Beyond Desktop | Embracing the Power of QuickBooks Online

Robert Mele:Hello everyone. My name is Robert Mealy. I'm a manager on the application success team here at EisnerAmper, partly responsible and overseeing our QuickBooks initiative that we have here at EisnerAmper, which we're happy to introduce to you and show everybody what we can do here for you today.

Becky Munson:Alright, well let's jump in. So to make sure we get all of our CPE benchmarks met, we'll go through the agenda and the learning objectives. So the goal today is to talk more about the changing landscape in accounting, what's happening with QuickBooks Desktop, what's new with QuickBooks online, and why it is becoming the better product to move into over time. And then the support and resources that we can provide for you in that transition. At the end of the presentation, you'll understand the strategic shift from QuickBooks Desktop to online and identify the advantages of making that shift. You'll be able to evaluate how that system can support your business more effectively and efficiently. Get some clarity on the process of migration and the ways that EisnerAmper can support you on that journey and assess your readiness and next steps for making the move. The goal today is to help you see the differences in the systems and to be able to make decisions on how to navigate forward.

A little bit about us. There are a number of new folks on the guest list for this presentation. So we wanted to just include some basic information about EisnerAmper. Many of you may have been clients of the firm and longevity with our legacy EisnerAmper, but EisnerAmperhas had a steep growth trajectory over the last few years. And so we have combined in a significant number of firms in the last three years. And so some of you may be new to EisnerAmper as you've come in with a legacy firm that's combined in to the broader firm. So we are now in the top 20. We're the sixth largest firm in the New York area. That is where our flagship location is 1.2 billion in revenue. We've grown up quite a bit in the last few years as we've brought on additional combinations. We've got more than 4,500 employees now and more than 440 partners.

So our firm can provide a very robust menu of tax and other consulting services. We're going to talk a little bit about that as well. So let's talk about the changing landscape in accounting. Things continue to shift rapidly in the accounting world, and when we look at the impact of things like cloud computing or machine learning and AI automation and data analytics, what we're finding for our business clients is these things become complex to navigate. Some of them take an immense amount of detailed expertise. Some, some folks are early adopters and they've been in this space for a while. Others are following that journey and seeing what's happening for others and following along as appropriate. And so for us, what we know is a significant number of the use cases for things like automation or ai, our growing exponentially, and our clients are looking to us and to other professional services firms to help them navigate that.

So EisnerAmper has a robust offering of services that can help you navigate those. This is just a selection of some of the things that we can provide. EisnerAmper has outsourcing and advisory teams in almost every industry and every area of business. So we're going to talk a bunch a little bit later with Robert about how the migration works and the internal teams that we have to support you in that. But we have teams that can support you along this entire digital transformation journey. So EisnerAmper can do everything from helping manage or support your transactional and reporting execution needs. And that can be from fully outsourcing your finance department, which some of our clients do. There's a lot of folks on this call who are finance professionals in their corporate environments for our clients. And if you need extra hands in your accounting department, we can provide you those as well.

We can also do business efficiency analysis, high level fp and a board and investor decks and help you go to market in those spaces or work with VCs or PE and make operational improvements, upgrade software. We're going to talk about that today. And then also help with your growth and strategy. So risk management, government or governance, process improvement, board leadership and board development and succession planning. EisnerAmper has a team that can assist with any phase or need of your business. So while we're going to talk about technology transition and software upgrades today, we certainly have folks who can help you in a number of ways. So Eisner, why you might think about bringing in a team to support or augment your onsite team. Often the reason we struggle to make software upgrades or tackle a migration until it's absolutely mission critical is just because it takes a lot and our teams don't have extra bandwidth.

They're not in a position to do their regular job and keep the business functioning day to day and also learn whole new systems or get data in a condition that it can be used in a new system or all of those legwork pieces that are important so our teams can come in and support your teams in that way. We can do the data analysis, we can clean data up, catch things up, get you where you need to be, help you get it into the new system, implement new processes, train your teams, all of those things. And that allows for scalable growth. So anytime you feel like you might need an extra set of hands or some extra expertise that you don't have in your current team, EisnerAmper and our teams can be a great resource. So we're going to get into our first polling question.

So where are you currently in your QuickBooks journey? So we want to understand where we're starting from. So select from those options there. We'll give everyone about 60 seconds to answer the poll. So are you still using QuickBooks Desktop and not considering a change? Hopefully we'll change your mind. Today we're using QuickBooks Desktop, but we're exploring our options. We're planning to migrate to QuickBooks online soon. We're already on online or we've moved to some other system. So give us your answers to those questions and we will close the poll in about another 30 seconds, hopefully since you're here today. And the theme of this presentation is to move to update you on what's going on with QuickBooks Desktop and then move to QuickBooks online line. We will get a lot of you in that planning to migrate soon bucket by the time we're done sharing all of our information with us.

Becky Munson:Alright, so we've got a good number of folks already using QBO, that's great and we're pretty well spread between, not sure we're going to make that change or we're exploring options. So hopefully we'll be able to give you some clarity around that decision making as we roll through things today. Alright, so with that, I'm going to hand over to Beverly to give us the Intuit direct lowdown on what's happening with desktop and how we can move into QBO.

Beverly Lang:All right, well let's talk about QuickBooks Desktop service discontinuation. As most of you know, when I talk about desktop, I want to just clarify, I'm talking about pro premier, not enterprise. Enterprise is considered its own and we're going to talk about it a little bit in depth later, but for right now we're just talking about pro and premier for Mac. So if you look at this, you can see that we issued a stop sale that went into effect on September the 30th of 2024. So QuickBooks desktop subscriptions that are currently active will remain active as long as you continue to pay that subscription fee. But we will no longer sell new desktop subscriptions to anyone after September the 30th. So existing clients that were on versions 22 or newer had to automatically renew, move up to a subscription model, keep that paid and active, otherwise, we will no longer support your software.

So products that this affected, like we just talked about, QuickBooks Desktop Pro, premier Mac, and also the enhanced payroll, we stopped selling that as well. So Intuit has definitely loved the desktop product, which was first released in 1998. It became a popular choice for businesses and accountants. However, as Becky mentioned at the beginning of this, times are changing, technology is advancing. And with that, Intuit has made the decision to stop investing in desktop and move all of that RNA and significant investment into the cloud and into QuickBooks Online and IES. Some things that I want you to keep in mind that could potentially harm you if you're using Pro or Premier is good old Microsoft. As you know, they're constantly sending out updates, making changes to their infrastructure, and when they do that, it can affect how your desktop product works. And unfortunately, if Microsoft makes a change that affects the infrastructure, QuickBooks is not going to put money into fixing that.

So we're kind of at the mercy of what Microsoft could potentially do that could hinder you from being able to use your software. We've also launched a brand new software called Intuit Enterprise Suite or IES. That's going to be a great option for those people that are in enterprise. So most people go to Enterprise because they need more complex features, they need intercompany transactions, they need inventory, they need more users, more role-based user access. So we've created that in a cloud-based product called Intuit Enterprise Suite, and that is a good option for those that are in enterprise, they could potentially want to move to the cloud.

So with the discontinuation of services, what does that really mean? That means after nine 30, you can continue to use the same version of QuickBooks Desktop that you have. Everyone should have been on 2024 because starting in 22 it was subscription, which means you paid for 23, you paid for 24 whether you chose to upgrade or not. But we wanted everyone to move to 2024 and we will stop supporting or selling anything prior to the 2024 version. So when the service discontinuation occur, typically before this we knew that the software would sunset on May 31st. So on May 31st, 2024, the 21 version, which was the last standalone that you could purchase with Sunset, meaning that 2022 and up will no longer be supported. The only thing we support now is 2024. There will not be a 2025, there will not be a 2026. 2024 is the last software.

There will be intermittent updates, typically quarterly or semi-annually to fix bugs or to release some product feature that needs to be adjusted. But you're not going to see a ton of increase in feature capability or reporting or any of that because we're just not putting our time and effort into desktop. Has Intuit decided to do away with it altogether? There is no official date that it will go away, but it's coming. We just haven't announced when that's going to be and I can't share that information because it's not readily available. But just know there's issues with Microsoft, there's issues with the servers, and there's no more support or feature upgrades from 2024 backwards. So now is the best time to look at QBO. Becky, it looks like we have another polling question.

Becky Munson:Yeah, let's jump into our next poll. So what is your biggest concern about transitioning to QuickBooks online? We've had lots of suggested concerns, so give us your top one. You may have more than one, but your top one data migration and the accuracy of your data learning curve and training. Maybe the lift to the team integration with the things you're already integrated with, the cost of the subscription model, your data privacy or online security concerns, or you're good to go. You've already done this, no worries at all. So give us your top area where you might have some concerns about making that switch to QBO. We know in talking with a significant number of clients, and Robert will talk a little bit about it later, but we've done over 2,500 file conversions in the last 12 months as we found out about some of these Microsoft concerns and other things inside the firm, and we've heard a lot of feedback on why folks may or may not feel comfortable with that online transition.

Yeah, make sure you get those polls. We want to give you your CPE. We all, if you're in the CPA world or other professional credential, CPE is a free credit of CPE is a valuable use of your time.

Alright, and we've got a pretty good distribution of concern, so we've got that very consistent. 14% of you who are staunchly already on QBOI love it, but mostly it looks like we're well split between our costs and the learning curve and making sure our teams are trained. So really valid poll options there. And Beverly's going to get in now to the benefits of QBO and maybe we can answer some of those concerns for you.

Beverly Lang:Perfect. So let's talk about some of the cloud benefits of QBO. So there is a cloud mobile app that is included with your subscription that will allow you to work on your mobile apps like your iPhone, your iPad, your Android phones. There is also a desktop app that you can download that will allow it to look like desktop but still function in QBO to help with that learning curve. But I'm going to tell you, the team at EisnerAmper, they know QuickBooks inside and out. So if you have training concerns, you can watch that one away and put that off on Becky and Robert and their team. They'll do a great job of onboarding you, getting you set up, helping with your work processes and then teaching you how to use the system to its fullest capability. But some of the other benefits that you have is the fact that one, this is not it's device agnostic.

Before we had a lot of Mac users and the Mac version was never, in my opinion, not an intuit perception here, but my personal was never up to par to what pro and premier were. Now it doesn't matter what type of system you're on, you can run off of a tablet, off of an iPad, as long as you have internet, you're going to have the same capabilities and the same system that anyone else would. A huge benefit is no server or a backup service. It's automatically done for you. You don't have to have that expense or personnel on staff to handle things like that. No installation required. So it's as easy as saying, I want to go online, signing up and you're in your system. So it's just very minimal uplift to get you up and running. Very minimal system requirements. You can have, again, a tablet that has very scaled back costs when it comes to equipment and rolling it out to your people.

But some of the really great benefits for productivity is anytime, anywhere access, you can be anywhere. I have literally done payroll on a tablet sitting in the airport in between flights because I forgot, but because I was in QBO, I could log in process payroll and everyone got paid on time. You have a secured environment, in my opinion, it's more secure than any desktop version you could have ever had. We use the same encryption that the banks and the financial institutions use for QBO. That's what allows us to talk to the banks and have the bank feeds come in. So you're secure, your data is stored, it's firewall protected, there's redundant servers to help prevent hardware and software issues. So the downtime is very, very minimal. And then the automatic backup, if you're in our advanced product, you have the protection of data with automatic backups and restores for those lower ones, you still have the backup because it saves every time you enter anything into the system. So a lot of great benefits of moving to the cloud.

Becky Munson:And Beverly, let me jump in with just a couple of cloud focused questions from our chat. So a couple of folks have mentioned, I'm going to use t's comment here, but there are a bunch of them in this vein. Loret, you said, I do not find QBO as user friendly, particularly the inability to open more than one report at a time. What is being done to make QBO as flexible as desktop? So this is the number one item that we tackle in user training. When we convert new users into QBO, we aren't in the environment to have a live demo today, but reach out, let us show you. You can simply duplicate the tab in your browser and open as many tabs as you want with all of the reports that you want. You have unlimited tabs. So it's just, it's a how to use the feature that people don't understand, but it is possible to do it.

You can also have more than one online company open if you use different browsers or incognito browsers. So I know for me personally, I still serve clients, a client with five entities in QBO. I can have all those entities open in different incognito browsers as many reports open as I want in each browser and see all of that data at once, which just is not something that desktop could ever do. So reach out, let us help you and we can help you with that. The other thing that's come up relative to the online version is the view and the structure of it and how it looks. So online is different. It has a different, more slightly more modern feel, but there is an app that you can download onto your computer that you log into your online account through that gives you more of the look and feel of desktop. It's free to do I use it all the time? You can have more than one company open in it, all of the features that are available to you in online or still in there, but it gives that front end structure that looks just a little bit more like desktop. So those are some things that we can help you with when we implement to give you those usability features and still get the benefit of all of that cloud data management that Beverly just talked about.

Beverly Lang:Right? Absolutely. So both great points that you just mentioned. When you think about QBO, there is a learning curve, but it's very minimal if you understand it's still form driven, it's still list driven, just like desktop. So you just have to learn where to go to find it, which can easily be taught by the EA team and show you to help customize it for your needs. But it's very quick to be up and running in QuickBooks and have the confidence that QBO is set up accurately. So with all your business data online, you can even, I mean it's an entire ecosystem. It's not just an accounting software anymore. You have the ability to manage your accounting. You can also add payroll. We have three different online payroll platforms, core premium and elite. All three are full service payroll accounting options. We have the ability to track time using QuickBooks time, which is included with our premium and elite payroll.

You have the ability to real time data sync with your third party apps. So if you're using Amazon or Etsy or you have a webpage with a shopping cart, you can use the API or the open API to help set those integrations up so that your systems talk to one another. You can control your cashflow by setting up the bank feeds and having your bank and credit cards automatically import the transaction so that you can keep up to date on what has actually gone through the bank account. You can use Intuit's bill pay to pay bills, you can use our Intuit credit card processing to get paid. So you can now pay your vendors via a CH and you can have your customers pay you through a CH and Becky and Robert and the team will help you get both of those set up and get those going for you. You have the ability to send invoices electronically set up recurring. There's so much you can do from an automation standpoint that we have found that eight out of 10 QuickBooks users say that when they get QuickBooks online set up, they're saving between 11 and 23 hours per month based on the automation that they're able to set up inside of the file. So there is a learning curve, but it's well worth it once you get it set up. I promise you, you're going to love it.

Becky Munson:And just to piggyback on that with some of our questions, try to answer 'em in real time as we're covering the topics here. Payroll. So somebody asked, Jonathan asked QB payroll, can we edit the filings inside the tool or do we have to go to Intuit? And that's a new feature that has come online in the last year where now accountants have the ability to make those adjustments to payroll filings right through the system. So more self-service on that side. So again, things change and they're able to update these systems in real time and on a regular basis. That's one that absolutely can handle it. So some other questions on payroll, can we handle that directly? Do we have to do the tax filings? All of the tax filings are automated in that payroll system, so no more manual nine 40 ones. Like I said, you do have the ability to make some changes to those if you need to, but the system's going to handle that for you. It is full service. So often when folks are making that transition and they're used to doing manual payroll filings, then we can train you on how that system's going to do that for you and make sure that you're comfortable. So just a couple of payroll questions there.

Beverly Lang:Perfect. Perfect. Well, while you're using QBO, like I said, this is a platform and we want to focus on your ability to collaborate with your team and your accountant in real time so your accountant can work with you to customize QBO to create a solution that's right for you by deciding what third party apps you need, what integrations you need, and then setting up workflows. You can even communicate back and forth between QBO and your accountant. They can request documentation, you can supply it over 10 years ago as part of Intuit's mission, which is to power prosperity. Intuit made the decision to build a cloud-based product and they truly believe that moving to QuickBooks Online Services, you and your customer's interest now and for the long term. So we're committed to our online product and we're committed to our entire ecosystem, which now includes MailChimp.

And so we want to make sure that you get all of the features that you can and that you have the opportunity to have everything native in one product so that you get the best reporting for the money that you're spending on that software benefits for you as a business owner. So what we're trying to do, there's how many of you, we don't have a polling question, but can I see an emoji, a thumbs up or a thumbs down on what you think about ai? Because it is at the forefront of every industry right now, artificial intelligence. And so Intuit has put a ton of money and resources into our AI and we just lost a new user interface on July the first and look at all those thumbs up. So we have a ton of people loving their ai, and so Intuit has invested very heavily in AI to help drive more growth for you.

As a business owner, we want you to have profit by automating some of those tasks like creating your invoices. We now have AI driven invoices, drag and drop a note, drag and drop a picture, and Intuit will help create your invoice. The same with expenses. Now you can take the PDF of your credit card bill, pop it in there, and it's going to create all the entries for you and you approve them. There's a ton of AI insights that are going to be shared and who better than to partner with your accountant like EisnerAmer for them to help you understand how to read all of those insights, those business knowledges, and to take that information and help you grow your business. We want to simplify the collaboration so that the communication between you and your accountant or you and your employees, and we want to be able to give you a real time view of the performance.

Becky can help set up KPI reporting dashboards, charts, reports that come to you automatically so that you understand where you're trending both locally, regionally, nationally, and then stay on top of the business from anywhere you get mobile alerts. If there's anything that happens in your file that you need to be aware of, like when invoices are paid, so when you get money and you can spend it, we want to automate that across the board so that you can do what you do well, which is still your product or service, and let Becky and Robert and their team do what they do well, which is advise you on how to grow and make more money.

So some additional benefits is just increased capacity with automated workflows. Let the technology work for you so you don't have to be worried about a steep learning curve. Unlock technology and it's going to do a lot of the work for you. Becky can help you create customized reports to provide instant view talking about those KPIs. You're going to have assistance when you need it. They have a great supportive community where you can have access to their employees and that's going to boost your efficiency and allow you to manage your people in a more integrated process with or without our payroll.

So QuickBooks Online Advanced Scales, your business Fast. QuickBooks online is going to give you five times more capacity than other QuickBooks versions. It's going to give you the ability to have up to 25 users at no additional cost. You're going to get advanced reporting with customizable presentation ready reports. This introduces spreadsheet sync. I don't have specific comments. I've been reading some of the questions, but there was things about exporting it to Excel and it's not easy to work with. If you go to QuickBooks online, that headache goes away. Spreadsheet Sync is going to allow you to extract data, correct it, make changes, and import it right back into QuickBooks online. So now you have a clean set of books and again, the EisnerAmper team know how to use this system inside and out and they can train you specifically on importing data if you need to import invoices or credit memos or any type of information, they can show you how to get it in, how to get it out, fix it and get it back in. So there's a lot of great things that Advance will offer you that some of the other versions do not.

Becky Munson:So a couple of questions can apply to Advanced just since we were talking about that. Some of you are asking about user limits or class limits. Advanced is where you go if you're bumping up against those limits in other file sizes. So if you're needing more users or more classes or a larger chart of accounts advanced as the level of subscription and QBO that you want to use, you get far more expandability in that space. Some of you have also asked about lots of small entities. So we know that one of the number one pieces of feedback around moving to the online subscription model is just having to have multiple files and multiple subscriptions reach out to our team. Some of you have asked some very detailed questions in the q and a. We will get to you individually with some answers, but generally speaking, our team has developed a process where we can put multiple small entities inside the file in the way you need them to function, and we can set you up with one advanced file and multiple entities within that file.

So if there are small number of transactions, it's a limited use, we can certainly help you with that. So we know that that's an ongoing struggle for some businesses. If you've got multiple building holding company LLCs or something like that where or lots of trusts in a family office situation where it gets two journal entries a year and a distribution and a tax return. We have a solution that we've developed that will let you use an advanced file to do those things effectively. So just know that if you've got some of those complex use cases, our team really can help you, but we're going to need to talk to individually just to understand it all. But that advanced file gets you some workflows and automation and lots of ability to expand and have more users and have that larger chart of accounts. So really great option there.

Beverly Lang:Yeah, and just to kind of piggyback on that, when you start talking about multi-entity, again, you need to reach out to Becky and their team because with the new product, Intuit Enterprise Suite or IES that is designed for multi-entity, it has automated intercompany transactions, your intercompany bill allocations, user roles that are specific, that can be addressed across the board on your intercompany consolidated financials. So there's again, it warrants a discussion to understand what your needs are and what they can fit you in because there's so many ways to accomplish the same thing and they can find you the most cost effective but most robust system within your budget. So definitely reach out and get any information you have. One thing I did note in here, someone said that they did upgrade from five users to 25 and there was a cost. That's because it wasn't a cost for users.

You switched QBO subscription levels plus it's up to five users. When you move to advanced, it not only opens up to 25 users, but it unlocks a ton of other features. And so the cost was the difference between the two subscriptions not specific to just users. I see a lot of questions about inventory. QuickBooks online does offer inventory. It's not going to offer multi locations. It's not going to offer some of the serial tracking and lot tracking. It's very, I would say it's more for distribution or anyone that doesn't do any type of manufacturing, but that doesn't mean QBO is still not a fit. Reach out to Becky or Robert and they can help find the best solution for the inventory and get you set up and get you going. So just a couple other things that do come with the advance that as part of that increase is the fixed asset manager, the custom reporting, which again is spreadsheet sync, which is going to allow you to send reports out in either Excel or Google Sheets, the ability to automatically sync your information back in.

So there are a ton of different things that come with the advanced product. When we talk about workforce management, this is going to talk to you about how you manage your employees and contractors in one place. We talked about the payroll piece. So we do have three versions of payroll. Again, reach out, we can evaluate your situation, but we also have the ability to pay contractors and stay ready. So there is a 10 99 function within QBO. You can prepare 10 90 nines and your 10 96, you can automatically request from your contractor all of their information, their W nine, their a CH information and have them automatically complete that on their end and it uploads straight into QuickBooks. So we've taken out the manual entry there. Payroll is very robust. If you're on a DP or Paychex, which I've seen a couple in there, we would want to talk to you about what services you're getting. Sometimes we're a fit, sometimes we're not and we're going to be honest. If we're not a good fit, we're not going to sway you to our product just to make a sale. We want to make sure that we write you and whatever payroll option that would be.

There's also a better way for you to get paid and to pay bills. We talked about this as part of the ecosystem, so you can get paid four times faster if you use our invoicing and email that invoice instead of using paper invoicing. And we found that 73% of the people get paid in less than 30 days because that invoice is sent with a payout button. And so it makes it so convenient for people to make that payment. As well as paying your vendors, we do have the ability to each QBO account comes with a free bill pay. It allows you to pay up to five vendors each month via a CH at no cost. If you need additional, there are other tiers that Becky can talk to you about and get you special pricing on by going through them. You always want to go through an accounting firm like EisnerAmper because that's where you're going to get your best pricing because they get special pricing that they can work with you on.

So automate more of your accounting. This is using our bill pay and our payments. This allows you to get a better handle on your cashflow. It allows you to track and project your cashflow for the last 30 to 90 days in advance. It allows you to keep up your bookkeeping without all the busy work. When you send out an invoice with a pay now link, the customer makes the payment, you get an email notifying you that the payment's been made, the customer gets a receipt automatically the payment comes in, it's automatically posted against the open invoice and put in for your deposit. So all of that's done automatically. So it automates that. You can get instantly paid with payable with the payments because they can send to your customers. They can pay online using credit card debits, PayPal, Venmo, and more. So it's a great option. There is some eligibility requirement for the payments in the bill pay, but they can walk you through the application process and ensure that you get everything set up correctly.

So endless integrations. QuickBooks Online, unlike desktop, has an open API. So we have so many apps that are available that can be niche specific, industry specific that will help you create a full ecosystem with the use of QBO. So as you can see here, Timothy from EA said, apps have helped us solve so many pain points, allowing us to serve our clients like never before. You may or may not be aware of those apps, but I guarantee you that EisnerAmper team is they're doing this day in and day out. They vetted those, they know what works, what doesn't, and that's the expertise that you're going to get by going to a firm like EisnerAmper.

So real time update. Here's another great quote from one of their customers, wash Pros of Illinois. QuickBooks online helps us know where we are in real time. They're not surprised by things and they're not having to play catch up with the bank feeds and the automation. They're up to date on income and expenses and they know exactly where they stand. So it's a really great system to be able to keep up to date. You can customize your solutions for your business. We talked about all the apps. There's over 750 integrated apps. These online service vary by participating financial institutions and they may be subject to application approval or additional terms, but again, don't go in there trying to figure out what you need. Go to Becky and Robert. They'll tell you, they'll tell what works and they'll have a streamlined process to get you set up. Looks like we have another polling question,

Becky Munson:Right? Let's jump into our fourth polling question. Which QuickBooks online feature do you find most appealing? So let us know what are some of the things that Beverly just covered that you might be interested in Anywhere, access automated workflows and bank feeds, real-time collaboration with your team or your accounting team. Customizable reporting or integrated payroll and workforce management. We've had a lot of questions around very specific use cases and features in the chat. We will collect all of those questions and we will get back to you after the webinar on your specific questions and set up some conversations. I think most of what I'm seeing is very specific to the way folks are using their desktop files and how to do those things in online. We want to make sure we understand that and give you that proper translation. But I am fairly confident when I say there's been very little, we've not been able to translate properly into the right version of QuickBooks online. So if you're doing it in desktop now there is a version of QuickBooks online that will do it for you and we just need to make that match. Alright, how are we doing with our polling question? Okay, which feature? Anytime access seems to be the winner, that's the first time we've had a distinct winner. Being able to get that real time information is so key. Alright, so we're running short on time. I want to make sure we get to everything. So we're going to get Robert in here to talk about our migration process. Robert,

Robert Mele:Thank you very much Becky. So many of the questions that we have when we meet with clients, why would I outsource? Why do I want to take care of this? I need the technical help in order to get this file migrated. What's the timing of it? Timing is a big issue. How long is this going to take with regards to disruption of service? Hey, I want to get back in there. I want to start recording things. And then after the migration or the conversion has taken place, what sort of resources, what sort of training do I have available? We've never used QuickBooks online or maybe I'm familiar with it. We just need a crash course. Something along those lines. That's where we step in. As Becky mentioned earlier, we've in the last 12 months alone, done somewhere over 2,500 conversions, I think bordering up to 3000 at this point with regards to meeting clients to have that discussion of what would work best for you and your business or for the client's business.

We can do the training, we can do the conversion, everything that's involved there. So one thing I do want to talk about here is that we want to make sure your data stays with you and your new file as you go from QuickBooks desktop to online so you can maximize the benefits once you have migrated. And again, that's where we step in. We will meet with you to make sure that whatever you have in QuickBooks Desktop, we can migrate that. We have the conversation of what will move over, what may not move over. And in those situations that something may not move over, we'll go above and beyond to make sure that we can try to get that into QuickBooks online for you. So again, that's keeping your historical data, customizing QuickBooks online to try to meet your needs that what you would need to see online versus what you saw on desktop.

Reducing the double entry. We take that file, we make sure we get it turned around as quickly as we possibly can for you so you don't have to record information into desktop while online's being done and then we're there for you in the long run. We're there for you to have that training, that support after the conversion has taken place, even if it's a minor question of how do I do this or how do I do that? Something along those lines. Just to give you a broad, general idea of how this process does play out because it is different from client to client depending on your needs, we'll meet with you. We'll have that discussion. We'll look at your QuickBooks desktop file, we'll see what would be a close approximation to QuickBooks online, what would fit for the business. We'll help coordinate with you the timeline of when we would get that file.

We would review that information again on our end pull reports to make sure everything looks great. We will go ahead and run that conversion for you. We ask for about one to three business days, but on average we're turning these files around in 24 hours to make sure that again, there's no lag time or downtime on your end. We can get the file done back to you, get you up and running once more. That way you're not running behind with entries or whatever it might be. And then once you are up and running, we'll go ahead and schedule that training call if you deem it necessary or if you just want to kind of have one-on-one conversations, I need to know how to do this, how to do that. We're there for you where we can meet back up, give you that expertise, answer those questions for you, make sure that you're not lagging behind and that you're comfortable with the system while you basically take it and run. We hand the keys over to you and you have a good time.

Becky Munson:All right, so our team's put together some standard conversion packages. This allows us to very quickly work with client on all of that upfront timeline that Robert just went over. Do the file migration includes a training session to get the team into the new file and makes it quick and easy to make those conversions. So if you've got one file that's a $1,500 package, if you've got multiple files, it's a $2,500 package that includes your first two files and then additional files or additional fees. And then we can customize a package for you. So if you need payroll, if you need additional functionalities, if you've got complex inventory, some of those things, then we'll meet with you. We'll understand what those needs are, put together a project plan for what it's going to take to get your data and your needs into the cloud and then move you along that process.

So we try to make this as approachable and as easy as possible for our clients and we can certainly adapt to whatever your business needs are and come up with a solution that gives you the best of all of the choices. Alright, I think we're going to go to our next poll. So as we wind down in our last eight minutes or so, are you ready to take the next step toward QuickBooks online? Let us know where you might be. This question's going to help us follow up appropriately and just make sure that everybody gets what they need. The chat's blowing up as I see this real time. We've got like 40 more questions, so lots of interest here.

Okay, perfect. I think we may be at the point where folks have hit three polls and they no longer are too worried about clicking through that. That

Perfect. All right. So lots of conversation it looks like, but our team's here to have those conversations with you. So reach out or we'll follow up. We have the registration information, so we'll make sure that we check in with you all that we get you the support that you need. So Beverly, do you want to close us off with this slide?

Beverly Lang:Yes, I'm still here. I'm just trying to play catch up. Alright. There's a lot going out of the chat right now. Yes, and I was trying to read all those and trying to see which ones I can answer. So I'm looking forward to getting back with you. But we're growing right along with, so currently we have over 10 million small businesses and self-employed individuals using QuickBooks Online and MailChimp. We have over 93 million customers that are using TurboTax and Credit Karma and over 7 million customers just on QBO alone. So there are a lot of customers out there and we are growing every day. We listen to your feedback. We partner exclusively with some of the largest accounting firms like Becky to get their feedback on what you as a customer need and what they need as an accountant to support you. And so we look forward to bringing you from QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks online. Please reach out to Becky and her team. They're one of the best at doing this. They've done thousands with me over the last year. So they've got this down, they've seen it, they've done it. What would take you five to six hours could take them a couple just from the experience and knowledge they have. So that old outage is you get what you pay for. They're the best investment that you can have as a business owner to get your books set up.

Becky Munson:So lots of questions. I think the number one theme in our last few minutes that I'm seeing that I don't think we've addressed is just the subscription model. So a lot of questions about I can buy one desktop license and have unlimited companies and now the online system has moved to a price per company. That is true and it's probably not going to be something that you're going to see change in all of technology. We're all finding, most tech is moving to a monthly subscription model and Intuit's no different in that way. That's why we can work with you to figure out what is the right number of files and subscriptions. Do you need 10 of them if you've got 10 companies? Or can we structure the file in such a way that you don't need 10, you only need one advanced file. Those are the problem solving pieces that we dig into with our clients to make sure that what they end up with for a solution is the right solution.

So don't let that subscription model scare you away. It's just the way the world is going now and we're all in it, but we can help you figure out how to make that decision on the subscription model that's going to be best for your business. So really important one there. Another big theme as I roll through the comments or try to keep up is on reporting. So many of you are commenting that reporting in QBO, the current version of QBO is not as robust as desktop enterprise. And you are absolutely correct, it is not. But the Intuit Enterprise Suite, the new online enterprise product has very similar intensely robust reporting for your enterprise level entity. So if you're in enterprise desktop for the robust reporting, then we would work with you to right fit you into that online enterprise product. And the thing to remember is if you've got multiple online files now and you're struggling with consolidations that Intuit Enterprise Suite is the solution for that.

You can put all of your entities in one suite and have a set of system managed consolidations. So if you need consolidations, please reach out to our team, let us help you right fit to that enterprise suite because it does eliminations. You can do top level allocations across your companies. And so if you've got administrative bills at the top level that you need all the companies to kind of pay a prorata, you can do all of that in that enterprise suite. So lots of different choices now, especially with the addition of that new product. So let us help you figure out what's right for you and work out an ecosystem for Intuit that's going to make sense. Okay, I think that is probably all we have time for. We will follow up on all of the additional questions that may have popped up that we didn't get to. Thank you to Beverly and Robert for joining me on this webinar. Appreciate you both and my contact.

Beverly Lang:Hey Becky, there was one information. Yes. I wanted to make sure that you give them your email. I've seen several in here saying that the email icon didn't work and they want to know how to get ahold of you.

Becky Munson:So this is how you get ahold of me. There also will be a thank you email that comes to you shortly after this presentation that will have our contact information in it. And if you are current client of EisnerAmper, you could just reach out to the person you normally deal with in the firm and they will connect us. So if you're already working with one of our stellar professionals in tax or advisory or audit, then reach out to them and they can get you connected to me no problem. So please let us know if there's something we can do. We're here to help, but we can't reiterate enough that we need clients to understand that making that move from desktop to cloud now while you have, it's not an emergency, things are not ending and we don't have a hard cutoff date, now is the time to be proactive and plan and help us do that.

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