Dan chat's with Intuit Accountant leader Ted Callahan as we unpack some findings in Intuit latest survey of Accountants around their feelings technology in their practices.
QB Power Hour is a free, biweekly webinar series for accountants, ProAdvisors, CPAs, bookkeepers and QuickBooks consultants presented by Michelle Long, CPA and Dan DeLong who are very passionate about the industry, QuickBooks and apps that integrate with QuickBooks.
Watch or listen to all of the QB Power Hours at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/blog
Register for upcoming webinars at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/
Dan chat's with Intuit Accountant leader Ted Callahan as we unpack some findings in Intuit latest survey of Accountants around their feelings technology in their practices.
QB Power Hour is a free, biweekly webinar series for accountants, ProAdvisors, CPAs, bookkeepers and QuickBooks consultants presented by Michelle Long, CPA and Dan DeLong who are very passionate about the industry, QuickBooks and apps that integrate with QuickBooks.
Watch or listen to all of the QB Power Hours at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/blog
Register for upcoming webinars at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/
You are listening to the audio portion of the QB Power Hour Webinar series. The QB Power Hour is a free biweekly webinar series for accounting professionals presented by Michelle Long and Dan DeLong, who are very passionate about the industry, QuickBooks and apps that integrate with QuickBooks. You can find out all the details about the webinar series@qbpowerhour.com. So without further ado, here's Michelle and Dan.
Dan DeLong:We were actually gonna be having the QB commerce come on today and talk about some of the things that are, that are planned for that. But technology being, what technology is things got a little postponed. So pinch hitting today is I mean this is like a cleanup batter, but rather. Hmm. Rather than a a pinch hitting now is, is Ted Callahan. So Ted was gracious enough and I had just happened to be in the San Jose area. So threw out the idea of, Hey, why don't we do this in person? Right? And, and Ted was gracious enough to, to actually be here today now I just wanna make sure, yes, you're this is the little peculiar and I appreciate everyone's Bearing with us because one, Michelle's not here, if you haven't noticed she actually broke her foot on her trip. And it's, it's actually have a, has a doctor's appointment during this very time. So this is all very weird because normally we do these things not in person. Mm-hmm. And, and here you are sitting next to me. Yeah. Closer than six feet, but Right. But we gotta do what we gotta do. Mm-hmm. So, and I normally have a second monitor, and I'm able to, able to, to, to try to track everything we've got. Kim from, from Intuit monitoring the, the, the q and a and the chat monitoring,
Ted Callahan:monitoring us. Let's be yes, clear.
Dan DeLong:Good idea because we need it. But today we're, we're gonna be talking Ted. Ted You, you did a survey. Mm-hmm. And Intuit did a survey and we really want to kind of unpack some of that with the changes in or, or the, well, we'll, we'll, we'll get into that, but we're, we're gonna be talking about some of the technology advancements and, and and, and the insights from, from the survey. But of course Michelle's not here today. And she will be joining us next time on the, on the Power Hour. My name of course is Dan DeLong. I'm owner Danwidth. I worked here at Intuit, not here, but, but at the company in Tucson, Arizona for nearly 18 years, co-host and today, and also the workshop Wednesdays over at School of Bookkeeping. And Ted, as if you need any introduction, but tell us a little bit about about yourself and Yeah. And you know, what you do at the Intuit. Sure.
Ted Callahan:Mothership here. Yeah. Yeah. So I've been at Intuit about five and a half years and what what an amazing time to have been at Intuit and in technology and in the accounting space. So I've been working on a number of different. I would say aspects and, and kind of spheres of an influence while I've been at Intuit. Notably started in the self-employed group and then was part of QuickBooks Live and now I'm over in the accountant space. And so I've been here for about two and a half years leading the accountant segment and now in a new role that we talk about as driving the partnership with. All of y'all and our most strategic partners to make sure the community understands our strategy and our words, where we're connecting what we're doing to the why. Of what does that providence or that care experience look like? Have that engagement with the community, bring the feedback back into the organization, and then advocate on behalf of the voice of the accountant, of what do we need to see differently in the product to help all of you ensure that your clients are being as successful as possible. Got it.
Dan DeLong:And I just wanted to talk a little bit about you know, your or, or Intuit's Idea of you know, cuz I see on the, on the social media and, and Facebook groups and, and things that mm-hmm. You know, there is this segment of, hey, you know, Intuit says they, they, you want to hear this feedback. Mm-hmm. But do they actually talk to businesses? Yeah. Do they actually talk to accountants? And I just wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, that, that you actually do have an accountant council. Mm-hmm. Right. Which is talk a little bit about what, what that is Yeah. And, and how big it is and how, how often you have that. Conversation. Sure.
Ted Callahan:Yeah. And I would say we have the, the way I would talk about it is we're actually programming out three district distinct tracks by which we're engaging the community in conversations. So the first, which you talked about, excuse me, is What we call our accountant council. And so that's where we convene a group of accountants twice a year in person on the campus. And the goal of those sessions is really to have our product teams come in and say, here's the roadmap over the next 3, 6, 9, 12 months. Here's specific experiences that we're planning on developing. Here's our approach to this problem. And getting very real feedback on what would that experience need to look like. If we have some you know, visualizations, we actually walk the accountant council through that mm-hmm. To get their input. So that's, that's one of the ways, and that's gotta be really hard
Dan DeLong:because, you know, you're thinking of things in the future that haven't even happened yet. Mm-hmm. And like, you know, if you had this accountant council meeting mm-hmm. You know last winter we're having it in three weeks. Yeah. If you had it last, last winter, you know, there's so many things that have happened just in the last Sure. Three months. Yep. That, that. You wouldn't be able to see or foresee and, and how that, how that would change. So I, it's, it's gotta be, it's gotta be a challenge, right? With with being able to kind of steer the ship. Mm-hmm. Right? And, and with, with what it is that you're, that you're trying to do. So and then you have like a lab here where you have customers come in. Mm-hmm. And and, and you monitor kind of. Yeah.
Ted Callahan:What is, what is, yeah, so there's this I would say really this innovation system that our founder, Scott Cook, started. Mm-hmm. We call it a follow me home. Mm-hmm. Because literally back in the days when you went to a, you know, a Staples or Office Depot and you bought software on a compact disc or a floppy disc, even Scott would actually go with some of his product teams and watch as people would buy QuickBooks. And then he would say, Hey, do you mind if we follow you home? Right.
Dan DeLong:Today that
Ted Callahan:would probably not, I know probably we get a lot of like strange looks, right? But you know, Scott's so winsome and they said, Hey, do we just wanna watch how you work with the system? And so the idea was not to be doing what some folks call focus groups, right? Which is where you ask people these questions and understand their intent. It's actually, let's watch you use the software and then based on what we see you doing and not doing, based on. You know, your understanding, oh, now we're gonna change that experience and really simplify it. And so that tradition continues through to this day. We have the practice of bringing folks in now, right? Mm-hmm. To not have it be stalker, right, or any, anything strange or untoward. But we also use, we still call it follow me home, or do you call it yeah. No, we still call it a Follow me home. Come to my home. Well, now with the, the great thing with Zoom and other technologies is we can. We can do that and not have any of the disruption of folks, you know, setting up. Got it. Yeah. But that's part and parcel of how we develop the experiences. Let's watch how people work and then identify what are those problems that we're identifying of. Wow. It takes them 18 clicks to do. If we just made this, you know, a button right here, how could that simplify their experience?
Dan DeLong:Got got? Mm-hmm. So a little bit about the details of the, of the QB Power Hour. It's every other Tuesday at 12 Eastern. Our upcoming webinars they're not eligible for cp unfortunately, but you can check out our website. For, for upcoming events. We do have some intuitive events on there as well. Some coffee what was it? Coffee and donuts? Mm-hmm. Is the Yeah. The series. You gotta bring your own coffee and your own donuts, unless you're, unless you happen to be
Ted Callahan:That's right in the office. Give you permission to eat donuts while you
Dan DeLong:drink your coffee. There we go. Yeah. If you need the slides, unfortunately because I don't have enough. Real estate space here to kind of monitor and, and share links and things of that nature. Because I'm sharing the slides as well you can always hop over to qb power hour.com/resources for the for the, for the download of the of the, the handouts. A little bit of housekeeping again, because we are just a little. Unorthodox the way we we're doing the, the QB Power Hour today. Q and a please if you have specific questions about, you know, the topics that we brought up Kim is helping us monitor those things and, and letting us know if we should direct our attention to the to the questions. Please put those in the q and a. But please Do anything that, you know if you have feedback or anything like that, I can post the webinar. I can share that with Ted and Ted and Kim and the team here. You know, if you have some feedback or direct things to, to, to, to. That needs some follow up, right? Mm-hmm. We can, we can follow up with that. But if you have regular things to say, I can't see them because I'm sharing my here please put them in the chat. And then of course we have the, the handouts as well. So let me launch the first poll. Which is just our simple one of, you know, wi what version of of QuickBooks are you using today? Is it QuickBooks Online? QuickBooks Desktop? Both you know, is telling Ted as we, as we were kind of talking here about technology and, you know, sometimes there's a little resistance to you know, to the way technology is heading. Back in two when I started at Intuit and in 2000 You know, the, that was the first year in QuickBooks desktop 2000 that you required an internet connection and you had to download payroll tax tables. You know, and, and just there was, there was a lot of resistance to to technology at that point because, you know, there was very some people had a, a, a very adamant stance that they were never going to, you know, Over my dead body, you know, type of thing. Clutching their, clutching their QuickBooks but not, they were not gonna be attaching the internet to a computer that had their that had their business data on it. And it was, at that time, I think it was, you know, some people were justified, right? Like with that, with that fear when it, when it came to technology. And, and, and embracing that technology. But look at where we are today. You know, juxtaposing that, you know, 23 years later that here we are, you know, the main flagship QuickBooks is an online, online QuickBooks. Mm-hmm. I mean what, what kind of in, in your, your short tenure here mm-hmm. What kind of things like, things like that have you have you seen where there's resistance? To, you know, to
Ted Callahan:technology. Yeah. To the change. And I think it, it, it's, as you were talking, I was just reflecting on, I think there's so much around how we're wired, where we want to have control so that we can understand what's happening. Because fundamentally we want to use all of our intellect and creative powers to help our clients in this case, right. Or to, to effectuate the change. And I think a lot of the. Concerns around what where folks maybe don't want to adopt a new technology. It's, they don't yet understand how they still will have control. Mm-hmm. Right? Because you can think about, oh, I don't wanna put my data online because somebody could have access to it, or I won't have control over it. Right? And then you look at, well, if you leave your computer in your office and you go home, Somebody breaks into your office, you don't have Right. True. You don't have a, a plan B or if there's a flood. Mm-hmm. Right. You know, I'm from, I'm from Nashville, Tennessee, where we've had a number of pretty severe floods. Right. People have lost lots in, in those, whereas if you have it up in the cloud, you've got access to it independent. Mm-hmm. Of where you
Dan DeLong:are. Yeah. I remember in just a year later, you know, that was nine 11 and there were so many people that were impacted not just, you know from that event, but you know, They lost lots, you know, not just the not just the material things. All right, so lemme go ahead and share the results. Looks like most most folks are, are doing both QuickBooks online, right? Be right below. And then our, our desktop Faithful. There's always a, a segment, sub segment doing the. The desktop here. Let me go ahead and close that. We'll move on here. So talk a little bit about this accountant technology survey. When it when it was re, you know mm-hmm. When you collected the data and and, and those types of things. Yep.
Ted Callahan:Yeah, so we launched this survey in January, right? So it was in this tier to over, and I think we've got some data on it on the next slide if you want to move it forward. But the idea was to really. Make sure we saw the latest because change is always accelerating, right? And we wanted to have a broad sample of what was happening out amongst the community and the industry. What's so we, we went out and we surveyed about 2000 US accountants. So everything you're gonna see here is the US market. Versus Canada, uk or some of our other areas where we operate. The other notable thing on the sample that I wanted to call everybody's attention is half of these respondents are actually in-house accountants.
Dan DeLong:Yeah. Right. Yeah. I understand that. The, now, the, when you say in-house accountants, so they're, they're non, they're non. Entrepreneurial, you know, they don't have a firm, right, right. It's a, they're, they're in-house accountants for that particular business, whatever. Mm-hmm. That's right.
Ted Callahan:That's right. And obviously you can see in terms of, you know, the income, you can tell, hey, they're. Doing a lot of work out, you know, in terms of their firm practice. And the, I think also critical is if we look at the ages and the stages, right? A third of these folks are in the, in the beginning, right? In the early innings of their career. So we're getting to have a broad swath of perspective here, both in and out in, in-house accountants, and then those that are in firms mm-hmm. As well as those that are More recently employed in the industry, which is, you know, one of the themes that everything everybody's been talking about, just the talent shortage, right? So that, those are a couple of the pieces just to give everybody grounding of who, who comprised this set of really great insights that we're
Dan DeLong:through. So let's, let's unpack some of these some of these results. So job side satisfaction is high amongst. Accountants. Mm-hmm. So talk a little bit about that. I mean, that, that's a surprising thing, so Yeah. What do you find that's surprising then? Well, my, my sister is a cpa. Mm-hmm. Right. And then the, the, the feaster famines, especially when it comes to, you know, busy season, you know, whatever that happens to be. It's like, you know, first four months of the year, don't try to talk to her. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or don't try to plan anything because. You know, it's the 150 hour work week. I, I, I, I just don't understand how someone could be happy, you know, doing that. Mm-hmm. Or find find you know, satisfaction. Mm-hmm. You know, with that, with that Feaster fam. And I mean, I at, when my years at Intuit You know, I had a, a ripple effect on that because we would have a busy season mm-hmm. In January. Sure. You know, for payroll and things like that. Yep. So I could out, so you know, mandatory overtime. Right. You know, things that we had to, had to do and you know, as it was you know, great. On the, on the flip side of that, when, when you come out the other side of it, going through it, It, it didn't seem like that would be something that people would want to choose to do. Mm-hmm. But you're, you're finding that, that people Yeah. Are still, they're okay with that. Like they go into their education and, you know, learning about accounting and, and. They, they, they're, they're not swayed and they, and they actually like
Ted Callahan:that. Right? Yeah. I think, you know, just to, to layer on some thoughts on this, I think I was also I was really overjoyed to see this result, right? Yeah. But I think if we unpack that a bit so many of you out there, right? You have such a high bar for driving client impact. And when I talk with members of the community, whether they're in small firms, large firms, early tenure you know, thinking about retiring, Everybody to a person is all in on helping their clients succeed. Mm-hmm. And to me, that gets back to where our mission in partnering together with the community is so durable. Right. Which is we're all in small business. Businesses are successful. That's why we do homes like we talked about in the beginning, right? To really make sure we understand how are people using the software, how can we be more helpful? And all of you play such a critical role. That's why we're always trying to connect our small businesses to experts, right? So what, so my thing, my first thought on why is job satisfaction. So, hi, and we'll get to this a little bit later. I think there has been a great up-leveling of how critical the role of an accounting professional in the lifeblood of a small business in these dynamic times. Mm-hmm. So we can unpack that on, you know, when we get into that data. But I think so one is I'm not, I'm not really surprised. Yeah. Because I think at the end of the day, I see folks so powered by helping their client True. And client need is greater than ever. The second thing that I thought was fascinating was, The desire to be recommending the career to younger professionals. Mm-hmm. And again, if I, if I start to parse my interactions with many of you and other members of the community, I think this community is very self-critical. And so we're more likely to be talking about the things that are bothering us, the things that we're upset about. Even when 82% of us would say, absolutely come work here. Right. But we'll spend, you know, four hours talking about here's everything that's wrong. And so I think there's just always going to be that duality and that tension of. There's a high amount of satisfaction and yet the parts that aren't right, right? We're detail oriented. We wanna get everything right, and so if one thing is wrong, I remember this when I was doing. Yout accounts and trial balances. If one thing's wrong, it's not right and the perfectionism right. Therefore you spend hours trying to figure out where is that one error that's leading to that.
Dan DeLong:I, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of curious now that you mentioned that, cuz I, I've, I've been talking with a colleague about time blindness. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you know, when you get fixated on. I gotta, I gotta, I gotta fix this. I gotta put out this fire, whether it's one penny or you know, a million dollars, right? Doesn't matter. There. That could be, you know, have that ripple effect. And, and maybe that's just a side effect or the, the, the 150 hour work week is the, a side effect of. Time blindness and, and hyper focus. Right. So I'm just kinda curious if there is a, I, I assume there probably not, but like how many of these are. You know, does an accountant need to be a D H D, you know, in order, in order to really have this job satisfaction? You know, because that, that's kind of like a trait of, of those types of things where you can laser in and focus mm-hmm. And, and you know, have some and where be okay. Mm-hmm. You know, with, with some of those things because. I'll tell you, once I figure something out, like once, once, it's like I, I, you know, if it takes me three days mm-hmm. And I, I'm on the other side of that, I'm like, yes. You know? Right. You
Ted Callahan:know it's Right. And then you want to go teach people Right. What you've learned to share it so they can get to that insight faster than in three days I would imagine
Dan DeLong:too. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And like, don't go through what I did, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay, so let's there's a lot of stuff here. Mm-hmm. Lemme just move us over so we can actually see. Mm-hmm. So with growth on the horizon, increasing client needs up accountants are using tech to level up. Mm-hmm. So talk
Ted Callahan:about this. Yeah. So I think, and again there's a lot of, a lot of data on this slide. We wanted to make sure none of you had that urge to. Look at something else while we're going through all of this. So I was gonna, I was gonna start with the focus on the client. Financial needs have increased and this, this question was looking over the past two years, right? So again, just think, think back of how much has the world has changed in the last two years, right? Even in the last two months, right? We can get to that in a minute. But I think there's a growing need. There's a growing understanding of how critical. The, the accounting the, the accounting professional role is in, in a small business, and businesses are growing, right? There's a lot of growth that's happening, whether that was fueled with. Some of the e-commerce boom that we saw in the pandemic, right? And now that's kind of slowing back down, but that now we're seeing home building as picked back up and home sales even as interest rates are, you know, continuing to go up. But you know, some of the input prices are now coming back down, right? So it's such a dynamic time. That's when you need access to information. You can't be waiting for your books to be. Up to date later. You need that insight now to be making the best decisions. So to me that's the heartbeat of part of this. I think the fact that so many folks are using technology to help their clients' needs. It's to your point, If you're not using technology, think about how how many fewer clients you would be supporting. Right. Right. If you think about how we're automating the bank feed mm-hmm. And, and driving so many improvements in workflow with, you know, experiences like our books, review process and QuickBooks online for accountant, we're now, we're basically showing you here are the exceptions. Mm-hmm. And you can quickly manage the exceptions. Much, much faster ways of working that are enabled by the technology. I think the other on the other side, if we think about the role of technology in small businesses. We're seeing more and more small businesses are using and, and adopting new technologies, but then they're turning to their accountant and they're saying, Hey, what tech stack do I need Right as I look forward. Right. And so that, that advisory set of services around what is that app stack and how, how do you enable workflows with the latest? Mm-hmm. Again, to me that's this fun area I think of growth in the industry and it's an area where folks that are earlier in their tenure who are. Using those technologies and are, are web native right. And mobile native. Right. They have a different level of insight about how to combine those things. Yeah. So that would be just a quick, you know, highlight how technology's leveling up. Mm-hmm. Small business need, small business apps, the role that the accountant can play. Yeah. All of those things are true. And,
Dan DeLong:and definitely, you know, with, with all of that. You know, with businesses. I remember talking to you David Leary at the Cloud County podcast, and we were just kind of sitting around. It was like, if you want if you want to embrace technology, get a couple 20 something clients because they will, they will kind of drag you kicking and screaming into, into technology because they've got all this mm-hmm. Stuff already kind of quote unquote figured out. Right. But then it's a. Sometimes, you know, the buyer beware, right? You, the, the, the other side of that coin is, you know, yeah. It says it works with QuickBooks. Mm-hmm. Yes. But it's for what capacity. Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. So good, good good, good insights there. Mm-hmm. So, tech investment, now accountants con just the question of accountants continuing to invest in time and money into new technology, so you know, how many rabbit holes can you go down? And you know, bring into your ecosystem right. Is what we
Ted Callahan:really talking about. And, and that's where, so I think the, the headline as you can see from this is all of y'all have been investing in accounting technology, right? That's that$15,000 on average spent in the last 12 months, and you're expecting that to go up, right? It's growing from 14.7 to 15.8. Where are those sources of growth coming from? Automation and ai. Mm-hmm. We've been on a journey for over. Sasan. I remember Sasan, our ceo e o, started talking about Intuit being an AI-driven expert platform, I think back in 2019. Oh, what does
Dan DeLong:that mean? Not to, yeah. Let's AI driven expert
Ted Callahan:platform. And so to, when Sasan thinks about artificial intelligence and now obviously all of us, right? In concert with him, it's really thinking about how our technologies, such as machine learning, Right, which is basically how are we automating the study of data to provide a level of insight across? And so if you all think about in performance center, we have tools like industry benchmarking mm-hmm. Where we say, Hey, for a business of this size of this industry, How are you doing? And we provide benchmarking. That's all powered by ai. So that would be an example of this AI driven when we get to the expert, that's very much the role of all of you in helping small businesses. You
Dan DeLong:need someone to read the tea leaves. Right? Right. We'll put out the tea leaves for you. Mm-hmm. But. What does actually That's right mean. That's right. Interpreting that mm-hmm. Is, is where you're talking about the experts.
Ted Callahan:Okay. And, and I would say, you know, the other thing is everybody is used to the expression garbage and garbage out. Yeah. Right. I think, again, the role of. The accountant is ensuring those bank feeds and those apps, right. That information is actually flowing in, in the way that it is intended to. Because if you automate garbage, then you're basically Right. You're just accelerating. Right. The outflow garbage, that's not helped anybody. That's actually detrimental to both of our costs. Right. We're
Dan DeLong:we're taking a race to the bottom. Yeah.
Ted Callahan:Or a race. A race to nowhere. Yeah. Right. And so I think one of the things we talk a lot about is fall in love with the problem, not the solution. And again, I see this in a lot of earlier tenured entrepreneurs. Mm-hmm. Right. They, they love technology for the sake of technology. We would say technology's just a tool. Right? Right. Do you get excited about your hammer? Probably some people do. But it's designed to solve the problem. Yeah. And so that's where we would say, let's stay focused on what are the top problems. We know the top problems of small businesses are finding new customers. It's finding workers, right, that we're gonna talk about that soon, and it's thinking about how do I pay my workers, how do I pay my contractors? All of those, those are the problems that we're so maniacally focused on. That's why we acquired MailChimp, right, two years ago, was because we saw, hey, this is the number one problem. The way to go after and really solve the needs in that space is to find a partner that we're actually gonna acquire who can. Automate and solve so many of those problems on the front end.
Dan DeLong:Yeah. And, and I, I think like right now we're in that hesitancy when, when, you know, AI's the new buzzword. Sure. Right. Of, of, of everything. And can you speak to a little bit about how Intuit uses mm-hmm. Customer data, right? Mm-hmm. Because yeah, great question. I mean, you have everything on your platform, right? And what What, what, what kind of reassurances does, does, does people, do people have or need to know that? Yeah. Hey, we're not we're, we're not like the social dilemma, right? Like where you ever saw that, that where, you know, we're seeing how long you're staying on this screen. Like how much, how much intimacy are
Ted Callahan:you, are you taking what their data right. Right. Well, and to me this gets to the heart of, if you look at Intuit, we are we, we pride ourselves in being customer obsessed. And what does that mean? When it, when it comes to your data, it means that we view your data as exactly that it is yours. It is not ours. And so we have data stewardship principles and safeguards in place so that any of these different app partners. We would say, Nope, that data resides on our servers. Right? I can't leave the United States, for example. For those businesses. We're not going to be sharing that in any way. Mm-hmm. That would violate our stewardship principles because we know so much of that trust. You got into the hesitancy on the first slide about when folks don't wanna adopt new technology, it's, they want to make sure they're in control of their data as they should be. Mm-hmm. And so we have taken that tart and we've operationalized it. We actually have to take a training every year. All of us, the entire, I remember, yeah. The entire crew on what are these data stewardship principles, right? And so folks want to request their data, they can have access to it, they want to download it because they're leaving us or they're having to close up shop, right? Mm-hmm. When we failed on our mission of ensuring that small businesses get to remain successful, they can download that off the servers and have it for their own purposes and record keeping. Yeah.
Dan DeLong:I had a thought and I, it, it, it, it went away. Oh I mean, some of the things that you know, as far as embracing AI and and automation I don't know if you anyone saw it on on on the Facebook group. Hector Garcia actually made himself into a bot and, and fed in you know, all of his. Everything that he had into, into a bot where you could ask Hector an AI version of Hector, you know what questions questions about you know, QuickBooks desktop. Cause that's a little bit more unchanging, kind of the way this, and then he, he's working on a, on a Q B O version of a, of NASA Hector Bot. I mean, that is I mean, it's very commendable that, that, you know, he would put himself out there in, in such a way that, you know kind of gives his stuff away. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. As opposed to you know, The, the old model of, well just hire me out and mm-hmm.
Ted Callahan:Then I'll tell you. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think the, the advent of these large language models, right? LLMs or chat, G P t is one of the versions of that, right? So that's an area that we've been also investing in at work on for a while. And again, I think one of our biggest areas where we've actually been working really closely in partnership, even with policymakers, our chief data officer. Was out in DC talking about the potential and the danger of this. Right? Yeah. And so again, that's where we're being extremely thoughtful and mindful of how do we safeguard data in the advent of some of these new technologies? Mm-hmm. We're being extremely careful, as you can imagine, we're building our own data set out so we don't
Dan DeLong:have to, there's plenty of disaster movies based off of this potential outcome, right?
Ted Callahan:So, so I would say it's an area where we are doing lots of experimentation and, and work, and we will only bring offerings to market when we, they meet all of our highest standards for. Data stewardship, integrity and being trustworthy. I think another area, going back to your great question on, hey, why, why are folks sometimes cautious? It's, again, it's saying, well, I, I've, I've been working in technology for a long time and there's always been this kind of fur brow when you talk about artificial intelligence. And then before that these, these models, right? And it's because they're black box. And I say, and you kind of say, well, I don't know why it's telling me this answer. And I think so much of the art of getting any of these technologies, right, going back to the tool analogy is. Can people understand why this tool is making this recommendation? Because fundamentally, and you all know this better than anybody working with your clients, so much of that art is in, are you building relationships so they trust you? Yeah. So that when you come to them after you've worked for three days to crack, and you bring that insight to them, do they have the trust to take action on it? Right. And so similarly, I think some of these things, it's like you know, there's a lot of People talking about what chat g p t gets wrong. Mm-hmm. Right. Or they in, in the industry term of art for that as the model's hallucinating. It sounds really confident. Yeah. It's like absolutely right. This, this explorer, Christopher Columbine right. Discovered, you know, Japan. And it's like, no, that wasn't right at all. But it's so, it's so confident in that and I think it's making sure people can understand. The why of the recommendation, because I find a lot of the why is actually far more interesting than the insight itself. That's a good point. Mm-hmm.
Dan DeLong:All right. Technology is advancing, more streamlined, sharper more profitable account. Talk a little bit about the, the, the impact of
Ted Callahan:technology. Yeah. And again, this goes back to that tool analogy, right? If I think about what is the role of technology, it's to give you more time to be building that relationship. To be more confident in front of your client. Mm-hmm. And so if we think about, hey, where, where would we want technology to be helpful? Well, obviously if you're a business, right? You're one of your, one of the ways you stay in business is that you're growing your revenue. Yeah. Right? That's how you growing profit margin. You can invest in your business, you can put in new technology, which then leads to more time savings, which then gives you the ability to. Make those changes and pivot when new developments occur. Right. And so I think it's not a surprise to anybody. Oh well, right. Increasing revenue would be a goal and maintaining efficiency. I think we've talked a a bit about how something like our books review process really serves to give bookkeepers time back. So that they can be focusing on those exceptions, right? So they can be really getting the categorization right before the reconciliation to get to the right close. And so to me the, the focus on all of these is if you think about what's the role of a tool, it's to help you do something better than you could, right? I remember one time I was volunteering when I was living out on the east coast, and we showed up at the soup kitchen and they said, Hey, we want you to shovel the snow from the loading dock because we can't get the trucks in and out. So we went out and we worked for three hours to clear this path. And then a Bobcat showed up as we were taking a lunch break and did 10 times the work in about the 15 minutes that we were eating. Oh, I
Dan DeLong:was, I was visualizing a bobcat. Oh, no, no.
Ted Callahan:Yeah. Skid steer. My kids called them a skid steerer. Ok. But like this little plow basically came and scooped everything out. Yeah. And to me, that's the role of technology, right? It basically augments our Oh yeah. And it, and
Dan DeLong:it's finding the right tool at the right time. Correct. As opposed to, well, I've always got my hammer correct. Or my leatherman, it's got. Most of the tools
Ted Callahan:I need. And so, and so when I think about Right, AI kind of Ted's riff is not necessarily Intuit approved. I'm kidding. It's of course, I wouldn't say anything that wasn't intu approved, but it's, it's how are we lightening? That's right. How are we augmenting the intelligence of, of the professional, of the small business. Mm-hmm. To me, that is the role fundamentally of ai. And if you think about what, what's happening on these charts that all of those surveyed responding back, it's. Fundamentally technology is going to improve efficiency so that you then can spend your time focusing on the insights and then encouraging your client to act on those insights. So to me, that's the role of technology rather than spend all of this time just finding the data.
Dan DeLong:Yeah.
Ted Callahan:Here's the data. Yeah. Right now we can actually automate a lot of that data through our accounting automation engine. Now that leaves you the time to say, okay, well, let me think about what that means, right? Mm-hmm. This increase. Mm-hmm. All right,
Dan DeLong:so let's talk about a little bit more of this. This is mm-hmm. Counting software. I hear QuickBooks in here, and this is what this is the meat and potatoes of, of of, of what you would and what you're
Ted Callahan:interested. Right? And so this to me is just kind of pulling on that, that kind of punchline, right? Which is, as technology helps accountants be a better partner, right? It's continuing that move in that cast model of going from. Getting a specific task done to now really being that trusted advisor to the client to be having insights of, Hey, based on this growth, you actually can go hire another worker and here's what we should be paying them. Right? Things like that. I think the other powerful thing is, I know I've got three kids who are all in that tween, teen sphere, and we have this concept of phone face, right? Mm-hmm. So the point of technology is not to have your, your face buried in a phone. It's to have this, right? It's kind of face-to-face interaction, you can see, right? The respondents you're talking about, hey, 80% of those are saying, Hey, I actually have more FaceTime with my clients because of lease labor saving aspects of i I embedding technology in the key workflows. Mm. And again, that's another track that I find a lot of you spending time to do is advising on what should those tools be that will integrate and allow that seamless automation where it's not more garbage to then automate, but it's actually, there's the right information flowing in with the right set of business rules. The right. Automation so that we can quickly get to the close and you can make better decisions and have more meaningful interactions. Right.
Dan DeLong:Like you know, I, I, I just, the thought just came into me, like one person I'm working with, their workflow is a report, and the way that they find anomalies in the report is they put their finger on the screen and, and scroll and then look for an anomaly in the number. I mean, there's. Yeah. That is, that is not the way to, you know, free up time. Mm-hmm. Right. I mean, but that is what has been working. Mm-hmm. Right. And and that's that's part of the, the, the, the, the fear right there, the, the, the juxtaposition of how do I, how do I choose the right technology? Yep. And, and get that right tool so that I don't have to hold my finger on, on the screen because I know this
Ted Callahan:works. And. And to me, the other benefit of technology, when that work, when that app stack is aligned, now you've got the fidelity, oh, this, this transaction looks suspect. You can click into it and we'll present to you. Here is the receipt for that. Is it categorized appropriately or not? Mm-hmm. Now, you don't have to go back and find the receipt right when you're on site again. Right. It's all automated and available to you quickly. So there's not that. Yeah, that, that's a crazy workflow you're talking about there. Let's keep moving. All right,
Dan DeLong:so let's launch our, our second poll here. And this is, oh, I've been sharing the first poll. See, this is why I need another screen. So lemme go back here and, all right. So do you feel, this is just a general question. Do you feel that technology helps you spend more quality time with your clients? So So any, any any thoughts up to this point Ted that, that kind of like, as you've been talking about it, I mean, you've been digesting this data for, you know, a better part of a few months. What what have you been seeing as far as the. The output and the changes directions maybe that, that that Intuit is headed.
Ted Callahan:Yeah. I think one of the things you, you asked in the very beginning, Hey, how, how is Intuit staying close to the community? And I think that's a good time to remind everybody on our firm of the Future blog we publish every month. Here's what we've been hearing from the community in terms of top areas of either problems that you're encountering with the products or areas of opportunity where we could go further. Right. And we publish every month. Hey, what have we heard from you? And then what have we done about it? Mm-hmm. In terms of how, what have we go, gone and delivered? So for example, we just rolled out a new version of customer port Builder. Mm-hmm. Where we took a lot of the, the community's feedback on. We'd like to see more reports, we'd like to see more fields included. We rolled those out and now the community's saying, oh wait, so things have changed, right? And now I've got even more appetite to use this. Mm-hmm Here. Can I have more? Or, Hey, this workflow could be improved in these various ways. So that's one of the ways that we're continuing is to make sure that feedback loop is tighter than ever. Mm-hmm. And again, I would encourage everyone to go to it's, we call it your feedback inaction. And so literally we have a column, your feedback. The next one is inaction. What have we done about it? And then what's coming? Yeah. Next,
Dan DeLong:because I think you have no shortage of data, of of, of things that are coming in and things that, that, that. People would like you to work on. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And you know, I had a, a unique perspective of being the, one of the listening posts for sure. For, for that, for my time you know, on the phones. Mm-hmm. And what I ended up finding out, or what, you know, I thought is that when Intuit makes a change, We are going to hear from the people that liked it the way it was. Yeah. Like you, you end up hearing Absolutely. You end up hearing, well, why did you, why did you upset that apple carb? Because I, now I am. Mm-hmm. Now I'm now I have to understand what the, what the change is. Mm-hmm. Like you know, you mentioned the, the customer report builder. People going into reports are now faced with. The customer report view, which now is completely different. Mm-hmm. And, and I, I imagine a lot of those folks are calling into it and or putting in feedback about Yep. About that. Like how does, how do you sort through and decide the priorities of mm-hmm. Of what to what to do and, and to make a change in. Do, do you realize okay, there's a certain segment that probably liked it the way it was? Absolutely
Ted Callahan:right. I mean, I think the, the other example of that would be with, with COVID and all of, all of what happened over that, you know, past two years we saw more and more people moving to QuickBooks online from desktop. Mm-hmm. And. People were saying, this is why I need it. I, I can't go into my office. Right. I had friends that were literally kept from going to their office for two years. Mm-hmm. It's not so helpful to have your data in an office that you can't access. Exactly. So obviously that kinda anytime anywhere access of the cloud, that the need for that really became clear over the course. And so there was a ton of demand that we saw as those folks are changing, some of the members of the community who are more comfortable with the desktop product and workflows and et cetera. Are saying, I don't like this qbo because it's different. Yeah. And so I think what exactly, to your point, there are these knock on effects of, as folks get moving and they're used to the old way, they have to learn a new way. There's a three month period to get used to that, both on the client side and on the accountant side, and then. If you talk to all of those, right? You're one of those, right? It would say it's well worth getting to that other side. But you gotta, you gotta go through the, people call it a J curve. Mm-hmm. Right? There's a period of investment without return. Yeah. And then you start getting the ROI on the other side. And so I think there's a lot of that of, Hey, have we vetted, have we vetted our vision in our strategy? And answer is yes. Right? That's why we have the partner council, other accountant, council, as we call it. It's having the courage of your conviction to be willing to, to learn in public. Yeah. It's one of the things our general manager, Alex Chris talks about, right? Right. Like real courage is the willingness to put something out there so that people can begin getting benefit. Even as we know it's not the version 10 that we want it to be. We have this concept of getting. Getting the minimum viable product out and then iterating to what we need it to be with the input of the community. Right. And so by definition, that means we're not launching a perfect thing the first time. Right. And you're, and you're well aware of
Dan DeLong:that. Quite, quite aware of that. And to and to your point, I mean, Looking here that yes, once I learned and adopted, it helps me save time. It's, it's by and large. Mm-hmm. You know, the response here. So it is, that takes care. It is that day curve that we, that we understand you know, what's, what's going on here? So we mm-hmm. Only have 15 minutes, so I wanna make sure we,
Ted Callahan:yeah, we give a lot of questions, so
Dan DeLong:just make sure we got some. All right. So realtime financials insights. So this is anywhere. Anywhere access or, or, you know, instant, instant data. Mm-hmm. Right. So talk a little bit about this.
Ted Callahan:Right? And so to me there's a, there's a big difference between instant data and realtime insight. Okay? Right. And so the, the way that I would talk about this is data just is, right. It's a collection of information, the transformation of data to insight. That's the role that all of you play with your client. I don't need to tell you what that is. You know better, better than I do. But I think there's a big, to me, the bar of insight is can we provide a level of scrutiny of the data? Mm-hmm. Where we've transformed that into something that we should be doing differently or we should continue doing. Right. To me, it ultimately has to manifest in the form of action taken. Right. Or we like not to make, take that action Sure. Because of other information that we have or a hunch. Right. But I think the, the concept of realtime financial insights is something that you can only have when you have that modern app stack, right? With real cloud accounting technology and you've got that partnership with your client to be able to. Have that ongoing discussion of, based on what we're seeing, right, prices are happening here. Have you thought about this? I've got a client in different industry that's actually ahead of you. Mm-hmm. Right here, let me help you see around that corner. To me, those are the game changing kind of insights that the community brings to the small business owner. And that's why small businesses are more successful when they're connected to an accountant. Got
Dan DeLong:it. Mm-hmm. That's continuing on, so there's still challenges. Al always gonna be still. Challenges. So ensuring the accuracy, things that you had mentioned, you know, if you have garbage you know, Instant garbage. Right. That, that making sure that that's, that's accurate. Training, of course, that J curve and then rec recruiting a tech savvy talent are the three biggest concerns. Talk a little bit about
Ted Callahan:Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and something we launched actually very recently based on feedback from all of you, is the ability to understand the, the third party apps that you implement inside qbo. Those can be a source of amazing streamlining of workflows or if they're implemented incorrectly or the, the small business chooses the wrong app partner. It can be the source of a lot of mess in the, in the records of the books. And, and that to me is where the training and the accuracy go hand in hand. And so we've recently launched the ability inside QuickBooks Online Accountant, where you can drill down and see the status of your client's apps. Are they working right? Mm-hmm. Are the feeds flowing the way you would want them to or not? Right. Again, just a, a big request. So that's one of the areas where we're providing in, in response to community feedback, right? We're changing what we're delivering and ensuring that app ecosystem of QuickBooks Plus, right. These different third party apps are working the way that we want. Got it. I think on the recruiting side, we've got some more. If we go to the next slide, let's dig into. The the talent pipeline. Okay. And I think you and I were talking before we started, right? Yeah. Of just the talent shortage that I think there's a lot of hand ringing in the industry about, there's certainly a lot of headlines and discussion of, hey, what, what do we need to do mm-hmm. To change this? Should we change the CPA exam? Right. Ass. A big ac you know, active thread in social media these days. And I think folks are looking at, there's a decreasing pipeline of talent in the form of college grads mm-hmm. Coming into the industry for a variety of reasons. The brand of what it means to be an accounting professional of the perception that the work is, is really long hours to your point of hundred 50 hours. Right. All of that kinda stuff. Yeah. I mean,
Dan DeLong:and, and another thing is that, you know, it's now that. Because it's now technology backed. Right. You know, I, I remember when I went to college, the, mm-hmm. The, the, the computer science majors mm-hmm. Were being learned on something that didn't exist, wouldn't exist by the time they graduate. That's right. You know, and now accountants are kind of getting that getting that. Phase two, right? Mm-hmm. Where like, okay, they're learning to learning concepts or things that, that aren't necessarily going to be useful. You know, on that, you know, by the time they're, they're ready to, to take on. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, that, that's gotta be a, that's gotta be a challenge you know, for the, the state of the way things
Ted Callahan:are right today. Right? Yeah. I think, I think it's the challenge is definitely multifaceted, right? And so one aspect of the challenge, I think is. If you look at how the accounting industry is changing, right? Moving into the CAS space, increasingly on the advisory, I think what a lot of the firm leaders I'm talking to, they're actually looking for a different profile to hire. They're looking for the business major, the econ major, not necessarily the accounting major, because that's the person who's more adept with financial modeling and then the ability to go interpret those insights. For a business. Right. And, and provide some of that analytics firepower. So that's a change that I'm seeing. Mm-hmm. I think also the folks that are having challenges hiring, it's like, where do I go find these new skill sets? Or how do I just hire the right, you know, person to do the bookkeeping so that I can now scale myself and my other partners? And they're what I'm seeing, those that are winning that war for talent, they're leaning into what really differentiates them. And it's, to me, it's the, those that are winning are winning on the intangibles. They're winning on culture. Right? They've built a sense of team and a core conviction around maybe an industry vertical. Mm-hmm. And, and that's an exciting space where people are interested. Oh, I want, I've, I know about econ. Let me go help, right? Or let me go learn more about e-comm by working here so that I can then go do my next thing. Got it. And so those are some of the, the places where we're seeing that real time. And then the other call out was mentoring. Right? That's a way I see a lot of folks partnering at the university level with those up and coming folks, and they're guiding them on how to make those career choices. And then when they go into a big firm and they're ready to make a move into a smaller firm, because of that connection, they're more willing to join the the ranks of
Dan DeLong:their mentor. Yeah. Yeah. Good call out. Mm-hmm. All right. So got a few things before you go and yeah, we're finally announcing the Cub Connect. So
Ted Callahan:yes, there's been so many questions about what's gonna happen with QuickBooks Connect, so we're really excited to share. The QuickBooks Connect is once again, again once again, it will be in Vegas. People loved being in Vegas for all kinds of different reasons. It was easier to get to, right? There was more attractions, there was even better food, right? People loved the food lasting your QuickBooks Connect, and it was just a phenomenal conference. I know I was on a high from all of the interaction with all of you for months after. So we're gonna be back at the Aria in Vegas. It's gonna be in November, right? November 14 through 16. Ahead of the holidays, right? Cause I know how the time compression that occurs Yes. In that period right in, in the run up to your end. And so we actually are live on QuickBooks connect.com where you can register your interest. This is the kinda pre-registration so you can be. In the vanguard of information. All right. On that. So we're excited about that. So
Dan DeLong:yeah, that's I mean, for me the QuickBook Connect holds holds a special place in my heart because that's kind of where everything kind of came together. You know, after I had left into it, I was wandering around like aimlessly looking for, well, what, what is the next thing? Yeah. And it was just one fortunate. Thing after another. And Oh, that's great. And then that's just where, where everything just kinda, you know, Michelle bumped into me and said, Hey, would you like to co-host the QB power Hour? And now I'm here sitting talking with the, the head of the accountants. So it's, I mean, pinch me, right? I mean, don't pinch me.
Ted Callahan:I will.
Dan DeLong:Okay. All right. So, thank you. Let's take a look at some of the some of the comments here I will follow up with with an email. You can always go to our, our website about the PDFs of the of the slides. So we'll make these slides available, but they'll have the links there so that you can go check out the form of the future blog and, and things of that nature. Oh. Somebody found it. Okay. I was reading down the line here. And somebody says that here, RPA with AI solves most process automation. Why use all these other apps? What what do you, what do you think about about that? Yeah,
Ted Callahan:I think the so the RPA space is one we've been. Looking at for a long time. Right. And for
Dan DeLong:those that don't know, like myself, what
Ted Callahan:yeah, so basically it's, it's a robotic process automation. Okay. So if you think about a macro in Excel, that's an example of rpa. Okay. Got it. And so I, I, I would agree and I think if you look at you know, some of, some of the other large tech companies, They're worried about being disintermediated. Mm-hmm. Because of what these technologies can provide. And so I think it's a great question. I think the, the answer is, I think it depends on what, what apps for what purposes, right? So you certainly, some of these you can see there's gonna be change, but we don't have time to go into all of that. But I think it's, it is the right question to ask of what are the work to, to pull it out, right. Fundamentally, I think new technology provides changes in workflow. And if you look at, there was a, there's a thread on Twitter that n o had put up yesterday that I was reading through mm-hmm. Of, Hey, what are the areas where you would most like to use an ll m Right? A chat, G B T like set of capabilities, and it ranged from. Summarizing the latest news, right from all the different sources so I don't have to right all the way down to, hey, write the email for me and then, and then I can send it out once I've edited again, to me that's augmenting the intelligence of the human. And, and you can see that's actually already in the care experience today. If you all call in or your clients call in to help us, we actually have technology that's doing exactly that. It's saying. I hear the question here. Here's our knowledge base of answers. Here is the most likely answer, and we serve that up to that support agent to help them. In real time. So they're not having to go hunt for it. It's provided right
Dan DeLong:to them. Right. Because I can speak to that, the fact before all that mm-hmm. I was someone's Google search, you know, which had just made it a lot easier. Found where things are and you know. Be able to, again, interpret those steps. Mm-hmm. And, and, and, you know, put them in layman's turn so that, that people could understand. Well, where do I click? Actually, you're on this screen that says it's here, but I can't see it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Perfect. We really appreciate you. Coming on and, and sharing some of these insights. Yeah. It's great to be with you in person.
Ted Callahan:Yeah. Yeah. This is, thanks for letting us host you here. Yeah,
Dan DeLong:that's great. Now that I know where building one is and Yeah. And not over there. Mm-hmm. Cause I was like, wait, how do I get in that building? It's, it's under construction.
Ted Callahan:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's,
Dan DeLong:I thought that was building number one. Okay. Well, I, again, I appreciate you joining us here. I appreciate all of you joining in. I will you know, look at some of these things of, to, to follow up on. We will make the the slides available once I can actually get to a Multi workstation computer. And next time we're actually gonna be having, speaking of, you know, automation, we're gonna be having bookkeeper come on. They have partnered with Davo to automate your sales tax filings. You know, this is pretty awesome. Some use of technology so that you can actually. Free up that free, you know, do that free time you know, making sure that you're doing what you need to do as far as compliance work, but then now you've got more time to be able to do that. So we appreciate joining us next time in a couple weeks. Who knows where I'll be but I won't be here. But thank thank you Ted. I really appreciate you coming on and and joining us here today, and we'll see you next time on the QB Power Hour we hope you enjoyed listening to the QB Power Hour podcast. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in our Facebook group. You can find those resources and much more at qbpowerhour.com