If you’re still using QuickBooks® Desktop (QBD), don’t worry, this article is not a sales pitch to get you to move to QuickBooks® Online (QBO). In fact, I know that if you are still using QBD, you likely have many good reasons why. I know that I sure did, before I moved the majority of my clients over to QBO.
The truth is, I still have a handful of legacy clients on QBD. These are larger clients who will need to invest a significant budget for my firm to do the work of transitioning them to QBO. Moving these clients to QBO is the final part of the plan that I made about seven years ago when I moved my practice to the cloud and when I knew that the sunset of the QBD product was literally on the horizon. Right now, I am working toward the transition of these legacy clients and I am definitely leveraging some motivational strategies to get the job done.
If you are in the same position, or perhaps you haven’t yet started transitioning your clients from QBD to QBO, I want to offer some hard-won advice from my own experience. As members of the Intuit community I encourage you to reach out for assistance or support as you make the transition in your firm. The following motivational thoughts are intended to be a shot in the arm to help you “turn the corner” so to speak from being an entrenched QBD user to soon enjoying all the benefits of QBO and sharing those benefits with your clients, too!
So here goes, some motivation from me to you!
- Plan to succeed. By developing a timeline and the specific steps you need to take with each client the transition will be less daunting. Developing a plan to transition to QBO will make the shift so much easier for you, your team, and your clients. I speak from experience on this one! Your plan document can be a roadmap that gives you clarity and structure that reduces ambiguity, inefficiency and stress along the way.
- Let go of the past. We’re all likely guilty of holding on to systems and software that aren’t serving our current needs, often because we are comfortable with a certain solution or a workflow that we’ve used for a long time. With a software as central to many accounting practices such as QBD, it’s not surprising that making the shift to QBO might cause concern, or even usher in feelings of anxiety for you and any team members you have. Not to mention clients who may or may not be ready to embrace new technology. In this case, it’s important to paint a vision of a better way of working in the future so clinging on to the old ways are seen as cumbersome as they are!
- Make a list of the benefits of your transition. I have found that writing down why I want to make a change is truly a powerful motivator. Here are a few ideas to get you started: You can serve your clients in more productive ways, get more business by extending your services using QBO-powered apps, and free up your time to focus on improving your firm. Having a list of benefits like these in plain sight as you go through the transition phase is something I found highly motivating when I started my transition!
- Communicate the benefits to your team and clients. Reminding yourself, your team, and your clients of “the reasons why” you need to make this transition is key. After all, they are likely comfortable with the status quo, so detailing how beneficial this is will be very helpful in keeping them motivated to make their own moves to QBO.
- Focus on achieving peace of mind. Another important component and benefit of your QBD to QBO transition is greater peace of mind. Once you have completed several client conversions, you will start seeing the difference in a positive sense in terms of increased collaboration, efficiency and productivity. You’ll also appreciate how much more secure your data is in the cloud, which has short-term data security benefits and long-term compliance benefits, too.
Here’s one last motivational tip to help you, one that I know I will be using as I move my legacy clients over to QBO: Start now, your future self and your future firm will thank you! Make your plan, list out the benefits, and share both with your team and your clients. Doing so will move you so much closer to operating a firm you love while providing your clients with a better experience and more robust services. I can’t think of a better motivator than that!
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