Alicia Katz Pollock

Inside QuickBooks Online’s Biggest Transformation Since Going Cloud-Based

Earmark Team · September 10, 2025 ·

You’re reviewing a client’s profit and loss report when you notice little sparkle icons next to several expense categories. Curious, you hover over one and get an instant explanation: “Office supplies increased 127% compared to last month due to these three transactions.” What used to require detective work across multiple screens now happens automatically, with AI explaining not just what happened, but why.

This isn’t a future vision—it’s happening right now in QuickBooks Online’s July 2025 updates. On the latest episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock from Royalwise and Dan DeLong from School of Bookkeeping break down Intuit’s massive “In the Know” session, where the company unveiled what they’re calling “QuickBooks on the Intuit platform.”

The transformation goes far beyond typical software updates. AI agents now work like digital detectives, scouring your data for patterns and anomalies. Banking feeds can automatically process PDF statements. Client communication occurs directly within QuickBooks, eliminating the spreadsheet shuffle. And those sparkle icons on reports? They’re AI-powered insights flagging unusual trends before your clients notice them.

But here’s what every accounting professional needs to understand: this isn’t an optional upgrade. By September 2025, everyone will be permanently on the new platform, with no opt-out option. The window to influence the final product closes soon.

AI Agents Become Your Digital Workforce

The heart of QuickBooks’ transformation lies in what Intuit calls “Agentic AI”—intelligent agents that actively hunt through your data for insights. Alicia explains her mental image: “I always imagine an AI bot in a detective hat, because that’s how I think about the AI is looking through the data and scouring it.”

The accounting agent, available for Essentials plans and higher, represents the biggest shift in how bookkeepers handle transactions. Instead of facing a wall of uncategorized entries, the system now identifies transactions that are “data-backed and likely to be accurate” and pre-checks them for posting. When three transactions meet this criterion, a banner appears announcing “three transactions ready to post.”

The game-changer is anomaly detection. Those sparkle icons appearing next to categories on profit and loss reports identify unusual trends automatically. Dan shares his experience: “I’ve seen it on some reports where the prior month there was a specific project that was done, and it said it right there on the screen like it went down this amount of percent because these two invoices were in the prior month.”

The categorization intelligence has evolved beyond simple pattern matching. The AI now recognizes that Shell and Arco are both gas stations, suggesting similar categories across different vendors. It scrapes bank descriptions for contextual clues and provides multiple suggestions for ambiguous transactions—offering both “meals and entertainment” and “travel meals” for restaurant charges, depending on your patterns.

Perhaps most significantly, categorization history has expanded from 12 to 24 months—a change Alicia specifically requested. This ensures annual charges can reference the previous year’s categorization, eliminating frustration with recurring yearly expenses.

Platform Integration Changes Everything

What Intuit calls “QuickBooks on the Intuit platform” represents more than rebranding—it’s the breakdown of decades-old product silos. As Dan explains, “their core offerings of TurboTax, MailChimp, and QuickBooks are getting homogenized here. And they can essentially talk to each other.”

The logic makes sense when you consider user patterns. As Alicia notes, “a lot of people use MailChimp who have never used QuickBooks. There’s a lot of people who file their taxes with TurboTax who have never used QuickBooks. So merging them all together is a natural evolution.”

The new interface features an app carousel with customer hubs, sales hubs, accounting hubs, marketing hubs, and business tax hubs. The customer hub will integrate MailChimp directly within QuickBooks, while business tax functionality brings TurboTax capabilities to the accounting workflow.

The enhanced bank feeds represent the most visible daily change. Alicia, who has been beta testing and providing daily feedback to developers, describes the evolution: “Everything that we knew and loved about the banking feeds is still there, but they kind of changed it.” The new system allows inline transaction editing, customizable column displays, and comprehensive transaction details.

The revolutionary statement import feature can process PDF bank statements and extract transactions automatically. While currently requiring human oversight—hence the two-hour processing time, at least for now—this capability could eliminate entire businesses built around transaction import services. As Alicia explains, “there’s a human being looking at it to see if it did a good job or not, and if it didn’t do it right, it’s actually going to a human being who is fixing the programming.”

Interface changes aren’t just cosmetic. The new left navigation is “brighter, it’s lighter, it’s prettier” with collapsible sections and bookmark functionality for one-click access to frequently used screens. The transformation from “Add” to “Post” in banking feeds reflects more technically accurate accounting language.

Client Communication Gets Built-In

The context gathering system eliminates the bookkeeper’s perpetual question: “What was this transaction for?” Built directly into QuickBooks, this feature threatens third-party apps by providing client communication tools within the core platform.

Alicia explains the problem this solves: “When you don’t know what something’s for, you have to go ask. And in the old days, we used to use spreadsheets for that. More recently, we’ve been using apps like Uncat, Keeper, or Financial Cents, where you can communicate with your clients right inside the app, but now you can do it right inside QBO.”

The system creates a to-do list maintained within QuickBooks, allowing bookkeepers to ask clients questions without requiring client QBO access. Clients receive emails with magic links to respond, and “it’s always the same link. And so you can just have your clients save it and bookmark it as the place to go.”

The expense forwarding feature allows anyone to send not just expenses but also income transaction directly into the system. However, this convenience introduces new risks. Alicia warns, “If you don’t have a bill approval process, you may have somebody who just goes in and pays everything without questioning anything. You actually could wind up paying bad actors who just sent random bills into your account to see if they could.” She reminds everyone to make sure they only give these email addresses to people they can trust.

The integration of Bill Pay Basic across all plans, including Simple Start, amplifies these concerns. Firms handling bill payments may want to consider upgrading clients to QBO Advanced, which includes mandatory bill approval workflows.

The September Deadline and What It Means

The timeline carries strategic implications beyond software preference. This isn’t a typical update where holdouts can postpone adoption—it’s a mandatory migration with a hard September deadline.

July offered opt-in/opt-out flexibility. August brought automatic transitions for new brand files. Crucially, all ProAdvisors’ clients were switched simultaneously. As Dan notes, “They threw accountants a bone” by ensuring firms wouldn’t juggle clients across different interfaces. September completes the mandatory transition, and by the month’s end, the new platform becomes permanent with no opt-out option.

The current period is critical for shaping the final product. As Alicia emphasizes from her beta testing: “This is the time to make sure that the platform works for us. They need your feedback.” Her daily communication with development teams resulted in interface improvements that serve real accounting workflows.

For firms considering the timeline, the choice is clear: engage now to influence the outcome, or adapt in September to whatever system emerges. The difference between being a beta participant and a forced adopter could determine whether your practice thrives or struggles.

Training and Resources Coming

Recognizing the scope of change, Intuit announced new training opportunities. Two courses are coming in October: one about understanding Agentic AI in general, and another specifically about AI agents in QuickBooks. There’s also ongoing research about what accounting professionals want to see in ProAdvisor Academy.

Alicia is completely rebuilding her training library at Royalwise. “I’ve got over 50 different courses of over 100 hours of QuickBooks Online content. So in September we are going to start over again from scratch,” she explains. Her Community and Coaching memberships will provide free entry into all webinars as she recreates content for the new platform.

Shape the Future or Be Shaped by It

The July 2025 QuickBooks updates represent the most significant transformation since moving to the cloud. AI agents are becoming the invisible workforce handling pattern recognition and routine categorization. New communication tools eliminate constant client back-and-forth. Interface changes reflect a fundamental shift toward integrated business management.

For accounting professionals, these changes represent both opportunity and risk. Those who engage now can influence the final product through feedback. As Alicia’s daily communication with developers shows, active participants can achieve solutions that serve the profession’s real needs.

But come September’s mandatory transition, the window for input closes. Firms will adapt to whatever system emerges from this beta period. The most successful professionals will view this transition as evolution—an opportunity to eliminate tedious data entry and focus on high-value advisory work.

Don’t let this transformation happen to you—be part of shaping it. The September deadline isn’t just about software—it’s about the future of the accounting profession itself.

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!

QuickBooks Online’s Latest AI Update Could Save You Hours of Detective Work

Earmark Team · September 1, 2025 ·

Picture this: You’re reviewing a client’s profit and loss statement when travel expenses catch your eye. They’ve jumped 624% from last month. Is this legitimate business growth, a categorization error, or duplicate entries? Traditionally, this would mean hours of detective work, drilling into transaction details and cross-referencing receipts.

But what if an AI agent had already investigated this anomaly, traced it back to two identical $10,834 hotel charges, and presented you with a detailed report, complete with visual charts and actionable recommendations?

This feature is rolling out to QuickBooks Online users this summer.

In this episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, Jim Dzundza, Staff Product Manager for the QuickBooks Accounting Automation team, explains how AI-powered error detection agents are transforming accounting workflows. But this isn’t about robots replacing bookkeepers. It’s about intelligent collaboration where AI handles time-consuming pattern recognition while accountants focus on analysis and client relationships.

From Program Manager to Product Developer

Dzundza’s journey at Intuit offers unique insight into how accountant feedback shapes product development. He started on the business development team working on desktop product partnerships, then moved to manage the ProAdvisor program for several years.

“Accountants have had a special spot in my heart,” Dzundza explains. “They are the key to us developing amazing products and amazing functionality.” His transition from the front-facing ProAdvisor program to backend product development wasn’t accidental; it was driven by impact.

“I felt like I could make a bigger impact by bringing this accountant perspective and finding a team within Intuit that really thinks about how accountants use and love the product,” he says. “And then focusing on where a lot of the pain is, to be honest. How can we help accountants reduce the pain of the work that they have to do?”

This accountant-first approach shows in every feature Dzundza shared on the podcast.

The AI Agent Revolution Begins

QuickBooks Online’s new platform introduces six specialized AI agents, each designed for specific accounting functions. The accounting, payments, and finance agents are currently available. Project management is in beta, while payroll and customer agents are coming soon.

The rollout timeline is aggressive but manageable. All new files created now automatically use the new platform. Starting in July, existing users can opt into the new experience. By September, everyone will see it, with the ability to opt out until the transition becomes mandatory at the end of September.

“We are daily reviewing feedback that is streaming in around all of the new UI, the new agents, everything coming out,” Dzundza emphasizes. “We’re implementing fixes and changes based on user feedback.”

This feedback period allows accountants to shape these tools rather than simply accepting what’s provided.

Eliminating Data Entry Frustrations

The accounting agent tackles three major workflow areas: getting transactions into the books, categorizing them, and reconciling accounts. Each advancement addresses real pain points accountants face daily.

PDF Statement Upload

For years, working with small banks meant manually keying transactions or using third-party tools like MoneyThumb. The new PDF statement upload feature completely changes this.

“You have the PDF and you go in to add that statement or upload those transactions in the same way you would upload a CSV today,” Dzundza explains. “And now you’re able to upload a PDF.” The AI extracts transactions directly from bank statement PDFs, eliminating the need for external conversion tools.

Enhanced Collaboration

Perhaps more revolutionary is the new collaboration feature available on Essentials and above. When you encounter a transaction needing clarification, you can ask questions directly within the bank feed and send clients a magic link via email or text.

“They can go on their phone and answer the question,” Dzundza notes. “They can answer it from wherever without having to log into QuickBooks.” Once clients respond, the AI automatically updates its categorization recommendations based on that context, creating a feedback loop that improves accuracy for future similar transactions.

This addresses a major frustration: forcing business owners to log into QuickBooks just to answer simple questions about transactions. It also gives accountants control over their books while still gathering necessary context.

Reconciliation Gets Smarter

The reconciliation process receives similar AI enhancements, with tools launching in mid-July. Like bank feeds, reconciliation now supports PDF extraction with a crucial enhancement: when the AI can’t extract everything accurately, it flags questionable areas for human review.

“Our goal for this one is 100% accuracy,” Dzundza explains. This hybrid approach, combining AI speed with human verification, ensures accuracy while eliminating manual data entry.

The new reconciliation interface organizes information into logical sections: cleared transactions that matched one-to-one, flagged one-to-many matches requiring review, and AI recommendations for transactions that should potentially be excluded or unposted.

This addresses common reconciliation headaches like duplicate detection. As Dzundza discussed with host Alicia Katz Pollock, it’s easy to upload a receipt and then also accept the same transaction from the bank feed without noticing the duplication. The AI now surfaces these duplicates automatically, eliminating manual scanning for errors.

The Anomaly Detection Game-Changer

The most sophisticated feature is the accounting agent’s anomaly detection, which transforms financial statement review from manual line-by-line scanning to intelligent pattern analysis.

How It Works

The system analyzes 13 months of historical data, comparing the most recent complete month against established patterns to identify accounts that deviate significantly from normal behavior. But it’s smarter than simple variance detection. It considers each account’s historical volatility. Accounts with consistent monthly variation won’t trigger alerts for normal fluctuations, while stable accounts get flagged for even modest deviations.

“It looks over the past 13 months, and then it looks at the most recent complete month,” Dzundza explains. “And it will tell you if this month’s total seems off on either the balance sheet or P&L.”

Professional-Quality Investigation

When the system detects anomalies, the AI conducts detailed investigations using what Dzundza describes as “customized prompts we designed in partnership with accountants.” These prompts guide the AI to analyze transaction patterns, identify common characteristics, and surface potential root causes.

Travel expenses are a perfect example of this capability. When the AI flagged a 624% increase in travel expenses, it didn’t just note the variance; it traced the increase to two identical $10,834 hotel charges from the same vendor, immediately raising the question of whether these were duplicates or legitimate separate transactions.

Seamless Integration

The feature integrates directly into standard financial statements through subtle blue sparkles next to affected line items. Clicking a sparkle opens a detailed analysis directly in context, allowing investigation without leaving the familiar report format. The sparkles don’t print when you export reports, maintaining clean client deliverables while providing powerful review capabilities.

Actionable Reporting

The AI generates professional-quality PDF reports that serve as both investigation summaries and work papers. These reports include visual charts showing the anomaly, detailed root cause analysis, supporting data points with reference numbers for easy transaction lookup, and comprehensive narrative explanations of findings.

As Katz Pollock notes, “this is something I would be very happy to just send to my client.”

The Partnership Model That Works

These AI updates aren’t about replacing accountants, but about elevating their work.

“It’s not about replacing jobs or anything like that,” Dzundza emphasizes. “It’s really focused on creating tools that make people more efficient in getting their work done.”

As Katz Pollock summarizes, “this is in no way taking your job. All this is doing is calling your attention to things that it’s noticed in a way that you would not have access to just by looking.” The technology provides pattern recognition and initial investigation, but professional judgment about significance, cause, and appropriate action remains firmly in human hands.

Your Voice in the Development Process

Dzundza stresses that development teams are reviewing user feedback daily and implementing changes based on that input.

This gives accounting professionals a unique opportunity to actively shape these tools. The key is providing constructive, actionable feedback with specific details rather than general complaints.

The Future of Accounting Practice

Technical proficiency with AI tools is becoming as important as traditional accounting skills. Accountants who embrace this partnership will find themselves elevated from data processors to strategic advisors, spending less time hunting for errors and more time interpreting their significance for clients.

The collaboration model redefines what it means to be an accounting professional in an AI-enhanced world. The accountants who thrive will be those who view AI as a powerful research assistant rather than a threat, focusing their expertise on the strategic analysis and client relationships that technology cannot replace.

As these AI agents roll out over the coming months, you have the opportunity to be part of shaping the future of accounting practice. Listen to the full episode to hear Dzundza’s complete demonstration of these features, understand the implementation timeline, and learn how to provide constructive feedback that will help refine these tools for maximum benefit to accounting professionals.

The future of accounting is being written now. Make sure your voice is part of that conversation.

Protect Your Bookkeeping Practice: Essential Boundaries That Preserve Your Value

Earmark Team · August 27, 2025 ·

When hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Veronica Wasek spun their “Wheel of Rants” on a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, they landed on a topic that sparked an energetic discussion: “The 20 things that accountants should never do.”

What followed was a candid conversation about the essential boundaries every bookkeeper should establish to protect themselves and their clients. Whether you’re just starting your bookkeeping practice or you’re a seasoned professional, these boundaries are critical safeguards for building a sustainable business.

Client Relationship Boundaries: Who’s Really in Charge?

“Allowing clients to control the work we do and really treating us as employees” topped Wasek’s list of boundary violations. She explained that many bookkeepers, especially those transitioning from employee roles, fall into the trap of letting clients direct their work.

“The client shouldn’t be directing the work you do,” Wasek emphasized. “There should be proper diagnosis done by us as accountants and then we give the client our recommendations.”

This distinction is crucial: Are you following orders or leading the process? As Katz Pollock pointed out, “If you’re a bookkeeper with your own firm or your own practice, you should be the one guiding the narrative.” Otherwise, you might actually be functioning as an employee rather than an independent contractor.

Financial Boundaries: Know Your Worth

Both hosts shared strong opinions about working for free or undervaluing services. Wasek explained how offering free work “devalues our industry as a whole” and signals that you don’t value your own expertise.

Katz Pollock added a practical concern: “If you were willing to do it for free, why would I pay you $500 a month to do it?” This initial boundary violation creates expectations that become nearly impossible to reset later.

Another common mistake is marking down invoices without discussion. Wasek shared an example based on her own experience. “My fee was $10,000 based on all the time that I spent on it, but I don’t think they’re going to pay me $10,000, so I just charge them $5,000.”

She now recognizes this as a serious boundary violation, explaining, “We tend to project our own feelings about money to our clients.” Instead of assuming clients won’t pay, have an open conversation about pricing.

Katz Pollock offered a practical strategy for those who bill hourly. “I charge what I consider a reasonably high rate, and that allows me to give a discount. Then I feel like everybody wins. I’m still getting a satisfactory rate, and they feel good.”

The hosts also warned against becoming financially dependent on just a few clients. “What if one out of those three leaves and you were financially dependent on that client?” Wasek cautioned. This dependency traps bookkeepers in problematic relationships where they can’t enforce other boundaries for fear of losing essential income.

Security Boundaries: Protecting Your Clients and Yourself

“Having direct access to the client’s bank accounts or their bill payment” is a practice Wasek strongly discourages. She shared a sobering example of a client that embezzled $8 million through their in-house bookkeeper, who had unrestricted access.

Katz Pollock acknowledged the practical challenges, noting she sometimes needs bank account access to view statements or check images. Her solution involves strict controls: “We have a 1Password vault that nobody has access to except for me and my contracted bookkeeper,” plus explicit language in her engagement letter that they “will never take any action either on your behalf or at your request.”

Both hosts emphasized the importance of secure password management. “Nowadays, you need to have unique passwords for everything,” Wasek explained, recommending systems that limit credential visibility to only those who absolutely need them.

Email communication presents another security concern. “The bane of my existence is emails,” Katz Pollock admitted, noting important client communications often get buried. More critically, Wasek warned, “There are so many email scams going on right now where you think you’re talking to your client and they are not your client.”

She shared a chilling example: “One of my clients was a victim of an email scam with a vendor. He sent a couple of million dollars to this fraudulent vendor, and then couldn’t do anything about it.” This led her firm to abandon email entirely for client communications, moving to secure platforms instead.

Professional Expertise Boundaries: Know Your Limits

“Taking a client when you lack the required skills” and giving legal or tax advice without proper qualifications made both hosts’ lists of major boundary violations.

“Certain industries and certain types of clients are more complex,” Wasek explained, highlighting areas like e-commerce and nonprofit accounting that require specialized knowledge.

Both hosts stressed that bookkeepers should never give tax or legal advice without proper credentials. “If you don’t have a law degree and if you don’t have a tax designation, then you can’t actually back up and stand by the advice you’re giving,” Katz Pollock cautioned.

Instead, they recommended developing relationships with specialists and having prepared responses for common client questions. As Wasek suggested, “I would try to give them the right words to use to ask their CPA the proper question.”

Documentation Boundaries: Get It in Writing

“Not using engagement letters” was another boundary violation, both hosts emphasized. Wasek learned this lesson “the hard way” after initially “working on a handshake,” explaining that formal agreements “really set the tone for the entire relationship.”

A comprehensive engagement letter should outline services provided, responsibilities, pricing, payment terms, and procedures for ending the relationship. Katz Pollock recommended reviewing engagement letters annually. “I look to see if their scope has changed. How many checking accounts did I agree to and how many do they have now?” This gives a “tangible reason for raising our prices” beyond just annual increases.

Both hosts also advocated for paid diagnostic assessments before committing to new clients. This smaller initial engagement helps evaluate a client’s responsiveness and complexity before making longer-term commitments.

Personal Boundaries: Protecting Your Time and Energy

The hosts discussed the common issue of bookkeepers acting as “unpaid therapists” for their clients. Wasek recalled a client who “would keep me on for at least an hour” multiple times weekly, making it impossible to complete actual work. She learned to establish time parameters, saying, “I’d love to talk to you, but I have a meeting in 15 minutes.”

Another crucial personal boundary involves maintaining client confidentiality. “You never, ever, ever talk badly about either the business owner or a bookkeeper to another business owner or another bookkeeper,” Katz Pollock stressed. This includes avoiding sharing information between clients or discussing former clients with their new bookkeepers without explicit permission.

Wasek shared a situation involving partnership conflicts: “I had to terminate the relationship. I would rather this client think badly of me for leaving them without a bookkeeper than to attack the other partner or to tattletale.”

Building a Stronger Practice Through Boundaries

Throughout their discussion, Wasek and Katz Pollock emphasized that proper boundaries ultimately create more sustainable and rewarding businesses.

“I am a big believer in karma, and that when one door closes, another one opens,” Katz Pollock shared. “If you have a really large client that you depend on, and either they let you go or you just find it toxic, I don’t recommend staying.”

Wasek agreed, adding that when bookkeepers release problematic clients, they gain “so much more mental energy to devote to better clients.”

For bookkeepers looking to establish stronger boundaries, the hosts recommended:

Getting proper training to understand your expertise and limitations
Using engagement letters reviewed by legal professionals
Implementing secure technology solutions for passwords and communications
Developing scripts for common boundary challenges
Building relationships with specialists for referrals
Conducting paid diagnostic assessments before committing to new clients

As Katz Pollock concluded about maintaining professional boundaries, “It says way more about you than it does about them.” It’s a reminder that how you establish and maintain boundaries ultimately defines your professional reputation and the health of your practice.

To hear more detailed insights about these essential bookkeeping boundaries, listen to the full episode using the player below or wherever you get your podcasts.

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

Earmark Team · August 6, 2025 ·

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.

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

Earmark Team · July 22, 2025 ·

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.