounting professional starting your Tuesday morning routine, coffee in hand, ready to tackle your client’s monthly reconciliation. But when you log into QuickBooks Online, something’s different. The familiar black navigation bar that’s guided your workflows for years has vanished, replaced by sleek gray buttons and flyout menus. Your muscle memory falters for a moment as you hover over unfamiliar icons, wondering if this change will derail your carefully orchestrated productivity schedule.

This scenario is the reality facing thousands of accounting professionals as QuickBooks Online undergoes its most significant transformation in years. In this episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, host Alicia Katz Pollock and guest host Matthew “Spot” Fulton from Parkway Business Solutions broke down the latest “Now You Know” updates, revealing what’s new and why these changes matter for the future of accounting technology.

The Big News: Inventory Module Goes Standalone

The most significant announcement buried deep in a Firm of the Future article is a complete restructuring of how QuickBooks Online offers inventory features. After years of forcing users into QuickBooks Plus for inventory capabilities, Intuit is finally separating the inventory module into a standalone $40-per-month add-on.

“Until now, if you wanted inventory, you would subscribe to Plus,” Katz Pollock explains. “But they had users who were using Simple Start or Essentials, where they have their inventory in other places. They don’t need everything in Plus, but they do need QuickBooks inventory.”

This change eliminates a long-standing barrier for businesses running Simple Start ($30/month) or Essentials ($65/month) who needed inventory capabilities but couldn’t justify the cost of jumping to Plus. Instead of making that expensive leap, they can add inventory functionality for $40 monthly.

The thinking behind this move connects to QuickBooks’ broader Commerce Center strategy. “They’re doing this because of the commerce tools they’re building out,” Katz Pollock notes. “They have the Commerce Center, which is designed to be a one-stop shop, your single point of truth for integrations with shopping carts like Shopify, or your own website, or eBay or Etsy.”

But there’s a catch. Intuit is also wrapping the shipping label feature into the inventory module, sunsetting it as a standalone option. This means if you currently use shipping labels without inventory, you’ll need to either upgrade to Plus or add the inventory module to maintain that functionality.

The shipping integration actually works quite well, according to Katz Pollock’s testing. “The shipping module adds tracking right inside the invoice,” she explains. “You have those fields for the shipping address and then the tracking number. This auto-populates the tracking for you.”

Square Connector Gets a Major Upgrade

While inventory restructuring grabbed headlines, the Square connector improvements might have a more immediate impact on many practices. The previous “Connect to Square” integration had limitations that frustrated accountants and clients.

“The transactions were slow to appear. There was not a lot of transaction detail. The matching was limited,” Katz Pollock summarizes. “The way Square manages its holds and its adjustments, kind of like PayPal, it can be really confusing.”

The new Square connector addresses these pain points systematically:

  • Faster transaction processing. Sales now appear within hours instead of days, dramatically improving cash flow visibility.
  • Better transaction detail. You can now see net amounts, fees, tips, and taxes all broken out separately within each payout batch.
  • Improved matching. The system better recognizes and matches transactions, reducing manual reconciliation work.
  • Sales tax integration. Perhaps most importantly, the connector now imports and tracks sales tax automatically.

However, the new system imports individual transactions rather than daily batch summaries, which could create challenges for high-volume businesses. Katz Pollock shared concerns about a cornfield maze client who processes hundreds of daily transactions. “This integration right now looks like it’s individual sales. So that would import all hundreds of them every day, which is not going to be ideal for us.”

Intuit acknowledges this limitation, with batch summary imports planned for “version two” of the connector. The new system supports classes and locations, works with all QuickBooks Online versions, and remains free to use.

Interface Revolution: The New Dashboard Arrives

The most visible change coming to QuickBooks Online is the complete interface redesign, and it’s closer than you might think. The new dashboard represents QuickBooks’ most significant user experience transformation in years, but it’s designed to minimize disruption to existing workflows.

“Intuit has done a really good job of not making something so drastically different that we have to start over again,” Katz Pollock observes from her beta testing experience. “All of the windows, all of the transaction screens they’ve already been updating over the last two years. And so once you go into a transaction, there’s literally nothing different.”

The visual transformation is dramatic. The familiar black navigation bar disappears, replaced by a two-level system with light gray buttons and flyout menus. But beneath this aesthetic change, all core functionality remains intact.

Fulton, also beta-testing the interface, emphasizes this continuity: “Nothing’s actually changing behind it. You have pretty little icons on the far left instead of just words. And then those pretty little icons fly out to more menus, and then guess what? It’s exactly the same when you’re in that.”

QuickBooks carefully orchestrated the rollout timeline:

  • July 1st: Manual opt-in becomes available (with opt-out option)
  • August 1-30: Automatic enrollment begins (opt-out still available)
  • September: Mandatory transition (no opt-out option)
  • September 22nd: Final cutover date

This phased approach gives users multiple opportunities to adapt while providing safety nets for those who need more time. The timing also ensures completion before the next QuickBooks Connect conference, where QuickBooks will likely showcase new features built for the updated interface.

Key improvements in the new interface include:

  • Enhanced bookmarks. Favorite reports and frequently used screens are now accessible at the main level, eliminating menu navigation for common tasks.
  • Customizable dashboard. Users can hide or rearrange dashboard components to match their workflow preferences.
  • Intuitive navigation. The “silo buttons” (accounting, expenses, sales, customers, payroll) are actually easier to understand than the previous system.
  • Hover menus. Flyout menus respond to cursor hover, eliminating unnecessary clicks.

Supporting the Transition: Training and Resources

Recognizing that interface changes require comprehensive support, training providers are mobilizing resources to help professionals maintain productivity during the transition.

Royalwise is undertaking a massive curriculum overhaul. “Everything I have has to be rerecorded,” Katz Pollock explains, referring to her library of over 50 QuickBooks classes. “So, you’ve got me here for the next 15 years.”

Starting in September, Royalwise will re-teach its entire curriculum in the new interface through bi-weekly sessions. Silver and Gold members get automatic enrollment at no additional cost—a commitment that demonstrates the scale of change management required.

The training approach extends beyond just explaining new buttons and menus. They’re developing a new book series specifically for the new interface, with comprehensive volumes and specialized guides for daily workflows, inventory, project management, and payroll. A practice set with real business scenarios will help users gain hands-on experience. Preorder your copy at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FDX859WD

Fulton’s ongoing QB Power Hour sessions with Dan DeLong provide another support pillar. These live streams every other Tuesday (9 AM Pacific, 12 PM Eastern) offer continuing education that adapts to current challenges and allows real-time interaction with experts.

What’s Coming Next: AI Agents and Beyond

July’s “In the Know” session will focus heavily on AI agents—automated assistants designed to handle routine tasks like sending invoices, tracking payments, reconciling books, and managing customer leads.

Intuit is developing four types of AI agents:

  • Accounting agents to handle routine bookkeeping tasks
  • Payments agents to manage payment processing and tracking
  • Customer agents to oversee customer relationship management
  • Finance agents to provide financial analysis and insights

These agents will integrate with the new dashboard and existing workflows, representing the next phase of QuickBooks’ evolution toward more automated, intelligent accounting processes.

Other developments on the horizon include expanded CRM tools, deeper MailChimp integration, and enhanced mineral HR features for payroll Premium and Elite users. The Mineral HR platform, available since 2019, includes law alert libraries, wage calculators, employee handbook builders, and safety training courses—resources many users don’t realize they already have access to.

The Path Forward

QuickBooks understands the critical balance between innovation and disruption in professional environments. The modular approach to inventory, careful interface preservation, and comprehensive training support show enterprise software evolution can enhance rather than disrupt existing workflows.

For accounting professionals, this blueprint suggests future changes will follow similar patterns: gradual, well-supported, and designed to amplify rather than replace professional expertise. The phased rollout timelines, preserved functionality, and extensive educational resources show a commitment to maintaining productivity during technological transformation.

As these changes roll out over the coming months, they’ll provide valuable insights into how the accounting profession adapts to technological evolution. The strategies demonstrated here offer a roadmap for future innovations that prioritize professional continuity alongside technological advancement.

Ready to dive deeper into these game-changing updates? Listen to the complete episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast where Alicia Katz Pollock and Matthew “Spot” Fulton provide their full analysis of these developments and discuss how these changes will affect your practice and your clients’ businesses.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!

Avalara Tax Research: The Answer to Your Clients’ Toughest Sales Tax Questions

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“Is this service taxable?” It’s a seemingly simple client question that can send accountants down a rabbit hole of research, often leading to uncertain Google searches and hours navigating complex state websites.

“Google’s great for some things, but when it comes to figuring out the taxability of products, it is lacking,” explains Blake Oliver in a recent Earmark Expo webinar. “As anyone who has worked with sales tax questions knows, the answers are different by state and by local jurisdiction. It’s a giant mess.”

Sales tax isn’t something most CPAs learn in school, making these questions particularly challenging. Many accountants refer clients to specialists when they can’t find reliable answers quickly enough.

In the webinar, Luke Marlatt from Avalara demonstrated how their Tax Research tool helps accountants tackle these challenges confidently. Let’s explore what makes this solution work and how it could benefit your practice.

How Avalara Gathers and Organizes Tax Information

Behind Avalara’s platform is an impressive research operation that transforms chaotic multi-jurisdictional tax laws into accessible, actionable information.

“We employ a gigantic team of researchers who spend all day, every day going to find information,” Marlatt explains. “We’re scrubbing over 27,000 web pages every single day. That’s not just some poor intern in the basement clicking on web pages; they have web crawlers and all this kind of cool technology.”

What sets Avalara apart is what happens after data collection. Real human experts verify every piece of information, translate complex tax code into plain language, and track changes down to case law and local regulations.

The team’s commitment goes beyond passive monitoring. When necessary, they actively chase down information through direct outreach to tax authorities. Marlatt shared how one colleague spent 2.5 hours on the phone with tax authorities in Jackson, Wyoming, to confirm a customer’s tax rate question.

This thorough approach has earned such credibility that Colorado, Missouri, and the Alaska Municipal League actually use Avalara’s data to power their own public-facing websites. 

Key Features That Make Research Easier

The webinar demonstration highlighted several standout features designed to make sales tax research more efficient and user-friendly:

Simplified Nexus Determination

Rather than forcing users to interpret complex legal language, Avalara converts nexus requirements into straightforward yes/no questions.

“Instead of reading through the law trying to figure out what they mean—which in Washington, you’d have to read through five totally different parts of the revenue code—we just turn them into yes/no questions,” Marlatt explains.

This makes it easy to interview clients who might not understand tax terminology but can answer simple questions about their business activities.

Multi-State Comparison

With a single click of the “compare” button, users can apply a tax question across all states simultaneously, eliminating the need to research each jurisdiction individually.

“You hit the compare button and literally have your answer in every single state in the country,” Marlatt demonstrates. “Then you can hit this export button to dump it into Excel and start a workbook for a Nexus study.”

Customizable Tax Matrices

The Tax Matrix feature allows you to create customized, multi-state, multi-product matrices showing tax liability across different jurisdictions. You can save these matrices in the system and they’ll update automatically whenever relevant tax laws change.

“If you provide a tax matrix to your client, they’re going to want it updated. And traditionally that’s a difficult thing,” Marlatt explains. With Avalara, “The only thing you need to do is log in and hit the export button. And you’ve now got an updated tax matrix for your client.”

This creates an opportunity for subscription-based services, as Leary pointed out during the webinar: “And you build a quarterly tax research update into your fees.”

Precise Rate Lookups

The platform includes rooftop-level tax rate lookups, allowing users to find exact rates for specific addresses. The system shows the breakdown of rates by jurisdiction, essential for places like California where returns require this detail.

An interactive map displays the exact boundaries of taxing jurisdictions, making it easier to visualize where different rates apply.

Change Tracking and Updates

Users can toggle on a “highlight changes” feature that visually marks modified content with color indicators. This helps accountants quickly identify what’s changed since their last review.

The customizable email update system notifies you about tax changes daily, weekly, or monthly, filtered by content areas and specific states. These updates provide both an overview and detailed information about specific changes.

Marlatt shared how this helps catch significant changes: “The state of Kentucky defines SaaS as a service—they changed their law at the beginning of 2023. Because of that service law change, SaaS is now taxable in Kentucky as well.”

Expert Research Assistance

When questions arise that users can’t resolve through self-service research, the “Contact a Tax Expert” function connects them with Avalara’s team of expert researchers (mostly attorneys).

“Ninety four percent of the time, we beat our 24-hour mark and 71% of the time we actually beat the hour mark,” Marlatt notes regarding their response times. Last year, the team answered approximately 8,900 questions.

Avalara Tax Research also saves previous Q&A exchanges in a searchable repository, allowing users to benefit from questions other customers have asked.

Accessible for Firms of All Sizes

While these capabilities might seem designed for large firms, Avalara Tax Research serves accounting practices of all sizes.

“We have all the big four and most of the really big firms across the country using our tax research. We have mom and pop shops,” explains Marlatt. “Most of the demos I do are for single person operations with two or three people in a firm.”

For firms concerned about audit protection, Avalara offers an audit information guarantee. While they don’t provide direct tax advice or audit defense (leaving that advisory role to accounting partners), they stand behind their information’s accuracy.

“We will back up our information under audit directly with that auditor,” Marlatt explains. “We will go and defend that information with the auditor. We say, ‘Here’s all our research. Here’s how we got from A to B.'”

The platform also includes training resources to help firms maximize their return on investment. “There’s a team of trainers that make sure you get the most out of this tool,” Marlatt notes.

Adding a Valuable Service to Your Practice

Avalara Tax Research helps transform a persistent challenge into a strategic advantage. By providing authoritative answers to sales tax questions, firms can build service offerings around tax compliance while delivering more value to clients.

When clients receive clear, authoritative answers instead of tentative responses or referrals to specialists, it strengthens their trust in your firm. When you can proactively alert them to regulatory changes before they become compliance issues, you position yourself as a true advisor.

For practitioners who want to see these capabilities in action, watch the on-demand webinar. Tax complexity continues to increase, and having reliable resources to navigate this landscape is essential for serving clients effectively.

When Two Accounting Apps Listen to Their Customers (And Actually Do Something About It)

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Picture this: It’s 2021 at ‘Appy Camp, and Ben Stein from Keeper is standing at a bar, drink ticket in hand, ready to exchange it for a well-deserved cocktail after a long day of conference sessions. But when Alicia Katz Pollock rushes past—bass guitar case slung over her shoulder, racing to join the evening’s music circle around the fire—and tosses him her drink ticket with a hurried “Can you get me my drink?”, Ben doesn’t hesitate. He heads to the bar, discovers they’re not accepting drink tickets, and simply buys her a drink anyway.

That spirit of going above and beyond would prove fitting. Three years later, Ben’s company, Keeper, just launched an integration with Anchor that’s making accounting professionals everywhere take notice. When Katz Pollock brought together Stein and Tal Ben Bassat from Anchor for a special episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, the conversation revealed how real software partnerships actually happen.

The story isn’t about corporate strategy meetings or market research. It’s about two companies that actually listened when their customers said, “We want these apps to work together.” And then they did something most software companies don’t: they made it happen…

…like chocolate and peanut butter…better together!

When Customers Become Your Product Team

Here’s what most software companies get wrong: they build features based on internal roadmaps instead of user requests. But when Stein’s team at Keeper and Ben Bassat’s team at Anchor started getting the same message from customers, both companies did something simple. They listened.

“Really, the idea came from our mutual customers,” Ben explains. “This is something that our customers asked for and Anchor’s customers asked for. We have a lot of overlapping customers and we want to keep them happy.”

Ben Bassat’s approach at Anchor takes this customer focus even further. “Everything we do on Anchor comes from our clients. Every feature, every development we have,” he says. “Our product team spends full days speaking to customers about what they need.”

The proof came after they launched. Stein admits it “caught my team off guard” with the response. “We go live with the integration, and all of a sudden, our support team was just inundated with dozens of tickets from Anchor customers and Keeper customers that were super excited about getting this up and running.”

This customer-driven approach creates a simple but powerful advantage: when your users tell you exactly what they need to work more efficiently, you don’t have to guess what to build next.

How the Integration Actually Works

For those not familiar with these tools, here’s what they do.

Anchor handles contracting and billing. Accountants can create proposals with multiple pricing tiers, get electronic signatures, and automatically invoice clients monthly. The invoices sync to QuickBooks Online. Keeper manages your bookkeeping workflows and checklists. It integrates with QBO so you can review transactions, ask client questions, and track your monthly procedures without jumping between systems.

Now here’s where the integration gets useful. When a client receives a proposal in Anchor, they can choose from different service packages and even agree to automatic annual price increases. Once they sign and connect payment information, the integration takes over automatically.

Based on your Anchor settings, the system auto-configures a client in Keeper, applying templates, creating tasks, and setting properties—all without manual work. “Once the client signs the agreement, Anchor will take the upfront payments. So you’re already clear on that. And then your team gets a notification and they start to work on Keeper immediately,” Ben Bassat explains.

This eliminates what Ben Bassat calls the traditional approach: “someone in your back office who starts organizing the onboarding process.” No more Excel spreadsheets tracking tasks. No more manual emails. No more wondering where each client stands in the pipeline.

Future updates will include amendment management. When you add services in Anchor, it will automatically trigger new workflows in Keeper. The integration keeps evolving based on what users really need.

Why Specialized Tools Beat All-in-One Platforms

Both companies made a conscious choice to focus on what they do best rather than trying to build everything. “No one can do everything perfectly. It’s not possible,” Ben Bassat explains.

His philosophy is clear: master your core function, then integrate with others who’ve mastered theirs. “Our approach on Anchor is not to give people a half-baked CRM experience or half-baked project management or practice management experience because it will not be as good. Keeper spent years developing their product.”

Stein agrees, recognizing that building billing software is “enormously complex.” Meanwhile, Keeper has spent years perfecting practice management and client communications that are “so deeply coupled to each other” that splitting them across multiple systems would create problems.

As Katz Pollock puts it, QuickBooks Online is like “a multifunction printer where it can print and it can copy and it can fax, but it doesn’t do any of them really, really well.” That’s why we have an entire ecosystem of specialized apps that excel at their one thing, and then connect to create something more powerful than any single platform.

Building the Integration Right

This wasn’t just two companies slapping together a quick connection. It was Keeper’s first major integration, and both teams approached it with their full attention.

“It surprised me how involved it was,” Stein reflects. “Anchor sort of took the whole process very seriously.” Keeper had to modify their API and release new endpoints specifically to support what Anchor needed.

Ben Bassat’s team matched that commitment. “Our approach is to deliver the best we can.” The development included extensive customer research, with Anchor’s product team speaking directly to Keeper users to understand their expectations.

The mutual respect between companies is evident in how they talk about each other. Stein praises Anchor’s authentic customer approach, while Ben Bassat marvels at Keeper’s user loyalty: “Clients are in love with the company, with the product. It’s something you don’t see a lot.”

When both companies share the same standards for quality, the collaboration works better.

The Bigger Picture

The Keeper-Anchor integration is a model for how accounting technology should evolve. When specialized companies listen to their customers and collaborate instead of competing, they create something more powerful than bloated platforms trying to do everything poorly.

The overwhelming user response—support teams flooded with excited customers wanting immediate access—shows that accountants recognize good tools that work together seamlessly. You don’t need another platform that does everything adequately. You need best-in-class solutions that communicate perfectly.

As these founders envision a future with universal bank APIs and seamless connectivity between all accounting apps, they’re describing an ecosystem where your software works as hard as you do. Where signing a proposal automatically sets up workflows, amendments in one system update tasks in another, and tools anticipate needs instead of creating more work.

When software companies prioritize partnership over competition and specialization over generalization, everyone wins. Your clients get better service. Your team gets better tools. And you get back to what you do best: serving clients instead of wrestling with software.

Want to hear the full conversation? Listen to this episode to discover how customer feedback drove this integration, what’s coming next, and why the future of accounting technology is specialized, connected, and customer-driven.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT! Click on the following links if you want to learn more about Keeper and Anchor.

QuickBooks Updates: Tap to Pay, Third-Party Integrations, and Training Opportunities for Accounting Pros

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In the latest episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Matthew “Spot” Fulton break down the most important QuickBooks announcements from Intuit’s March “In the Know” webinar. 

Here’s what’s new, from streamlined payment processing to expanded integrations and professional development opportunities.

Upcoming Training Opportunities for ProAdvisors

Here are several important training opportunities that ProAdvisors should mark on their calendars:

Level Two Certification Virtual Conference (March 25-27) – This training offers 9.5 CPE credits and prepares you for the advanced certification that many firms now require. Alicia emphasized, “Level one is like what buttons do you push… Level two is really leveraging the resources, some of the more advanced features, being able to think creatively about how to use the features to solve problems.”

MailChimp Training – Two new trainings are available in the ProAdvisor certification portal: “Getting Started with MailChimp” and a “MailChimp Product Guide” for client conversations. These trainings help ProAdvisors understand how MailChimp (now owned by Intuit) can be used for targeted client communications.

Recertification Window (April 28 – June 30) – The hosts emphasized the importance of recertifying early. “If you certify much earlier, your chances are probably better than later to get that prize,” mentioned Matthew, referring to the weekly $250 gift card drawings for those who pass the test. Remember that ProAdvisor certification tests are open-book!

Construction Industry Training (May 8) – For those interested in the construction niche, Intuit is offering specialized training covering “the modern construction landscape, mapping the construction workflow, connecting field and office, and key technology solutions.”

Tap to Pay on iPhone Eliminates Hardware Requirements

One of the most exciting announcements is the new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone, available in both the QuickBooks Mobile and Go Payment apps. This eliminates the need for the $50-100 Bluetooth card readers that many users didn’t even know existed.

“This is huge,” Alicia explained. “Now all you have to do is pull up the GoPayment, pull up the sale, and all the person has to do is either tap their phone to your iPhone or tap their credit card to your iPhone, and it automatically pays.”

The financial benefits extend beyond hardware savings. Transactions processed through Tap to Pay cost just 2.5% compared to 3.4% for manually keyed entries. ProAdvisors can secure even lower rates for their clients through preferred pricing.

However, both hosts emphasized that the real value isn’t in the processing rates but in the automated reconciliation. “If your focus is on the rates versus the efficiency, then you’re actually paying attention to the wrong thing,” Alicia noted. “QuickBooks Payments has huge ROI because when you run the payment through it, it recognizes it, it pays the invoice, it puts it in undeposited funds, it batches the payments and it matches to your bank feed.”

This feature is currently available in the US, with Canada expected to follow later.

Third-Party Payment Integrations Expand

QuickBooks Payments is significantly expanding its third-party integrations, allowing more applications to use it as a payment processor. The growing list includes PandaDoc, ChargeOver, Notify, ServiceM8, Buildertrend, Lightspeed, Salesforce, BigCommerce, and many others.

“Basically, what happens is you go into the settings on these apps for the payment processor, and it’s going to now give you a choice,” Alicia explained. “So instead of just going to Stripe, you will now actually have choices… and QuickBooks will be on the list.”

A major advantage for bookkeepers is how QuickBooks Payments handles processing fees. Unlike other processors that deduct fees from each transaction, QuickBooks extracts fees as separate transactions. “When you see the money in the bank, you’re seeing the full payment on your invoices and they’re all batched at their totals, which makes it much easier for you to batch and reconcile,” Alicia noted.

Intuit is also exploring options to allow merchants to pass processing fees to customers—a feature many professionals have requested.

ProConnect Tax Planning Tools Enhanced

For accounting professionals who handle taxes, ProConnect Tax now offers enhanced integration with QuickBooks. The system allows you to toggle different tax strategies on and off to see how they affect clients’ estimated taxes and tax projections.

“They’re trying to create an environment where it’s more intertwined and you can start to be planning for quarterly estimate payments, better projections, that type of stuff,” Matthew explained.

Users can create multiple “what if” accounts to compare different tax scenarios, view federal and state tax implications, and even print estimated tax payment vouchers. The integration also incorporates Intuit Assist’s AI-powered insights to identify opportunities you might otherwise miss.

QuickBooks Live Expert Service Evolving

QuickBooks Live, Intuit’s $50 support service that allows clients to get simple questions answered, is being refined based on customer feedback. Initially seen as potential competition, many ProAdvisors now view it as a valuable addition to their service offerings.

“I actually now see it as a huge value-added service,” Alicia shared. “I have some of my high maintenance clients calling into it instead [of me].”

The service has important limitations that protect the ProAdvisor relationship: “They’re only answering the question that’s asked. They can’t contribute more information… they can only answer what has been requested of them.”

Intuit is now testing enhancements, including priority queue access and weekend support hours, which could prove valuable during crunch times.

Making the Most of These Updates in Your Practice

These March updates reflect Intuit’s commitment to creating tools that help accounting professionals deliver more value with less effort. For those looking to leverage these innovations effectively:

  1. Focus on efficiency over processing rates when evaluating payment solutions
  2. Consider introducing clients to QuickBooks Live for basic support questions
  3. Pursue Level Two certification to enhance your problem-solving capabilities
  4. Explore specialized training in high-demand niches like construction
  5. Complete recertification early to maximize learning and incentive opportunities

The real value accounting professionals provide goes far beyond basic bookkeeping. These QuickBooks enhancements free up time to focus on the advisory work that truly transforms client businesses.

For more detailed insights on these updates and implementation strategies for your practice, listen to the full episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!