Intuit Introduces “Quickbooks Live Expert Assisted”

Intuit hosted a webinar on Wednesday, April 24th, 2024, in which they announced imminent updates for one of their live services, QuickBooks Live Assisted Bookkeeping at time of writing.

The event was hosted by several leaders from Intuit, including Cassie Divine, Senior Vice President of Intuit’s Business Operations and Partner Ecosystem for the company’s Small Business & Self-Employed Group; Ted Callahan, Accountant Partnership Director; and Itai Jeczmien, QuickBooks Live Leader Vice President.

Intuit hosted the webinar so that they could discuss the latest updates on its business strategy for QuickBooks Live, as well as new features coming to the platform with participants, which largely consisted of accounting and bookkeeping professionals.

“We are entering an exciting new chapter,” Divine said. “We want to brief you on the changes and outline how we’ll partner together to serve our shared customers.”

The Problems

Ultimately, Divine and the other presenters said that the feedback they had received from users boiled down to one major, overarching theme: lack of confidence. Not just confidence in their own abilities to perform bookkeeping tasks, but also the confidence of users to use the QuickBooks platform.

“It starts by understanding how to get started, how to understand the essence of bookkeeping, and QuickBooks itself, how it all works, and the importance of categorization and understanding your Chart of Accounts, all the way to really taking advantage of the benefits and the features that we offer as part of QuickBooks today,” Divine said. “So these are the core problems that we're trying to solve for our customers.”

The Product

According to the presenters, QuickBooks Live Expert Assisted will provide two types of services for its customers: coaching users on bookkeeping best practices, financial literacy, and data comprehension (like which categories you should sort your transactions into, or helping users troubleshoot issues like mismatched balance statements)—and providing guidance for using QuickBooks.

The presenters stressed that the live experts on this platform are indeed experts and that each has either an active Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credential, an active Certified Public Bookkeeper (CPB) credential, a bachelor’s degree, or some other expertise in accounting, finance, or bookkeeping. They said that all the experts providing guidance on the platform have at least one year of experience working with QuickBooks Online, are proficient with technology, have strong customer service skills, can work independently in a fast-paced environment, and have an active QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor certification.

Aside from outlining what the platform will do, the presenters also emphasized what its live experts will not do. The presentation included a long list of tasks that experts will not provide to customers, including making changes to transactions inside or outside of QuickBooks Online (QBO), performing any bookkeeping tasks for customers, preparing 1099s or other tax documents for customers, and providing payroll services of any type, which include preparing, processing, and filing payroll for customers.

The Strategy

Divine said the company’s goal was to use this platform to provide live coaching services for customers, guiding them through basic aspects of managing their books so that smaller firms could spend less time on “busy work and drudgery” (like correcting mistakes or troubleshooting errors) and more time growing their businesses and providing “high-value” services.

Divine went on to explain that the updates were designed around three major customer pain points: getting started using QuickBooks, supporting the maintenance of their books through experts and resources to answer basic questions about their businesses, and providing instruction for how customers can leverage more features that often aren’t used due to their complexity or esoteric nature.

“We hear that all the time from customers,” Divine said. “There’s a lot that they’re paying for that they’re not taking advantage [sic], and so there’s a lot of guidance that we can give for best practices on how to get the most out of QuickBooks for things like, ‘how do I see the reports that will help me answer basic questions about how my business is doing?’”

She also repeatedly said Intuit’s intent was not to provide guidance or filing services but to answer basic tax questions to help clients build their financial literacy and business acumen. “We see this service as something that is absolutely complimentary—not competitive to what you offer,” she said to her audience of bookkeeping and accounting professionals.

Itai Jeczmien reiterated this claim. “We're only guiding through the customers themselves. We're not performing bookkeeping tasks; we're not providing consultations of any form—definitely not advisory on tax or bookkeeping.”

The Role of AI

The presenters also highlighted how the platform will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to help users navigate it and get the answers they need more quickly. They stressed that they see AI as a tool to augment their experts rather than a replacement for them.

According to Divine, the new platform aims to deliver services that resolve immediate bookkeeping issues and empower business owners to manage their operations more confidently and efficiently.

By integrating AI with expert human guidance, Intuit hopes to help small business owners and bookkeepers streamline their processes and reduce the necessity for rework, enhancing their overall productivity.

Reception

Reception from attendees was mixed. Some said that the service would directly compete with their practices and cause them to lose business. Others said it could be an economical alternative for clients who could not afford to hire their own bookkeepers and would help cut down on their workload.

Others pointed out that clients must sign up for the new service to use it, and that bookkeepers who are bearish on it can always advise their customers against using it if they feel it is not in their best interest.

The company will be rebranding the name of its service from “QuickBooks Live Assisted Bookkeeping” to “QuickBooks Live Expert Assisted” and updating its features on April 29, 2024.