In Episode 145 of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong break down Intuit’s May “In the Know” webinar, and the numbers they share are attention-grabbing. When Intuit polled attendees about its new Accountant Suite platform, 70% either hadn’t heard of it or hadn’t tried it yet. This is the platform that’s replacing what you log into every day, and most accounting professionals don’t even know what it does.
But before we dive into those platform changes, let’s start with Intuit’s big news: the ProAdvisor program you’ve known for nearly 30 years is getting a new name. Starting in 2027, we’ll all be “ProPartners” instead of ProAdvisors.
The ProAdvisor-to-ProPartner rebrand: What we know (and don’t know)
During the webinar, Intuit dropped this announcement with minimal fanfare. They’re rebranding the ProAdvisor program to the “Intuit ProPartner Accountants” program in 2027. They promise expanded benefits, more education, and a connected community, but specifics are thin on the ground.
“The ProAdvisor program has been around for almost 30 years, right? And that term is now no longer in their glossary of terms. And here we were just talking about being a Top ProAdvisor,” Dan said, capturing the community’s reaction perfectly.
Alicia shared her own confusion. “With all the leaning in on advisory over the last couple of years and then the push to include AI to help us do advisory, it seems like a ProAdvisor name would be more appropriate than ever.”
The hosts noted that Intuit has a habit of dropping these announcements early to let people “warm up” to changes over time. But as Dan reassured listeners, “The sky is not falling.” Intuit promises to enhance the program, not gut it. We don’t yet know exactly what the enhancement looks like.
Why Intuit Accountant Suite exists (and why 70% of you haven’t tried it)
When Intuit polled its “In the Know” attendees, which includes people who voluntarily show up for monthly product updates, here’s what they found:
- 13% had never heard of Intuit Accountant Suite
- 57% had heard of it but hadn’t tried it
- 25% were currently trying it
- 5% tried it and went back to QBO Accountant
Think about that. These are Intuit’s most engaged users, and 70% haven’t even logged in to see what’s there.
Intuit’s data explains why they built this platform. There’s been a 17% two-year decline in the accounting workforce. Firms use an average of eight different apps just to manage operations. And 70% of firms use AI without any policies to guide it.
Intuit’s solution is to build a centralized hub that reduces app switching, brings up the information you actually need, and places guardrails on AI tools to protect client data. As Dan explained, “Having it inside QuickBooks allows those guardrails to kind of be already in place. You don’t know if those free tools are learning from the information you’re feeding it.”
The free core tier: Navigation that finally makes sense
The first thing you’ll notice in Intuit Accountant Suite is the reorganized navigation. Even Alicia, who literally wrote a book on QuickBooks, calls it a “huge improvement.”
Previously, everything was crammed into one confusing flyout sidebar. Client management mixed with your own books. Work tasks bumped up against firm administration. “I had trouble navigating it myself,” Alicia admitted.
Now it’s clean and logical, with three distinct sections in the left navigation:
- Clients: Your client dashboard and management tools
- Work: Tasks and project management
- Firm Hub: ProAdvisor certifications and team management
The flyout menu is now just for your own books. Simple.
But navigation is just the start. The real power comes from the customizable dashboards and custom fields.
Custom fields and dashboards let you organize your practice your way
One feature flying under the radar is custom fields. You can create up to 99 custom fields to tag and organize your clients however you see fit for your practice.
If you want to segment by industry, you can create fields for restaurants, e-commerce, therapists and more. To segment by service level, tag clients as Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, or Advanced. To segment by service tier, label them CAS, advisory, or audit. You could also segment by geography, tagging them as West Coast, East Coast, or wherever they are.
You can assign these fields in bulk, sort by them, search by them, and add them as columns to your dashboard. “When you’re looking at your client list on your dashboard, you have all of that custom field information right on the list,” Alicia explained.
The dashboards themselves are fully customizable. Click the Customize button, rearrange widgets, turn off what you don’t need, and turn on what you do. And keep checking back because Intuit will add new widgets regularly. Dan highlighted what’s coming, including “disconnected bank feeds, app issues, and being able to see the right from without going into each individual client.”
Multi-tab support is coming soon, so you can work in different client files simultaneously in the same browser window.
Accelerate and Books Close: For firms ready to level up
While the core tier is free for everyone, Intuit built Accelerate for larger firms that need more firepower. Starting August 1st, it costs $149 per month for your entire firm, not per user. As Dan noted, “If you have a team of five people, around $30 per person isn’t bad.”
Accelerate includes two standout features:
- User groups with bulk permissions. Create functional teams (such as your AP crew, your AR team, your reviewers), set their permissions once, then assign entire teams to new clients in bulk. No more client-by-client, person-by-person permission setting.
- Client Insights Dashboard. Pull KPIs from all your clients into one consolidated view, not just from QuickBooks, but from ProConnect Tax, payroll, and bill pay, too. Choose your KPIs, watch for anomalies flagged in red or green, and click the sparkle icon for AI-powered root cause analysis. Save up to 50 custom dashboard views for different client segments.
Then there’s Books Close, which 87% of webinar attendees either hadn’t heard of or hadn’t tried. It’s about $8 per client and creates a structured month-end checklist you work through without entering individual client files. It flags transactions over $2,500, new vendors needing W-9s, uncategorized transactions, missing payees, and all the stuff you check anyway, now in one place.
You can assign three roles (preparer, reviewer, director), customize the templates with your tasks in your order, and apply different templates to different client types. As Dan described it, it’s “a one-stop shop for your client work.”
The timeline you need to know
Here are the dates that matter:
- Now through July 1: Free beta period for all features
- June 1: Expanded weekend support hours for Silver ProAdvisors
- June 8: Expanded weekend support hours for Gold/Platinum/Elite
- June 30: ProAdvisor recertification deadline
- August 1: Paid pricing begins ($149/month for Accelerate)
- December 31: Legacy QBO Accountant discontinued
But Intuit won’t automatically charge you. Even if you opt into Accelerate now, you’ll need to confirm again before billing starts. “Can you imagine the number of refunds they would have to do?” Alicia asked. It’s a smart double opt-in system that eliminates billing surprises.
Early adoption gives you a voice
Ninety-four percent of users who switched to Intuit Accountant Suite stayed. Most found it quick and easy. Alicia even prefers it because her interface finally matches what clients see. There’s no more navigating the old black-bar design while clients use the new platform.
But the real reason to opt in now is that you can shape what it becomes. As Alicia emphasized, “If you opt in, you can give feedback while it’s in development. Whereas if you wait, then you get what they give you.”
Intuit is actively asking which KPIs to add, which features to prioritize and which problems to solve. Once development locks in, that window closes.
Your next steps
The math is simple. The workforce is shrinking. Tech stacks are fragmented. AI adoption is outpacing policy development. Intuit Accountant Suite addresses all three challenges at once if you take the time to learn it.
Go to your Settings menu today. Click “Try Intuit Accountant Suite.” Test the core features. Explore Accelerate and Books Close while they’re free. When something’s missing or broken, tell Intuit. Right now, they’re listening.
For the full conversation, including details about expanded support hours, the Workforce rebrand, Enterprise Suite updates, and what’s happening at Scaling New Heights, listen to Episode 145 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!