Intuit Has Three Big Bets. Where Am I?

Editor’s Note: This article is an opinion piece. The views and opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of Woodard.

The lights went down. The music came up. Drummers came out, lights were flashing, and thousands of accountants were on their feet clapping and cheering as Brad Smith made his entrance at QuickBooks Connect.

It felt like a rock concert for accountants.

And I loved every minute of it. I was surrounded by friends and colleagues in a profession I loved, and we were excited. Brad wasn't just coming out to tell us about the next QuickBooks feature. He was talking about our future. About small businesses. About accountants. About what could happen when we worked together.

He made us feel like we were part of something bigger. I remember listening as he talked about how important accountants were to small-business success. Intuit had the technology. We had the relationships with the people using it. Together, we could give small businesses a better chance of succeeding. He made me love what I do even more. I was changing lives as an accountant.

I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. And you know what? I still believe it.

Years later, I started to wonder if I was remembering it the way it really happened. Maybe I was looking back through rose-colored glasses. You know how things seem bigger, better, and brighter in our memories than they really were.

Maybe the lights weren't quite that bright, the applause wasn't quite that loud, and Brad's message wasn't quite as powerful as I remembered. So I went back and researched it.

I didn't remember it wrong.

At the inaugural QuickBooks Connect in 2014, Brad described entrepreneurs, small businesses, accountants, and developers as an “interdependent ecosystem” united around a common goal: small-business success. The following year, an Intuit investor presentation said it even more plainly: “Accountants and Small Businesses are More Successful Together.”

That was the deal, at least as I heard it. Intuit had the technology. We had the relationships with the small businesses using it. I help you. You help me. And together, we help small businesses do more than either of us could do alone. Intuit was a big part of that circle.

Everybody wins.

I've always believed that's how good business works. Help enough other people get what they want, and you get what you want too. It isn't complicated. I think it's magical!

That's why I read Intuit's latest earnings report. I was looking for myself in it.

Where do accountants fit?

Intuit calls Assisted Tax, Money and Mid-Market its three “Big Bets.” Together, they grew 34% and now represent 30% of the company's revenue. That got my attention.

The rest of the numbers were impressive too. Fiscal 2026 revenue reached $21.4 billion, up 14%, while QuickBooks Online Accounting revenue grew 23%. Good for them. Seriously. Intuit is a public company. It's supposed to grow.

But it wasn't the $21.4 billion that stayed with me. It was those three Big Bets. I kept looking at them and wondering the same thing: Where am I?

I found accountants in the report. Intuit says more than 150,000 accountants are already using Intuit Accountant Suite, and those accountants report spending nearly 30% more of their time on high-value advisory work.

But hold on. You can't put us on the bus, drive us to the rally, and then brag about how many people showed up.

Right now, accountants can choose to move from QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) to Intuit Accountant Suite (IAS). But that choice has an expiration date. QBOA will be discontinued on December 31, 2026. If you do nothing, you'll be moved to IAS anyway. So, of course, there are 150,000 accountants using it. Eventually, we'll all be there. Where else would we be?

The number that really made me stop was this: Accountants drove 25% of new Intuit Enterprise Suite contracts.

Good for those accountants. But I don't know them. The accountants I know aren't serving the mid-market. They're serving small businesses. We serve John the landscaper, Susan the lawyer with six employees, and Mark, the restaurant owner who can't understand why sales are great but there is never enough cash in the bank.

That's our market. Intuit knows this too. Its own 2025 research found that small businesses working with accountants were 73% more likely to report being in good financial health than businesses without accountant support.

So where is that relationship in the Big Bets?

Intuit hasn't abandoned small business. QuickBooks Online Accounting revenue grew 23%, and Intuit says it intends to serve businesses from early entrepreneurs through mid-market companies. I do see a shift.

The language today is about Assisted Tax, Money, and Mid-Market. It's about AI agents and done-for-you experiences. It's about payments, lending, payroll, and creating a deeper relationship with the customer. Mid-Market revenue grew 39%. Online Money grew 31%.

There is nothing wrong with any of that. It's just different from the story I remember hearing while I was standing in that arena cheering.

An earnings call shows us where the action is. It tells investors where the company is putting its money, people, and attention. So I don't think the question is whether Intuit still likes small accounting firms. The question is whether we're still part of the circle.

If you serve the mid-market, the answer may be obvious. Intuit is making a very big bet there. But most of the accountants and bookkeepers I know don't. Their clients may never become mid-market businesses and have no desire to become one.

The role we have to define

AI makes that question even more interesting. If Intuit can increasingly automate the accounting, assist with tax preparation, move the money, provide financing, and communicate directly with the business owner, what happens to the accountant in that old interdependent ecosystem?

I actually think our role becomes more important. AI can do more of the mechanical work. Good. Let it.

Now we have the time to do what John, Susan and Mark have wanted from us all along: notice what is happening, ask the question nobody else is asking, interpret what the numbers mean, and help them figure out what to do next.

That's where our future is. Intuit can't define that role for us. We have to.

Perhaps that's what I was missing. I kept looking for Intuit's Big Bet on firms like mine when maybe I was asking Intuit a question we must answer for ourselves.

For years, many of us built our firms around QuickBooks. We became ProAdvisors. We recommended it, trained clients on it, and helped bring small businesses into the QuickBooks ecosystem. That history matters. But history isn't a strategy.

If Intuit's strategy is changing, ours better be changing too.

I don't think Intuit owes small accounting firms a fourth Big Bet. I don't expect a public company to organize its future around what makes me comfortable. Maybe that's the point. I started reading Intuit's earnings report looking for myself in its strategy. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

Brad Smith once stood on that stage and got me excited about what could happen when Intuit, accountants, and small businesses succeeded together. I still believe in that idea. I'm just not sure that's the Big Bet anymore.

So, Intuit, what am I missing?

But maybe that's not the only question we should be asking. Maybe we need to stop waiting for someone else to tell us where we fit.

We must decide that for ourselves.