Fellow accountants, the time has come to embrace the transformative power of automation in our profession. The shift towards digital and automated solutions is not just a trend; it’s a revolution that empowers us to transcend traditional boundaries and deliver unprecedented value to our clients.

While accounting technology options are evolving rapidly, offering us the tools needed to streamline our workflows and elevate the services we offer, it can be overwhelming to identify the right tech stack as your practice grows and evolves, too. Read on to learn how to streamline and simplify this process because, let’s be honest, no one became an accountant because they love manual data entry (and if you did, we need to talk!).

Automation frees us from those monotonous tasks, allowing us to dive into the aspects of our jobs that truly excite us—such as deciphering complex financial puzzles and making strategic decisions that propel businesses forward. And let’s not forget, with automation handling the mundane, we might have time to grab that second cup of coffee—or even an extra doughnut—during our workday. So, let’s begin our exploration with the one and only, QuickBooks, The Cornerstone of Automation!

QuickBooks Solutions for a Better Experience

QuickBooks stands as a pillar of accounting automation, offering a plethora of features that simplify everyday accounting tasks. Here are some of my favorite QuickBooks features that have revolutionized our workflow:

QuickBooks Online for Accountants is a game-changer for accounting professionals, offering a robust, cloud-based platform that provides unparalleled flexibility and efficiency. This specialized version of QuickBooks Online enables accountants to seamlessly manage multiple clients from a single dashboard, providing real-time access to financial data from anywhere, at any time. Its comprehensive suite of tools includes automated invoicing, payroll processing, expense tracking, and detailed financial reporting, all designed to streamline accounting tasks and boost productivity. The collaborative features of QuickBooks Online for Accountants allow for effortless communication and data sharing with clients, fostering stronger client relationships and enabling more strategic financial advising. By integrating with various other apps and tools, it further enhances workflow efficiency, making it an indispensable asset for modern accounting practices looking to stay ahead in a competitive market.

QuickBooks Payments: Streamlining Financial Transactions for Businesses

QuickBooks Payments simplifies and streamlines the financial transaction process for businesses, making it easier than ever to receive payments and manage cash flow. This seamless payment processing solution allows businesses to accept a variety of payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, and ACH bank transfers, directly through QuickBooks. By integrating payment capabilities within the accounting software, QuickBooks Payments ensures that transactions are automatically recorded and reconciled, reducing the manual effort and errors often associated with traditional payment processing. The real-time updates and instant payment notifications keep businesses informed of their financial status, improving cash flow management and enhancing the overall financial health of the organization.

Additionally, QuickBooks Payments offers competitive rates and secure processing, giving peace of mind to both businesses and their customers. Whether it’s invoicing clients or setting up recurring payments, QuickBooks Payments delivers a convenient, efficient, and reliable solution that enables businesses to focus more on growth and less on administrative tasks. Embrace QuickBooks Payments to streamline your transaction process and elevate your financial operations.

QuickBooks Time: Revolutionizing Workforce Management

QuickBooks Time, formerly known as TSheets, revolutionizes workforce management by offering an intuitive and efficient way to track employee hours and manage payroll. This robust tool allows employees to clock in and out using a variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets, and desktops, ensuring accurate time tracking

regardless of location. With features such as GPS tracking, customizable timesheets, and real-time reporting, QuickBooks Time eliminates the guesswork and manual entry errors often associated with traditional time tracking methods.

Managers can easily approve timesheets, monitor workforce productivity, and generate detailed reports that integrate seamlessly with QuickBooks for streamlined payroll processing. QuickBooks Time also simplifies job costing, project tracking, and compliance with labor laws, providing a comprehensive solution for businesses to manage their teams more effectively. Embrace QuickBooks Time to enhance efficiency, accuracy, and overall workforce management.

Other Essential Tools and Apps

While QuickBooks forms the backbone of our automation strategy, several other tools and applications also integrate seamlessly with our workflows:

Jirav:

An all-in-one financial planning and analysis (FP&A) solution, Jirav integrates effortlessly with QuickBooks. It enables dynamic budgeting, forecasting, and reporting, allowing us to create multi-scenario financial models. The real-time data sync with QuickBooks ensures we always have the latest financial information at our disposal, facilitating more informed strategic decisions.

Bookkeep:

Bookkeep automates the bookkeeping process for e-commerce, gig economy, and other transactional businesses by integrating with QuickBooks and other platforms. It ensures that transaction data is captured accurately and posted correctly. This reduces manual bookkeeping efforts and enhances the accuracy and timeliness of our financial records. With Bookkeep, we’ve been able to streamline reconciliations and provide more accurate financial insights to our clients.

SmartVault:

SmartVault is an essential document management solution that integrates seamlessly with QuickBooks. It offers secure storage, easy document retrieval, and streamlined workflows for managing client documents. SmartVault’s integration ensures that all necessary documents are linked directly to the corresponding transactions and records in QuickBooks. This enhances both compliance and efficiency in our document management processes, making client audits and reviews smoother and more efficient.

Inspiring the Accounting Community to Evolve and Grow through Automation

The technology transformation we have ahead of us is exciting, and so are the possibilities that it offers for your firm. I encourage you to explore and adopt these revolutionary tools, then share your experiences, successes, and even challenges, so we can collectively learn and grow. The future of accounting is digital, and together, we can drive our profession into this new era with confidence and enthusiasm.

It’s time to embrace the change! We can transform our practices for the better by adopting automation. I firmly believe that we are not just accountants; we are strategic partners, innovators, and leaders in a thriving, modern accounting landscape. Let’s lead with innovation, adopt the best tools and technologies, and inspire one another to elevate the accounting profession to new heights. The future is now—seize it with an open mind and unbounded ambition!

This is a paid partnership with Intuit.

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!

1. 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. 
2. 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! 
3. 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!
4. 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. 
5. 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!

Get dedicated support materials written by accountants who have successfully migrated their own clients and want to help pave the way for yours. Download migration guides.  For access to more information and resources, visit our move online site.

This is a paid partnership with Intuit.

The inaugural #AppyHour Camp came to a close a few days ago and I have to tell you, the experience was epic! A huge shout out to Liz Scott and Heather Satterley for having the vision to bring so many top-tier accounting profession educators, upcoming rockstars, and dedicated solution providers together.

It was an honor to be the MC for Appy Hour Camp and as The Designated Motivator, it was truly inspiring to see a whole new level of peer-to-peer motivation be ignited. I brought along my Starting Lineup of technology solution providers, too, in the form of these cool new #DesignatedMotivator blackout t-shirts. You can bet that Appy Camp is just the beginning of where you’ll see these! 

As I mentioned prior to my departure for Appy Camp, I knew there would be some amazing takeaways from the talks given and the time spent unplugged for the most part, really connecting in the most human and creative sense with my peers. It was an amazing experience and I came back primed to do even more to support all of you and to help others in this profession do the same.

I know that there are so many #DesignatedMotivators in our midst, each day we have the opportunity to take on this role and lift each other up whether that is on stage, in our firms, or in other organizations we belong to (family systems included!). As we head into busy season I see it as my role to keep being #TheDesignatedMotivator and this includes working with my Starting Lineup of apps and technology solutions to share how they support a better quality of client experience, workflow, and overall firm management capabilities. 

I truly believe that my partners including  ADP®, Bookkeep, Canopy, Fishbowl, Jirav, Liscio, Smartvault, Swizznet, Corpay, RCReports, and Truly Financial are not only technology providers but motivators for us all, too, to keep us accomplishing more with less effort and enabling more balance on all fronts. 

Let’s tackle the next quarter of the year like it is the last of 2022, because it is! And because with all of us in the accounting profession participating in the #MotivationMovement we can keep nurturing the spirit of collaboration  that we started at events such as Appy Camp so they continue through #QBConnect and all of the other places we go in the next few months.

For those of us running public accounting and bookkeeping practices, we are continually called on to be a trusted advisor to our business clients, a credible conduit between the government and the rest of society when it comes to communicating and interpreting the tax code, plus a dedicated “doer” of the work. Oh, and that’s all before breakfast! Some days it seems that way, doesn’t it? 

Here is what I know: this feeling of being overwhelmed and out to sea has become our new normal, and to me, that’s not the way anyone should live because life is too short. I’ve been there and done that, it’s stressful and soul-sucking.I know I am not alone in this view, but for too many other peer professionals, burnout is inevitable. Or is it?

If you are feeling like your options are to 1)keep doing what you are doing and burnout or 2) abandon the ship of an old-school firm I want to introduce youtube a different mindset. Engaging in a community of peers.

Does this seem too simple to work as a strategy for beating burnout? The truth is, we all need to have other people and perspectives to help us cope. Whether it’s professional or personal, or a mixture of both, having others to bounce ideas off and collaborate with can be life-changing. It’s not just a theory, either. A study by the National Center for Biotechnology  Information  shows that the more we connect with others who have similar experiences in a supportive way, the happier, less stressed, and prone to burnout we will be. 

In fact, this week as I am surrounded by other accounting professionals with similar goals and mindsets as mine at Appy Camp, hosted by two of my favorite peers, Heather Satterley and Liz Scott, I am reminded of this fact. I hope you’ll make a mission of finding yourself a supportive peer group this week, too. 

Here are a few accounting communities to consider:

Ecomm As You Are, The Designated Motivator Community, the Woodard Membership Community, and of course, attending events online, connecting on social media and, if you can, going to conferences in person is another great way to meet new supportive peer professionals.

It’s so important for accounting professionals to remember that you are not alone. It may feel that way when you get mired down with work, clients, deadlines, and then the life you have to manage outside of your firm. However, you can make a choice to think differently and see connecting and taking the time to nurture relationships as a critical part of keeping your productivity high and purpose for doing what you do front and center. Both of these benefits of engaging in community will ensure that you beat burnout and achieve the goals you have for yourself and your business.

There are so many people who shine bright in this profession who are ready and willing to help you. This is why I fundamentally believe that the more connected we are as people in this profession the greater the opportunities are for each of us. So don’t wait on the sidelines. Reach out to someone, be human, be humble, ask for help if you need it. And always remember, together we rise. 

I am super excited for Appy Hour Camp coming up September 19 to 21! Who wouldn’t be? It’s going to be a fun adult camping experience hosted by Heather Satterley and Liz Scott, and me, The Designated Motivator, as the M.C.  Let me assure you, however, this isn’t going to be all s’mores and camp fire songs! In fact, what I am most excited for (beyond the fact that we are going to be staying at the same place Dirty Dancing was filmed!) is that it’s going to be a truly educational experience.

Liz and Heather invited many thought leaders and educators in the accounting space to support us as intentional educators and to serve as an incubator for the next round of aspiring educators in the accounting space. I know with the lineup of speakers and contributors this is going to be an awesome camp!

According to Appy Camp headquarters, “the entire educational, inspirational and entertaining retreat will be a co-mingling of established accounting industry educators, up-and-coming educators, and app developers. All camp attendees will be immersed in the sessions and activities together in a shared space to facilitate community and collective innovation.”

In other words, we are going to get some of the most brilliant minds in the profession together and learn from each other about new ways to engage and expand the knowledge base for all of us. From talk to technology, I am planning to come home with some really inspiring action items that I can share with all of you.

I know whenever I get together with peers like entrepreneur wizard Melinda Emerson, Ted Callahan from Intuit, Misty Megia (can’t wait to hear her speak!), Virginia Lacayo, a business coach for thought leaders, Dan Gertudes from GrowthLabs, Ian Vacin from Karbon, and Mariette Martinez, Accounting Strategist the learning opportunities will be immense!

I am so looking forward to packing up my camping gear and heading to Appy Camp in just a couple of weeks. I don’t travel light to camp, either! I will be bringing along my entire Starting Lineup of apps and technology solutions to share with everyone including ADP®, Bookkeep, Canopy, Corpay One, Fishbowl, Jirav, Liscio, Smartvault, Swizznet, and Truly Financial. These are literally the solutions that have allowed me to create a cloud-based firm that is so efficient I can actually take four days to go to Appy Camp and not feel stressed about it, knowing that my team can use the system we have created to manage the workflow and my clients are still completely taken care of.

While I’m away, I’ll be posting on my social channels so please follow me so you can be part of the whole camp experience, too!

Dawn Brolin, CPA, CFE was recently welcomed as a new member of the Intuit Tax Council. The Intuit® Tax Council, a group of forward-thinking tax professionals who help lead positive change in the professional tax community, and provide inputs and insights that help shape the Intuit ProConnect™ business strategy. You can read Dawn’s interview about why serving on this council is so important to her as she works to help other accounting professionals succeed.