11.7.23 - QuickBooks Updates Fall 2023

Michelle and Dan discuss the new updates and features in QB Desktop 2024 as well as discussing the New QuickBooks Ledger offering and Quickbooks Bill Pay service.

More Resources on this topic here http://www.qbpowerhour.com/11-07-23-quickbooks-updates-fall-2023

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

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Transcript

Dan DeLong: 0:30

So great to see you. So today is our token desktop day, right? So, you know every year QuickBooks comes out with a new version And we want to talk a little bit about those updates. So we're gonna put this into a Encapsulating a call Update fall 2023 QuickBooks update, which will include the desktop changes as well as some other things because as you'll see, there's not much to talk about when it comes to desktop. Hello, Michelle. Introduce yourself.

Michelle Long: 1:04

Hi, everybody. I'm Michelle Long, CPA, owner of Long for Success. I've been a contract trainer for Intuit since 2007. So, been around, did a lot of the What's New Tour with desktop in the old days where we used to go city to city and share what's new with everybody. So anyway, but I, I'm not even a beta tester for desktop anymore. So anyway, that's enough about me,

Dan DeLong: 1:28

Dan, go right ahead. Yep. Name is Dan DeLong, owner of Danwidth, worked at Intuit for about 18 years, co hosting today, as well as the co hosting duties over at schoolbookkeeping. com where we do a workshop Wednesdays, oddly enough, every Wednesday doing the tech editing of the QBO for dummies last last QB power hour, we had the author of the book join us. As well as some and pro advisor, uh, accolades a little bit about the QB power hour. It's every other Tuesday at noon. It's not eligible for credit. But if you do have a question or needs need that to review the last, you can go to qb power com slash resources where it has the recordings, the podcast, as well as the slide handouts, which I'll post in the QA and the chat, which is our next slide here about the housekeeping. So if you have any questions about the topics that we're talking about today, please put them in the q&a so we can answer them, address them, as well as follow up. If need be if you just have some general things to say please put them in the chat. And then of course we have the links there for the the handouts. So our agenda today is we'll talk a little bit about real high level. We won't go into deep dive demos or anything like that because we only have, an hour today to talk about these things. QB desktop updates. We'll also talk about a new announcement which is clearly just speculation. We want to set. About this QuickBooks ledger new, new offering. We'll probably hear more. We have some facts, but mostly speculation, and we'll probably be able to we'll probably be able to get a little bit more insight after QB connect, which is actually next week. And then we'll also talk about the QuickBooks bill pay update. So if you've been seeing emails or having questions from your clients about. What is this QuickBooks bill pay service? We'll talk a little bit about that. But our first poll question is what versions of QuickBooks do you use in support with your clients? You can make as many selections there as you see fit. So, go ahead. Well,

Michelle Long: 3:39

I was going to ask you a question while we're doing the first poll, if that's okay. Since we're talking about desktop, Jessica has jumped in and already has a great question. She's new to the QuickBooks space. She's been working towards her ProAdvisor certification. Congratulations, that's awesome. We just have brand new updated content. If you are working on your certification, the November VCon, which is coming up later this month will have the new training materials in there. So, you'll want to check those out. But anyway, She wants to know if desktop is going away or not. She's seen people talking about that. She doesn't know if she needs to do something specific for desktop or focus on QBO. So Dan, you know, we've been talking about is it going away or not for 3 to 5 years already. So what's your outlook for the next

Dan DeLong: 4:26

couple of years? Yeah. So this year, right, like this is the conversation that we have. Almost like clockwork every few years. So, when, when desktop comes out, you want a new version comes out it's a revisited a rehash of the conversation. And then in May, when they discontinue. The oldest version of live support, right? So term of desktop and discontinuing or service discontinuation as into it puts it always gets confused with is desktop being being going away. agAin, this is not on any means of, we can't. Speak to what Intuit is doing other than interpreting their actions, right? Because that's typically what we do as humans is we interpret people's actions based on their intentions. Intuit is is definitely encouraging QuickBooks Online. Like we had a discussion a QB Power Hour when we were talking about Intuit Assist, right? And and Michelle, you were talking a lot about how Sasan the CEO really bet the entire company on Intuit Assist, right? Yeah. And... And the AI, the AI, yeah. And that, in and of itself, right? So the whole thing there is that... You can't really get, uh, A. I. or a data from desktop. Right? So that is that's 1 of the things that it is kind of playing into this kind of conversation that is rigor and money investment. Into AI and this into it assist. They can't do that in desktop, right? So that being said, they can't just turn it off. They can't just turn off desktop. There is far too many, loyal. User bases with QuickBooks desktop. So it's going to take some time and really that's what I see and interpret into its actions as doing is they are easing people into, into QuickBooks online. Yeah,

Michelle Long: 6:41

they're making it harder and harder and harder to just go you can't just go buy quickbooks pro anymore You can't go to costco or office depot or staples or whatever, you just can't go buy quickbooks pro anymore So they've discontinued that but also if you look outside of the u. s They used to have quickbooks in india and in the uk and things like that. It's gone They don't have quickbooks desktop india or uk anymore and things like that. And so it is It's been going on for a number of years, like you said, Dan. And they're leading up to it. They're making it harder and harder to buy it, harder to find it. And they're making it so that it costs the same, basically, as online. They're doing everything they can, like Dan said, not to abandon the millions of users on desktop, but to push the desktop users to Coinbox Online. And so I agree with you, Dan, that it's, I think a couple more years you know, You know, it's gonna just keep getting that way. Somebody we'll go ahead. I'll just type an answer for

Dan DeLong: 7:41

her. Go ahead. No, and yeah this will probably be sprinkled throughout the conversation today about, what is Intuit doing about all this stuff. Just really in a nutshell. This is the high level features of what's new in QuickBooks 2024, right? So all versions of QuickBooks desktop have some security enhancements. Security is obviously a big. Big issue when it comes to, what's in your QuickBooks, especially on a desk platform the background updates that's a across the board feature. There's some list search functionality or enhancements there, and then there are some enterprise only enhancements. And this is this is where the. The shift for those in desktop is being encouraged, like you, like Michelle said, you can't even go to, QuickBooks, his website and order pro or premier, but you can order enterprise, right? So enterprise is still the desktop software of, the preferred desktop software. So that's the one that's getting the most. Enhancements across the board, right? So if you just look at the difference between what's in enterprise and what's in all versions, that all versions is really just a superficial type of thing. You know, let's just keep up with today's security issues that sort of thing. So it's definitely not a reason to upgrade, right? Is if you're going from, multiple versions ago, you're getting everything that was in, 20 22, 20 23, 20 24 by leapfrogging over. But if you're on 2023 Pro yeah, I can't see, that being a huge reason to to upgrade and in install your upgrade. But Enterprise might be entering into the picture. For those that might want to still stay in desktop and stay in a long product because that is what Intuit has mentioned that is the shift of the flagship desktop product will be the enterprise because it's the most feature rich version as well as it's already, been on a subscription for. Many, many years, right? So there are some prepayments on sales orders coming in, in 2024 multiple line categorizations, and then a new report for inventory a lot for those that are using platinum and the enhanced or the advanced inventory. And then there's also some payroll enhancements, uh, with regards to enhanced payroll. There's an employee center update as well as integrated. 401k. Now there's a link there for the from the future article that goes over these features as well. So let's just dive right in here. So in security enhancements I don't even know what this stands for, um, AES encryption, which is, the standard type of encrypting of data. Prior to 2024, it was 128 bit. It's now going to 256, which is basically some research that I was doing on what is AES 2, 2, 2, 2 56. It's basically impregnable, right? So if somebody gets a hold of your QuickBooks desktop data, it would take them. Billions of years to reverse engineer the encryption to get into and see that date. Now, that doesn't mean to say that if they hijack your password to the file, um, that, that will allow them to get into the file, right? So, don't put your password in an Excel spreadsheet next to where your QuickBooks company file is because a hacker who might be able to, Get into your system and copy your QuickBooks company file if they have the access to the password. Then they're, the encryption doesn't mean anything unless you have a good password blocking them out of that, right? But if they happen to, intercept an email or something like that with your data in it or security breach of wherever your company file happens to be stored and they get your QBW file. It would be really, really hard for a hacker to be able to get into that data. All right, so moving on. Background updates. This was always one of those things that when you open QuickBooks Desktop and you get a you get a, an alert for an update. Everybody just says, no, thank you. I'll do it later. Um, because you have to have QuickBooks closed in order for the installation of the maintenance releases as they come out through, throughout the course of the year. Those maintenance releases are automatically downloaded, but you only get that prompt when you're launching QuickBooks, which is super annoying because all you want to do is open your QuickBooks, you don't want to install an update. So with 2024, they are actually making it a little bit. gIving you a reason or giving you resources so that you can determine if it's actually worth your while to, to spend that time and and do the update before launching into QuickBooks. There's a link on the message to let you know what's in that update because there may be, a undocumented feature, as we used to call it, or a bug that might be addressed in a maintenance release. anD that may be something that you might want to do and take the time to actually do. And then at the top of QuickBooks will be a update is available a little button that will get you back to be able to, to downloading or to installing installing that update. So that's just something new with the background updates. lIst search functionality. So with with 1. 24 there's gonna be a search bar the price transaction list, the payroll item list, and the fixed item, fixed asset item list. So if you have a long list of things and you're looking for something, in the list itself, inside of those lists then now you have a way to search for them inside of the list. Across the board, that's what's in Pro and Premier. It's taking a pulse check, right? That's not a lot, right? For Pro and Premier. They haven't really put a lot of emphasis on that, but they have raised the price a little bit maybe a lot of it, right? I think when they started the subscription for Pro, it was 299. That was a discounted price. Now today, you one user pro is 649 and that's 649 every year. That is a huge pricing increase, which to Michelle, what you were saying is that now this. This is this is definitely an encouragement, uh, of at least having a conversation with about QuickBooks Online, you know, because Pro is, you would you say that Pro is, on par feature wise with QuickBooks Online Plus? Would you agree with that? Yes

Michelle Long: 14:38

and no. I mean, I would, I would want to host it to have the anywhere anytime access. But yes, other than that. Yeah, I mean, it is. And you're right. They're just going to continue raising these prices. So I was putting in the Q& A box that people should just plan on that when you're pricing your services. Hopefully you're increasing your prices at the beginning of the year. You should plan on at least one 10 percent price increase during the year. And just build that into your fees, and it's unfortunate everything is going up in price, I don't know anything really, it's not much, but you know, so just plan on that when you're setting the prices.

Dan DeLong: 15:14

Yeah, my my, my wife was just commenting on how how high dog food has has increased.

Michelle Long: 15:19

Seventeen dollars for a little five pound bag. I just ordered it on my app. But yes, we need to plan for these price increases, and we need to, in your engagement letters, put in there maybe that you're going to review semi annually now in the event of price changes in these subscriptions, not just with QuickBooks subscriptions, but any of the other third party apps, you might have, you may have that we will review the pricing Semi annually with people instead of

Dan DeLong: 15:46

annually. Right. I noticed that Christina had asked a question. Does it actually sunset every year or can you keep using it after one year? So the live support is actually the current year minus two. That's their policy. So with 2024 coming out, the two prior years of active live support and services that will connect to it like payroll and payments is 2023 and 2022. Now, 2021 is in this grace period, right? So they, it doesn't actually discontinue 2021 until May 31st of next year. So at this point in time, there's actually. Four versions of of QuickBooks that are actively supported. So 20, 24, 3, 2, and one until 2021 will be discontinued. Service discontinuation in may of 2024 is typically the date is after tax season. So you can, plan those things after that. So all of these price changes that, that are here they've already gone into effect because those dates have already passed. I realize that's the wrong year in there, because, but regardless, those dates have already passed. Those should be 2023 in the dates. So if you are staying in desktop, enterprise is going to be the desktop flag. It's something that you can still purchase by, by, by going to into its website if you are wanting to still get pro or premier you'd have to call in in order to do that. And that is another one of those things that I think Intuit is creating its own destiny, because if you have to call in and I've seen, multiple multiple posts in our Facebook group about experiences with the sales agents when we recommended a customer to call and get pro, get a new version of pro or premier. But to my understanding the, Those incidents should be discontinued But now they are also being incentivized, uh, as well. So, Dan,

Michelle Long: 18:05

I was muted. I was trying to tell you. You were breaking up really, really bad. Perhaps turning off your video, but you're okay now. But I was muted and you couldn't hear me either. Now I'm okay. Sorry about that. You're fine now. You're breaking up again. Perhaps the video is because your video is

Dan DeLong: 18:23

freezing. Okay. I'll turn off the video. How's that

Michelle Long: 18:26

now? Yes. Now I can hear you. That's better. Thank you. Okay.

Dan DeLong: 18:31

All right. So it's

Michelle Long: 18:33

the move for the net. I won't move.

Dan DeLong: 18:37

Stay there. Okay. So if you are staying in desktop enterprises, the is the desktop flagship product, right? It has all of the features, including all of the accounting tools. So you don't necessarily have to to the person that was asking before about, Should I get desktop certified and those types of things and get, get that add on? You'll have access to those accounting tools if you have a client on enterprise, right? So there's superb roles and permissions in enterprise, you can have more concurrent users and sometimes bundling may actually be more cost effective than Pro or Premier or what you end up having to do in the online space, right? So there's four flavors. There's silver, gold, platinum and diamond and each of those has additional things bundled into it. I gave an example here of, just a price comparison, just so that you can see that a single user, if they have enhanced payroll with an employee. Right under the current pricing situation in pro there's no discounts. That's all a la carte. So that pro plus subscription is 649. The enhanced payroll, the base price is 550 and the employee charge is 720. So your annual cost for a single user pro with. Payroll and 10 employees is almost 2, 000 now, uh, with enterprise gold with a pro advisor discount, enhanced payroll is actually included and there aren't any employee charges. So the annual cost at a pro advisor discount is 1, 400. So you're saving them 1, 500 just by going to a the desktop version that will be around for quite some time. So to order. To order pro, you end up having to call into it, which, now opens up the potential for having that conversation again with with the sales agent you can still order online with with enterprise. All right. So, let's talk a little bit about, go ahead.

Michelle Long: 20:48

Well, Dan, I'm sorry. I wasn't paying close attention. Did you mention the difference between the accountant version of desktop versus the ones that you were just

Dan DeLong: 20:56

talking about? No, we're just talking about the, the, the enterprise version of of QuickBooks, how it has those accountant tools already built into it. You don't necessarily have to have the the accountant edition.

Michelle Long: 21:12

Okay. So on the pricing though, for us to buy the Accountant Edition, is that still a one year subscription, isn't it? It'll stop using, yes. Stop working

Dan DeLong: 21:22

it. So far if you do get the ProAdvisor ADD-on. With with your ProAdvisor membership. If you only have that for a year, the Accountant Edition will still work if you don't have the subscription. That has not changed yet, but that doesn't mean that tomorrow might be another story, right? But as of today, if you have a one year subscription, you get, the active version of QuickBooks Accountant Edition. If you didn't renew that the following year those versions will still work. They won't. It won't say, hey, you don't have a subscription, but is that's next year and that, that could be a different story next year as well. Okay. And

Michelle Long: 22:07

one more, one more question. I'm sorry, Dan. Some people don't understand the logistics. So when your subscription runs out, the online services don't work anymore, like downloading bank keys or payroll. But what about, can you just access your data read only once your subscription expires? People want to know more about the details of what actually happens.

Dan DeLong: 22:27

Yeah. So when you're on a subscription for QuickBooks Desktop and you no longer have an active subscription, it turns into a read only version 2023 and higher. If you have a subscription to 2020 and you're using 2023 and then subsequently, purchasing 2024 and downloading that. if Your subscription lapses or expires, it won't open, right? It won't allow you to make changes to the data, right? You'll be able to open it and run reports, but you won't be able to do anything that modifies the data in that company file without an active subscription. That is only for Pro plus. Premier Plus and Enterprise won't even open if you don't have a active subscription. So the Pro Plus and the Premier Plus are read only and then the Enterprise just won't even open if your subscription lapsed. The difference there between service discontinuation, what we were talking about earlier, that is an annual policy that Intuit has regarding connected services. Like you were mentioning the bank feeds as well as the payroll, downloading payroll updates. So 2021 will be service discontinued even if you have a subscription, right? So you have to have you'll have to install your latest update, which you will have. You have all those active updates. As long as you're on a subscription, you can just pick and choose which version you want to go to. Whether it's, leaping to 2024 or. inCrementally going to 2022 or three, because those versions of QuickBooks desktop will be part of your subscription. Hopefully that that addresses or answers that question. Features in, in Enterprise, right? So prepayments on sales orders. This is a what took you so long feature. So there's an old way of handling upfront retainers and the the customer deposits. I did mention, I did notate the old way in the article there but basically what, with this new version, you'll have a preference to define what liability account, uh, you want to track those two and you can take payments directly on a sales order, so you don't have to turn anything into an invoice in order to take a payment, right? Or you don't have to create the sales receipt in order to, Okay. Record the deposit of the, that upfront deposit. This will do the accounting side of things right on the sales order. And then when you turn that sales order into an invoice, you'll be able to apply that credit that deposit when it is turned into an invoice. So, hooray this is a long been awaited for a feature. But finally makes its makes its entrance into the 2024 version, but it's only enterprise. So need to be in the enterprise in order to to do that. Inventory lot enhancement report. So this is only Platinum because Platinum is the only version of Enterprise that has the advanced inventory. So you, if you're doing serial number or lot number tracking you'll have to be in the Platinum version of Enterprise in order to do that. One of my favorite inventory reports is a stock status report. And now you'll get a stock status report by lot number. And then because they introduced expiration dates. In, in 2023, now you can use this report and filter it by expiration date as well. This is a nice feature to let you know where is your inventory lot? Because when it comes to lots, you essentially have recalls and those types of things. So you want to know where they are pretty much at all times. And that's what that stock status report will allow you to do. So nice feature there. And then moving on to the connected services. So enhanced payroll will have some enhancements in the employee center. So this is nothing more than if you can see the screen shot that little yellow dot. So when you're on the the employee center. If you have not set up some required information on the employee, you're going to get that alert. As it's just a dot it it doesn't seem like much, but it will play havoc at the end of the year. So this will help you when you're setting up enhanced payroll if there are some required fields missing, and then that, that will alert you to that, and then you'll have a tab now for required info. So that you can make sure that information is all set up for you. And then guideline 401k is the recommended integrated four oh solution. So that's making its way again into 2024. And then there'll be alerts if you haven't set up things properly for that. But basically this will. The contributions, deductions as well as everything else regarding the 401k right in, right inside of the QuickBooks desktop. All right, so let's let's launch this next poll as far as, and that, that is really it with regards to what the new features are in 2024, and I have lost the, there it is, okay, I'm going into, there we go. So what are your initial thoughts on these enhancements? Okay, go.

Michelle Long: 28:01

There's been a lot of discussion out here and stuff. One of the things that Carrie brought up I think you might know her a little bit, Dan. Some of the other people were talking too, but thank you Carrie. She was talking about what a pain it is to try to upgrade all of them individually. On desktop files. And I said something about, wait a minute, I thought QuickBooks Accountants had File Manager and in there you could do a batch upgrade and she's pointing out, yeah, but it's not QBO at or QB Desktop Admin, you have to be the Computer Admin and so she still has to log out and log back in and how it's a real pain to upgrade or update all of the desktop files. Do you have any comments on that? Like, why

Dan DeLong: 28:44

did it make it? Yeah, the well, I mean, because that is, that is just that, right? The idea is that you do have the file manager and you can do a batch update, but that is wherever that file happens to be stored, right? So for the full charge bookkeepers who have their, that are doing their desktop their desktop management of the files in house That file manager is great because you're doing it all for your clients Anyway, you know internally but your clients that are at their location that's a one one off type of thing. You could you know Make as part of your engagement. Okay, if you're up to getting up to date Send me your file and then you know, you do a batch update at once and then send it back but then there's the whole idea of that is That's a nuisance, right? Because you've got to make that arrangement of them sending your file, sending the file to you, you update it, and then send it back, which, of course, they still need to download and install the new version in order to even open it. Yeah that's part of the challenge of desktop, right? Where there is a something to install, there's something to download, there's something to update, there's something to back up. So there's a file involved. Which takes, takes the it's out of the, it's out of the picture when you're talking about a cloud based accounting solution like QuickBooks Online. So that's one of the cat versus dog analogy that I have with QuickBooks being a dog if it's desktop or a cat if it's QuickBooks Online. We have a nice little blog about that if you really want to look at that a little further, but but yeah, that is that's one of those challenges. Yeah.

Michelle Long: 30:25

Okay, so we have a couple more questions quick And then let's get into the quickbooks ledger and some of the bill pay stuff because anyway Okay, so another quick question. Sarah is two quick questions. Maybe sarah's concerned that the Pro ProAdvisor program now says plus on it, it's ProAdvisor program Plus, and she's worried that imp applies that healthy Kill switch.

Dan DeLong: 30:50

Yeah, that, that has actually been a around since I was there. So I left in, into it in 2018. QuickBooks, ProAdvisor Accountant Plus that was always a term that was, there, but not always socialized as, as highly as it is today. But yeah, the I really hate the fact that they use so many P words to describe pro plus career plus, and then plus there's also a version of QuickBooks online it's, it ends up getting very maddening to try to keep up with all these P words, but Accountant Edition plus. Has been around for a long time and as it sits today. So I'm not going to, I can't guarantee you what might happen tomorrow, but as it sits today, if you don't have an active ProAdvisor desktop subscription your Accountant Edition does not clunk, right? And meaning that you can't open it if you don't have that subscription. So it doesn't do that. Now that's only with Accountant Edition, uh, and that's only with. The desktop add on that you're that we're referring to.

Michelle Long: 31:56

Okay. Let's go ahead and move on. Okay. One more question. Sorry, Jolene wants to know, Jolene wants to know if she's using right networks and is, and so her clients are bundled under her right CPA account. I have to pay for enterprise from QuickBooks to access the client's enterprise data file. That's a huge price difference. Jolene, if it's hosted on right networks, you should be able to log in as an accountants user on that hosted file. Dan, do you want to talk to that? What type of license did she need? If she's the accountant's user to access client files

Dan DeLong: 32:33

when they're hosted. Yeah, if, as long as they have enough concurrent user seats to, to to accommodate multiple users then that, that should be fine. There should be an extra extra charge for you to be an additional additional user. Now, reading the end user license agreement to a T Intuit may have a different opinion of that, but the only way that they can confirm or enforce the number of users on a license right now is when you active, when you're actively in the file, right? So you have a five user license and there are five people in it and you come in as the accountant it's going to say you don't have enough User licenses to be able to open, open the file. Now, if one of those people gets out, you can log in just fine, right? So they don't need to purchase anything additional on top of that for you to have access as an accountant user. They would just set that up inside the file and then you would just be able to log in. Now, if it's a single user. thEn only one person at any given time will be able to log into that enterprise file in that environment. Now with regards to right networks, I don't know what they're. Leasing arrangement might be when it comes to licensing, but if you're purchasing it through Intuit and bundling it in with right networks, as their preferred hosting platform, that's typically how that works now, right? Networks may have a different level of service that I'm not, that's not part of this this conversation. Okay, can we

Michelle Long: 34:16

go ahead and move on, and then we can get back to some more Q& A a little bit later, because I don't know what you want to do. I want to talk about QuickBooks Ledger. I love,

Dan DeLong: 34:28

like,

Michelle Long: 34:28

speculating. I love speculating and trying to read into what QuickBooks is doing and everything. So this is talking about QuickBooks

Dan DeLong: 34:37

Online. You did a little research on this, so go ahead and you talk about it. Well,

Michelle Long: 34:41

You can introduce it. Go ahead.

Dan DeLong: 34:45

I wanted to make clear,

Michelle Long: 34:47

this is online. I want to make clear that this is online now. That's all. So go

Dan DeLong: 34:52

ahead. Yeah so there was an announcement. I saw Ted Callahan posted about this. I'm sure we'll find out a little bit more in at QuickBooks Connect in the next week. But there was an announcement about QuickBooks Ledger which is in the online space. And I am speculating that it is solely to compete with Xero Ledger and or Xero Cashbook, which is a, which is an accountant. Preference or offering that zero offers from what I understand, there's no client access. But it's really just a matter of some of the features that that you'll do inside of QuickBooks on online to be able to process a smaller client who doesn't necessarily need to do anything with. They're books, right? So those four full charge bookkeepers that that were doing things in online can do something similar to that with QuickBooks Ledger. Michelle, do you, based on what you saw? Yes,

Michelle Long: 35:50

yeah. So if you want to go ahead and go to the next page, so really what this was like, Dan, and I agree with you, it's competing with the zero ledger, zero cashbook type of scenario, where basically it's a bank feed. To get all the downloaded bank transactions and everything. It's and Caleb was the one that mentioned this. It's like simple start without the ability to do any sales or bill transactions. You can't do invoicing or sales receipts. You can't do three transactions. It's basically an after the fact. And you can see that in the first bullet here, this is excerpted from to I assume Jacob, you can see down there on the bottom right, he's the one that posted this out. If you follow Tax Twitter, this is where I was researching a bunch of this. But this tells you what it is. So this isn't speculation. This is an email that Intuit sent to selected people. And as you can see, it said, After the fact or write up. The first bullet there. Tax only clients. Clients that you don't do anything with all year long. Accept their tax returns or if you've got multiple company clients with non operating entities think about these clients that have, Five different companies and really all the activities in one primary company and the other four don't have much activity at all You could set up those non operating entities the holding company if you will or some of those sister entities which without any activity you could set that up with clickless ledger so it's really A way for us accounting professionals to work with these really small, low activity clients. And so you can look down there and the features include, down in the bottom bullets, the auto bank feeds, the bank reconciliation, generating reports for your financial statements, 1099, C List transition to tax preparation. Let's think about that. What is this going to integrate with it? If this is a qbo type of product, what is it going to integrate with? Well, what does qbo integrate with pto? Proconnect tax online So I don't anticipate a direct connection to Lucert or TurboTax, but, or not TurboTax, but Lucert or ProSeries, the desktop products, but who knows, Intuit might have created a file for them to export and import into those more seamlessly. So the whole idea here is for them to provide something. For us very affordable because what I was seeing caleb is on the inside with into it And so I trust some of the things that caleb's posting this all could change it could be different. I got it off the internet. It must be true, right? Anyway Caleb is saying that based on the people that he's talked to at into it. It's going to be ten dollars a month So let's assume that's correct. That's a hundred and twenty dollars a year To have one of these small clients set up where you can downloading all the transactions You can reconcile the accounts and run those reports and then integrate it with pto or I'm a I would assume There's probably a trial balance that you could export to import into another tax package with a little manipulation or something I'm, not sure about that But this is fact on what it's going to do and the thing about the zero ledger the zero passbook Those have been around for years. I mean, I actually taught Xero gosh, several years ago. I, when Xero was first coming to the U. S. and making a splash, I was teaching it, and they had the task force type of thing back then. So, Xero's had an option like this for accounting professionals for years. And Dan's comment about the clients are not going to have access to this. No, this is not for somebody to use to enter an invoice. Or enter a payment or an expense. This is not for entering transactions. This is for downloading from the bank and being able to generate financial statements. So, it leads based on what I've got here. I'm basing everything on what I've got here and discussion that I was seeing in tax Twitter and stuff. Dan, if you want to go to the next slide, the other thing that I thought was really interesting that I wanted to speculate in and talk with you about on the next slide is a tweet from Ashley Sutter. And you can see down there at the bottom, she is the director of the US account sales. Okay, so she should know what she's posting on Twitter. So we should be able to rely on that. She is high up from Intuit and she's staying on here. I'm thrilled to share this exclusive early sign up if that isn't enough. Here's what I thought was interesting Our team will also help you migrate before tax season Okay, so it's going to be available before the end of the year in tax season or you know before tax season What it's sounding like and we're going to migrate to this. So some of the stuff that I saw that Caleb posted is that we could we could Upgrade to this, but we could not downgrade to this. It wouldn't be an upgrade, but we can't downgrade to this So if you have an existing client using qbo essential It's true. It's not going to let you go backwards. Let's say or I would assume, you know for using simple start You couldn't go backwards So if you got a it sounded to me If you had a client already using qbo, you couldn't downgrade them to the quickbooks ledger If it's a new client, you could sign them up on quickbooks ledger. So my question is what are we migrating? If we can't downgrade clients to Pledger, what would we have to migrate? That was a disconnect in the information I saw from Caleb and others that might have commented that you could upgrade but not downgrade to this. First of all, it would seem like an upgrade to me. It did that didn't make sense to me It's only going to be available to accounting professionals via qboa our preferred pricing program So you have to be a pro advisor to use it? And have the wholesale pricing set up the pro advisor preferred pricing it has to be under us, so you can't have clients that go by this. Dan, anything that you want to add or speculate with me? What are your thoughts

Dan DeLong: 41:56

on all this? Yeah, the One thing I wanted to call out is, there's this whole idea of QuickBooks self employed and where does that sit? That is completely separate from this conversation that we're talking about with QuickBooks Ledger. Self employed is for the, The gig guy, right? The Uber driver or something that's commingling funds and wants to, split between the two. Whereas ledger is an accountant only function, right? So, I don't know, and this term that has been throwing that, Intuit has been throwing around a migrate migrating to, from desktop to QuickBooks online, or in this case, migrating from, we don't know what, into QuickBooks Ledger, I don't know what that means as far as what you can migrate from in order to get it in there, but I would imagine, there's probably a host of QuickBooks online subscriptions that are in subscriptions that are that they're not being utilized. They're being utilized in this way, but not the customer doesn't even have access to them. So I think this is likely what that is solving for. I remember talking to an accountant back in like 2014 that, he would really enjoy, there were other solutions that were out there where it's cloud based, where they could have. They can basically create their own online access for themselves and just have the QuickBooks Online experience, but not necessarily needing anything for their clients to have access to. They would pretty much do all the things for them. But I think this is what this is trying to solve for I just don't know what it looks like or what it tastes like feels like or whatever No more details than than what's currently out there

Michelle Long: 43:42

It does sound exciting though, especially for those people that do a lot of tax returns and everything I mean the ability to get the bank feed and get this set of bank rules You can process, a whole year's worth of transactions in a fraction of the time, especially if it's a small client with low transaction clients. Notice, Ashley put that out in there, low transaction clients. So I don't know if there's going to be a limit to the number of transactions throughout the year. I wouldn't think so, who knows, but it makes sense from Intuit's perspective. They're not going to let you downgrade, let's say from QBO Essentials or Plus to Ledger because then Intuit is going to lose money if you downgrade a client. But it makes sense that they will let you upgrade. So if you start a client with QuickBooks Ledger and their business grows, then you could upgrade them, let's say, to QBO Essentials. That would make sense, that you could do that. So it does sound interesting. Especially if you do a lot of tax clients and everything. And yes, you probably will see a demo or a video on this. Dan, I can't wait to hear you report back on what you find out. Also,

Dan DeLong: 44:45

I will definitely pay attention during that time period.

Michelle Long: 44:50

And we were talking about the pro advisor program earlier. It has been re imagined with some new benefits that are available and some changes in the tier levels and the point and how they do all that. So you'll want to say, pay attention to that at connect as well. And we'll give you updates. Afterwards, for those of you that won't be.

Dan DeLong: 45:13

Alright. Alright, so we'll wrap this up with the QuickBooks bill pay service. So there was some emails flowing around there early on very confusing. From to it about millio bill pay, whether it's going away yesterday. And so we talked a little bit about this on a prior power hour where the integrated bill pay solution and it started with a, with a. Discussion or a partnership with bill they created like a bill dot com light version back in 2015 or so where it's a slightly, there was a fees associated with that. It was integrated and accountant users had trouble accessing using it and then ultimately around COVID. Melio came into the mix as the integrated build a solution. Now QuickBooks is wanting to take its own stab at its own service. Kick Melio to the curb. But Melio still works, right? You can still use Melio. You can still use BILL. com. You just can't use build. com service in the fashion where it's deeply integrated directly within, within QuickBooks Online. So there's some new offerings. We wanted to talk a little bit about that. So there's a Basic, Premium, and Elite. I do appreciate that they're using the same, uh, adjective for this as they are for payroll, except for Basic, somehow, for doesn't doesn't ring true with with a bill pay solution, but with Basic, it doesn't cost you anything. You get five free ACH payments a month. Automatic bill creation and it's auto matched to that transaction. So where the QuickBooks Bill pay service, I think, is going to really you, the advent the advantage of that is that when you send a bill or when somebody sends you an invoice that's used, that's also using QuickBooks because of the QuickBooks network that that they're creating, that it will allow you to be able to create. A a bill for the recipient. So that's 1 of those things. That's, one action creates multiple actions down the road, right? That is where the QuickBooks GoPay service will, I think, will have its advantage, right? And that's where Intuit really excels in the deeply integrated services. nOw, if you go with Premium there's a cost for that. It's 15, it's discounted for the first three months, you get 40. Free ACH payments. But now that includes unlimited 1099 filing. As you're using the BillPay service to pay your vendors or your contractors, now the 1099 service that typically comes in January is now included as part of that. On top of that, then there's Elite, which jumps up to 90 a month, but you get unlimited ACH payments. And adding on additional roles and permissions as well as bill approval workflows. And you don't, I don't think you have to have individual like advanced, right? So advanced has that approval options. This will be like outside of that or within QuickBooks without needing to have the advanced subscription in order to do that. Now, if they are requiring advanced. In order to have the elite bill pay. Well, then shame on them. Right. But that's that's, that remains to be seen. But I think you can be able to opt into that service without it. And then if you go over your basic or premium allotment, it's 50 cents transaction check payments for all plans are a dollar 50. So pretty much on par with the costs of of the other bill pay services but just wanted to have it like side by side here. Which the pros and cons of each one, QuickBooks is going to have deeply, is going to be deeply integrated. So the integration is going to take care of it's going to be the advantage there, the 1099 preparation and the invoices creating bills. The cons are untested, right? And it's only bill pay only and it's only QBO only. Melio is free ish to use. They, they only cost you if you're using a credit card or getting money fast or those types of things that cause a fee associated with that. There is a bi directional sync with Melio and the flexibility of payment methods where you don't necessarily have to set up your vendor much like in Venmo or PayPal, right? You're just sending money to them and then they can decide how they want to receive it. And then the remittance is with regards to Melio, from what I've seen of using it, the remittance is vague to the vendors, right? So you have to put in a memo and if you're using multiple payments, because you can do that now, it doesn't really have the, each individual payment that that, that's part of that. Corpay One is a, is one that I've also been working with. It's a nice all in one platform where it has AP expense reports as well as corporate cards. And then you can customize workflows. It's less costly than bill. But their desktop integration is not as robust as their QBO integration. Then of course the bill option is it's established, it's synchronized with both online and desktop highest functionalities. You have PO matching, there's a vendor network. The cons are, is pretty expensive, right? There's a per user fee and the transaction fees are a little higher. So I just wanted to lay out some of the bill payment options and want to throw out the last poll question, which is which bill payment service. Do you currently use? Okay, I did hit launch today. Yes, I did. Okay. All right. Any any other questions that popped up there while I was talking about that? You betcha.

Michelle Long: 50:48

All right. Rapid fire. Do inactive contractors count towards your limit? Inactive

Dan DeLong: 50:56

contractors. Inactive contractors. The only limit, the number of payments that you're making has nothing to do with how many users or Contractors or anything like that. It's just the number of ACH payments. With regard to the limits that you're making, and that's on a monthly basis. So you have basic is 5 per month, right? So whether they're active or inactive is irrelevant. But as far as the the 1099s, is that what was that the question? I'm

Michelle Long: 51:27

not sure. It was just how many, and I would think inactive wouldn't count anyway. They're an inactive one. Even if they had some limits, I would think if they're inactive, it wouldn't count. How long does it take for payments to be received by the

Dan DeLong: 51:40

vendors? Yeah, there with the QuickBooks bill pay service, it's I think it's 5 to 10 days, and it's it's right around the same time period as the Melio funding they are likely going to, I would imagine we'll see, a faster option for a fee With with, very much bill. com, I get constant nudgings from bill. com to receive my funds faster if I would like to pay them an additional fee to do that. So I would assume we'll see something like that with the QuickBooks bill pay service, but around 5 to 10 days, so you can schedule those things accordingly.

Michelle Long: 52:16

Okay, one last one. Jolene says, Intuit says one of her clients is using BillPay, Bill, which will no longer be available, but she can't figure out which client's doing that. How do you find out, or is it just a blanket email from

Dan DeLong: 52:29

Intuit? That is a good question. And the thought that comes to me is when you go into your QBOA you click on apps on the left side, that will, and then you choose client apps, and then you'll be able to see every client there and what apps are connected to them. It will be a manual process, but at least you'll be able to, you won't have to go into each client in order to look at the overview. Of to see what's connected. But if you go into your QBOA, click on apps on the left side and choose client apps, then it's perused down. I would assume it's an alphabetical order, but I haven't looked at the client apps organization today. So I may be that way. It may be based on how they've connected it or how they have. You know, whether it's alphabetical or not in there.

Michelle Long: 53:23

All right. So, Dan, I think you've got through most everything here. You know, we went kind of quickly there at the end, but I think we still got through it. So I had some great questions from everybody. Thank you. Anything else, Dan? You want to try your video here at the end? Wrap it up.

Dan DeLong: 53:40

I'll stop sharing and I'll turn on my video now. Everything reorganized. There you go. Was the sound horrible? I apologize for the Raleigh, North Carolina connection here, but it's only this week and next week I'm on to Florida.

Michelle Long: 54:01

Yeah. All right. Well, hey, I thought it was great. So thank you for updating us on what's coming new with desktop as well as some of this other stuff. And I hope you have a great time at QuickBooks Connect. Think about me. It's the first one I'm missing and I've already got FOMO really bad. You'll have to you'll have to update us all when you get back on the new stuff that you've learned and everything that went on. All right.

Dan DeLong: 54:26

We'll see you next time on the QuickBooks Primer. I hope you all have a great day.