Matthew "Spot" Fulton

How to keep Intuit Experts from duplicating the work your firm already does

Earmark Team · September 15, 2026 ·

Alicia Katz Pollock wore her “Strange New Worlds” T-shirt from Scaling New Heights to record this episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast for a reason. QuickBooks Live is gone as a brand, and Intuit is restructuring how its employees help QuickBooks users.

As of July 29, 2026, Intuit Expert Services became a native feature within QuickBooks Online plans rather than a separate add-on. Dan DeLong of School of Bookkeeping and Matthew “Spot” Fulton of Parkway Business Solutions joined Alicia for this episode to examine the change.

Their central question is: Is this simply a new name, or is Intuit changing its role in clients’ books?

The new model focuses on businesses without accountants

QuickBooks Live offered assisted bookkeeping, cleanup, and full-service options. Intuit Experts has a narrower focus, covering onboarding new businesses, supporting AI-driven categorization, and reviewing books.

These services mainly target businesses without an accountant. Alicia estimated that about 70% of QuickBooks files have no accountant user attached. Accounting professionals may assume most businesses have bookkeeping support because that’s what we see in our own client lists. In reality, many owners sign up for QuickBooks and try to manage it on their own.

Intuit says its employed experts are QuickBooks-certified professionals with an average of 10 years of bookkeeping experience. Their work is meant to build a bridge to an accountant, not replace one. Beginning in January 2027, it expects the Intuit Pro Partner Accountants Program to match businesses with participating firms.

To understand where that bridge begins, however, we need to look at the services now included in QBO.

Three services move Intuit further into the books

Intuit introduced three ongoing Expert Services:

Books Check-In. An annual meeting with an Intuit bookkeeping expert to review the books, discuss AI-flagged issues, and help clean up the chart of accounts. It’s included with Essentials and Plus.
Smart Expert Categorization. AI-assisted transaction categorization with expert verification in the background. It’s included with Plus and is part of the Advanced service described below.
Expert Books Upkeep. Continuous automated bookkeeping with expert validation and posting, regular accuracy checks, and quarterly review meetings. It’s included with Advanced.

As Dan observed, this looks like two services plus a package that combines them. The exact scope is still unclear. Does expert verification mean reviewing the AI’s suggestions, managing the bank feed, or correcting mistakes? Matthew asked, “Who fixes their errors?”

Pricing raised another open question. Alicia believes these features may help explain recent subscription price increases, but that was her interpretation rather than a confirmed pricing explanation from Intuit. If a business doesn’t use the services, Matthew asked, can it pay less?

Those unknowns make Intuit’s new controls especially important.

The controls depend on attachment and billing

Intuit promises, “For every client connected to an accountant, these services are disabled by default.”

For attached clients, Intuit says it will suppress marketing for overlapping services. That includes in-product prompts, emails, banner and web ads, dashboard messages, tests, and outbound sales.

Who can enable the services depends on billing:

On client-billed accounts, the option is hidden in the Settings. Either the client or an attached accountant can enable them. Clients who turn it on see a message advising them to check with their accountant before proceeding.
On firm-billed accounts, only the billing accountant can enable the services. The client sees a locked setting and must contact the firm.

Alicia argued that a warning isn’t the same as approval. She asked Intuit to require both the client and accountant to approve activation. Until then, firms should verify the settings themselves.

One control covers all three services. If multiple accountants are connected, the billing relationship determines who controls the setting. Accountants also receive read-only access to the Expert Hub, where they can see service progress, scheduled calls, and summaries.

Intelligent Onboarding creates a separate overlap risk

Intelligent Onboarding is separate from the three ongoing services. Every brand new QuickBooks customer can access setup support from day one, even when Intuit doesn’t yet know whether the business has an accountant.

The program expands onboarding support from 30 to 90 days and may include several expert calls. Intuit Experts can also help configure QuickBooks Payments, Bill Pay, and Workforce.

That could save firms hours of basic setup. But CAS practices need to be proactive: t could also duplicate a service you already provide, create a chart of accounts that doesn’t match your approach, or connect a client to Intuit products before you discuss alternatives.

Intuit’s goal is to complete the “foundational work” before an accountant meets with the client. Alicia pushed back on part of that idea. Refining the chart of accounts is usually the firm’s job.

The practical response is to define onboarding in your engagement letter and kickoff meeting. Tell clients what you handle, what kinds of questions they can send throught Intuit, what services they should avoid activating, and when you will review any work completed by Intuit.

Your firm needs to defend its boundary

Intuit acknowledged that QuickBooks Live “created friction between Intuit and accounting firms.” The hosts are cautious because Intuit previously promised not to market QuickBooks Live to accountants’ clients, yet firms still encountered that marketing.

This version has stronger safeguards, but firms should test them rather than assume they work. Start with this checklist:

Confirm every client is attached through QBO Accountant or Intuit Accountant Suite
Identify client-billed and firm-billed subscriptions
Review the Expert Services control in each client file
Coordinate access when multiple accountants are attached
Decide whether each service supports or duplicates your engagement
Explain the new options to clients before they activate anything
Watch the Pro Partner Accountants Program as its January 2027 launch approaches

Automation may take over more categorization and routine review. That leaves firms to handle judgment, interpretation, and client conversations—work software can’t do on its own.

Listen to the full episode for Alicia, Dan, and Matthew’s full discussion of the controls, unanswered questions, and next steps for accounting firms.

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!

175 fixes and a fresh sales pitch: What to verify before you trust Intuit’s promises

Earmark Team · September 1, 2026 ·

Watch the recent In the Know! session, and you’ll see Intuit believes it’s turned over a new leaf. The company now wants to treat accountants as customers rather than as a sales channel. That’s a big claim. And as any good accountant knows, a claim is only as good as the evidence behind it.

In this “Now You Know” recap on The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Matthew “Spot” Fulton walk through that In the Know session. They cover QuickBooks performance fixes, updated Expert Services, and the features rolling out in Intuit Accountant Suite in August. They view every promise as a claim to verify, not a gift to accept. They welcome the fixes, but Intuit still hasn’t published the changelog that would prove the headline number. The new Expert Services guardrails leave open questions about Intuit’s human reviewers touching client files, and pricing barely came up at all.

175 improvements, but where’s the receipt?

Stacey Blanchard, Product Marketing Lead at Intuit, opened with a poll about speed. She asked how often listeners wished a page, workflow, or report would load faster. Only 11% said they never notice it. Thirty percent said rarely, 40% said at least once a week, and 20% said almost every single time they log into QBO.

Alicia offered a reality check. Before you blame QuickBooks, consider when’s the last time you actually unplugged your router for a minute. A clogged connection may be the real culprit. Matthew observed that pages often load, flash, and reload before they settle. So count “one, two, three Mississippi” before you click that gear icon.

Intuit claims they’ve made 175 “meaningful improvements.” The team framed it with the line, “building new things is only half the job—the other half is listening.”

Several of the fixes are genuinely useful. For example:

Duplicate-transaction warnings now appear before you post instead of after
Suggested bank-feed matches carry confidence icons—a green check when QuickBooks is sure, an orange alert when it’s guessing
Categorization is meant to learn from your own file first, reaching the broader database only when your file offers no pattern
Conflicting bank rules now get surfaced, so you can pick the right one and clean up duplicates
A cleaner dashboard with resizable, reorderable widgets, more than 100 keyboard shortcuts, over 50 report fixes so columns aren’t cut off and pages print as they appear, and extended sign-in timeouts

But Matthew notes, “I would love an actual list of those 175 meaningful improvements, please.” Alicia shared a simple fix: use that empty notification bell in the upper-right corner to post a running changelog. “I think that would go a long way towards consumer confidence.”

For now, she recommends restarting your router before you blame QBO. And if a tab looks timed out but another QBO tab is still active, just refresh. You’re still signed in. And keep asking Intuit for the changelog.

Accountant as customer, or accountant’s lane invaded?

The bigger story is what Intuit now says it believes about you.

Liron Zighelnic, Director of Product, AI-Powered Agents at Intuit, framed her team as “AI plus HI” (human intelligence). Her larger message is that accountants are “our customer, not a sales channel,” and the center of the client relationship.

The Expert Services changes carry weight. Intuit setup experts will coach new business owners for 90 days instead of 30. Intuit Intelligence builds a dynamic “setup hub” shaped around the client’s stated priorities, rather than a static checklist. And a step in the setup flow lets clients attach their accountant’s firm information directly.

Then come the guardrails. A new “Intuit Experts Services” toggle is off by default when an accountant user is attached. Self-serve clients who explore it get a pop-up encouraging them to talk to you first. If they turn it on, you’re notified. And firm-billed files stay off until you enable them.

But Matthew is skeptical. “I thought this is how it was supposed to be the entire time,” he said. And open questions remain. If a client starts their own file with the toggle on and attaches you later, does it flip off? Alicia’s believes it should, “because otherwise none of this has any meaning.”

The August bank-feed change is thornier still. AI takes the first categorization pass. High-confidence transactions post, uncertain ones get flagged to the owner, and a human Intuit expert reviews in the background. As Alicia said, “It means they’re going into our files unauthorized.” Is that a paid service, or free labor that trains the model? Matthew noted, “One thing that never came up during the entire presentation was anything to do with pricing.”

Before you trust any of it:

Confirm the default-off behavior in your own client files
Ask who pays for the human-review layer and whether it’s AI training or a billed service
Press for pricing before you lean on the setup hub

That same verify-before-you-adopt logic applies to what’s coming in Accountant Suite.

The August toolkit: tabs, a unified inbox, and portfolio insights

Adoption is climbing. Alicia noted a real shift since May. Attendees who answer, “Haven’t heard of it,” dropped into the single digits, and the majority are now using it.

Multi-client tabs

These are in Core (free) through August. Keep your Accountant Suite portal open, plus up to five client files in separate browser tabs. Click a transaction in Books Close and the client file opens alongside it. Matthew shared the perfect use case scenario: you’re mid-project when another client calls, so you pop their file open, answer, close it, and get back to work without opening an incognito window.

The unified inbox

This replaces the limited requests area. It gathers requests, receipts, messages, and reminders across every client into one place, reachable from a new inbox button in the upper-right corner. You can filter by client, send email or text reminders, and request information from QBO users, firm team members, or outside contacts who join through a free portal without a paid seat. Smart templates feed Intuit Intelligence, which in one demo caught a mismatch. The transaction was $58, and the uploaded receipt was $25. But Matthew pointed out this will need “tiered levels of control and accessibility, or visibility.”

Accelerate

The higher tier delivers cross-client portfolio insights. Ask Intuit Intelligence to identify which clients had a transaction-volume increase of more than 25% last quarter, and you have a pricing review, capacity plan, or advisory conversation without opening a single file. Version one is high-level KPIs only. There’s no transaction drilldown yet, although it suggests follow-up questions. Accelerate is free until January 2027. Books Close stays separate at $8 per client, with no firm start date for billing.

Start your testing with multi-client tabs, since they’re free and low-risk. Demand Intuit provides clear inbox permissions before inviting outside contacts, and use the free Accelerate window to judge real value before they announce pricing.

Do the homework (or take Intuit’s word for it)

Intuit is asking the profession to believe it has changed. The performance fixes, the “accountant as customer” framing, the new toggle, and the Accountant Suite rollout are all evidence, but evidence a good accountant tests before accepting.

Healthy skepticism is professional diligence. Verify the guardrails in your own client files. Ask the pricing and data-access questions. Hold Intuit to the transparency it hasn’t yet delivered. Do that work, and these tools can free up serious capacity and grow your advisory line. Skip it, and you’re just taking Intuit’s word for it.

So restart your router, then hit play. Listen to the full episode with Alicia and Matthew for every guardrail, open question, and August rollout detail. Then decide which changes actually earn a place in your workflow.

Why Accountants Are Both Thrilled and Terrified by QuickBooks’ Latest AI Push

Earmark Team · October 20, 2025 ·

How much should we trust AI with our critical financial processes?

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Matthew “Spot” Fulton break down the August 2025 “In the Know” webinar from Intuit, where AI agents take center stage alongside major Enterprise Suite enhancements and ProAdvisor Academy improvements.

From payment collection to payroll processing, QuickBooks is pushing automation further than ever before. But as Fulton and Katz Pollock discuss, the technology that saves you hours today needs careful oversight to avoid compliance nightmares tomorrow.

ProAdvisor Academy Gets Smarter

Before diving into the AI updates, the hosts highlighted some welcome improvements to ProAdvisor Academy. You can now filter courses by length and CPE credit amount—perfect for those moments when you think, “I have an hour, what can I learn right now?”

Even better, the system finally saves your CPE certificates in the “My History” section. As Katz Pollock notes, “They used to email them to you and you had to save them, and that was it. So the fact that you can actually now track your CPE is pretty darn awesome.”

Intuit is also launching a new quarterly series called Solution Spotlight, where support experts will tackle complex challenges and deep-dive into underutilized tools. The first topic? Bank transactions and reconciliation—the community’s most requested subject.

Enterprise Suite: The Multi-Entity Game Changer

Fulton and Katz Pollock spent considerable time discussing Enterprise Suite’s powerful consolidation features, and for good reason. These updates address long-standing issues that have plagued multi-entity businesses for years.

The Shared Chart of Accounts feature uses AI to standardize accounting across all your entities. As Fulton explains it, “You choose which chart of accounts you want to be your primary one, and then you can use the AI to say, okay, we think these accounts are going to match up with those accounts. You still have the ability to review and say, yep, you got this right.”

The time savings are massive. Fulton speaks from experience, “As an accountant, the time and energy it takes to try to normalize a chart of accounts is extensive. There’s a lot of thought and knowledge and wisdom that goes into it.”

Multi-entity transactions are even more impressive. When you invoice another entity in your organization, the system automatically creates the corresponding bill in that entity, complete with a PDF attachment. Fulton recalls the old way: “You would pull up two browsers, you’d have both companies up, and you look at the intercompany exchanges between one company and the other, and you go line by line to make sure both sides are there.”

But Katz Pollock raises an important point about accessibility. She has clients with multiple small entities—”literally QuickBooks Ledger or Simple Start”—who desperately need these consolidation features but can’t justify Enterprise Suite’s price tag. Her suggestion? “I think they should make an Enterprise Lite version focused solely on multi-company functions.

The Payments Agent: Getting You Paid Faster (and Smarter)

The Payments agent analyzes customer behavior to optimize your collection strategy. When you create an invoice, it shows you how long they’ve been a customer, their payment history, open invoices, and average payment time.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The agent suggests payment methods based on what will get you paid fastest. It even calculates total time to receive funds, including your customer’s typical delay. When Katz Pollock saw “ACH 14 days” in the demo, she clarified, “It wasn’t that ACH takes 14 days to clear. It’s that the customer takes on average nine days to pay, and then you have the three to five days it takes to clear.”

Fulton cuts to why this matters, “As business owners, all too often we rely on small margins to where we are super sensitive to cash flow. If it’s going to take somebody longer to pay, we need to know that.”

The system can also parse invoices from text, images, or PDFs, though Katz Pollock admits it “doesn’t do the line items yet. But you know, it’s just the infancy of the technology.”

One limitation bothers Katz Pollock: Reminder settings apply to all customers universally. “I have placeholder invoices or agreements with customers where it’s okay that they’re not going to pay for another 90 days,” she explains. Her workaround? Adjust due dates to match actual payment expectations.

The Payroll Agent: Convenience Meets Controversy

The Payroll agent’s text-message time collection generated the most heated discussion. Employees receive texts asking for hours, overtime, and tips. They respond with simple messages, and the system compiles everything for manager approval.

Sounds great, right? Not so fast.

“If they’re not keeping a time card, you know they’re going to overestimate how much they actually worked,” Katz Pollock warns. Fulton agrees, “How many employees are always completely honest with their hours and their overtime and their tips?”

The system is heavily restricted during beta. It’s only for US customers who don’t use auto payroll or QuickBooks Time, have one pay schedule, and use basic pay types. Fulton sees wisdom here, “Let’s make sure this is working before we give it to all the crazies out there.”

Still, there are safeguards. The system flags anomalies, requires manager approval, creates audit logs, and needs employee consent for each payroll period. Fulton even sees potential for construction companies where daily time certification is required. “They’re having to certify by responding back to this the amount of time they worked.”

Katz Pollock’s verdict? “The technology is going to be great. It’s the humans that you can’t trust in this particular issue.”

Customer Leads: Your Email Becomes Your CRM

Currently in Gmail-only beta (Outlook coming soon), the Customer Leads agent scans your email for customer interactions and organizes them into a sales pipeline: inquiry, negotiation, finalization, contracted, or lost.

Fulton’s excited about consolidation. “I’ve been using 17 Hats, but the challenge I’ve always had is the integration piece. I can handle all this stuff up to the estimate and invoice somebody, but it’s always been external.”

Katz Pollock uses Method CRM currently and sees the appeal, “This will be really nice to be able to just keep it right inside QBO and not have to go to another app.”

The hosts admit they’re still learning this feature, and Katz Pollock has a future episode planned to dive deeper.

More Updates Worth Your Attention

A few other updates the hosts are looking forward to include:

Scheduled Compensation Changes

This might be the sleeper hit of the updates. You can now pre-program raises and bonuses with effective dates. As Fulton exclaims, “This is sunlight shining down onto us so we can take a vacation at the end of the year, too!”

Katz Pollock shares a perfect use case: “I had a client whose employee broke their field service iPad and was reimbursing them out of their payroll, $150 per month for six months.” With scheduling, that deduction would automatically end on the right date.

Sales Tax Automation Expands

QuickBooks now handles sales tax filing for Iowa, Minnesota, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia at $40 per filing. While the hosts debated the price, Fulton notes it’s actually market rate compared to services like Avalara.

Looking Ahead

The hosts emphasized community feedback throughout the episode. As Fulton puts it: “Are you using Enterprise yet? If you are, what features are you loving? If you aren’t, what features are most enticing?”

They’ve even started a LinkedIn group for the podcast where listeners can discuss episodes and share experiences.

Katz Pollock is launching her “Great QBO Refresh” training series in September, completely rebuilding her curriculum to address all the interface changes.

Don’t miss Intuit Connect (October 27-29 in Las Vegas) or Reframe Conference (November in Florida), which Fulton calls “by far, hands down, the best conference I’ve been to in years.”

The Bottom Line

These AI agents aren’t replacing accounting professionals; they’re redefining the role. The firms that thrive will leverage AI for efficiency while maintaining the human judgment that ensures accuracy, compliance, and client trust.

As Katz Pollock wisely advises about the payroll agent’s rollout, “Intuit, go slow on this one. We want to actually see use cases before it becomes universal.”

The future of accounting isn’t human versus machine. It’s human with machine, each doing what they do best. Ready to dive deeper? Listen to the full episode above and join the conversation in the Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast LinkedIn group.

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.

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

Earmark Team · April 23, 2025 ·

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:

Focus on efficiency over processing rates when evaluating payment solutions
Consider introducing clients to QuickBooks Live for basic support questions
Pursue Level Two certification to enhance your problem-solving capabilities
Explore specialized training in high-demand niches like construction
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.