07.16.24 - QB News and Updates

Michelle is off today, so she can spend quality time with her first Grandbaby!! Matthew Fulton and Dan discuss the most recent updates to QB Online and tackle some common questions that occurred in the QB Power user FB Group

QB Power Hour is a free, biweekly webinar series for accountants, ProAdvisors, CPAs, bookkeepers and QuickBooks consultants presented by Michelle Long, CPA and Dan DeLong who are very passionate about the industry, QuickBooks and apps that integrate with QuickBooks.

Watch or listen to all of the QB Power Hours at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/blog

Register for upcoming webinars at https://www.qbpowerhour.com/

00:00 Introduction and Greetings
01:32 Meet the Hosts and Special Guest
03:05 Overview of QB Power Hour
05:43 QuickBooks News and Updates
07:57 QuickBooks Online Pricing Updates
11:58 QuickBooks Desktop Pricing Updates
16:21 QuickBooks Payroll Pricing Updates
20:06 Enterprise and Accountant Pricing Changes
26:50 ProAdvisor Premier Bundle Benefits
27:39 Enhanced Payroll for Accountants
30:05 QuickBooks Time and Payment Changes
33:02 Intuit Workforce Restructuring
36:15 Impact of Layoffs on Employees
41:06 Intuit's Future with AI and Experts
50:13 QuickBooks Online Updates
51:58 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Dan DeLong: 0:30

Actually, michelle and matt, no, it's dan and matthew Oh my goodness What a day, already. Welcome to another QB Power Hour. We're going to be talking about QBO updates, or in general terms Intuit updates, and our Facebook group Q& A. And, as Michelle is typically on the power hour, but as you may or may not know, she's actually now Mimi Michelle. And she she had her first grandbaby Aurora Bay was born about a week ago, so fresh out of the oven. And so she's taken some time to spend some time with. With that new grandbaby. I talked to her yesterday and she is just loving her 6 a. m. Grandma duties of relieving the mom after, for the morning feeding. She's loving that. We appreciate everything that Michelle brings to us and hopefully she enjoys her time with her family. My name is Dan DeLong, owner at Dan with and school Bookkeeping worked at Intuit for nearly 18 years. Co-hosting today, also at the workshop Wednesdays. And joining us today is Matthew, introduce yourself, a long friend of the friend of the show here.

Matthew Fulton: 1:51

Hello, everybody. Dan, thank you so much for bringing me on to be a guest co-host. And Michelle, congratulations on to the, on the newest edition to your family. 6:00 AM in the morning. I've always heard it's amazing to be a grandparent because you can do something for a bit, but then give the kid back. But 6:00 AM

Dan DeLong: 2:10

right?

Matthew Fulton: 2:11

So

Dan DeLong: 2:11

It might be short. Yeah. One of my favorite Zig Ziglar quotes is If I had known, if I had any idea if grandkids were so much fun, I would have been nicer to their parents. That

Matthew Fulton: 2:24

actually makes a lot of sense. That's a good one. Real quick, super fast intro. Matthew Fulton founder of Parkway Business Solutions the the founder of QB Community Life Facebook group, which, Dan and I were talking about, I'll bet you the majority of the people that are in that group are also part of the QB Power Hour group, which is amazing work with LedgerSync directly as a workflow consultant. I like playing with apps and connecting the dots and having fun. And it's just a true honor to be here on the show that helped launch my career. So thank you so much.

Dan DeLong: 2:54

We enjoyed having you here and we appreciate your perspective and your giving heart to this community. So appreciate you joining us here today. All right. So a little bit about the details about the QB Power Hour. If you're just joining us for the first time, I appreciate Matthew for sweetening up this slide because it was it was a terrible mess from before. Here you see his handiwork. So beginning in August. The community power hour will be eligible for CPE credit, but only on the 1st one of the month. So moving forward, we're going to have a CPE sponsor makers hub who's going to actually going to be here next time to talk about there are updates to their platform, but they are going to be our CPE sponsor just for the 1st 1 of the month. So we have 12, Okay. Eligible CPE credit just by watching and participating with the QB Power Hour. You can always go to the website to check out updates and information. We are trying to make QB Power Hour a place for not just our webinar series, but others that are out there that might need some help with getting the word out as far as what else is out there to, um, to educate yourself on, you can always go and check the PDFs of the slides, the recordings, podcasts at qppowerhour. com slash resources. So a little bit of the housekeeping and and things of that nature. If you have specific questions of the things that we're going to be talking about and unpacking today, please put them in the Q& A because it makes it a lot easier for us to follow up. Especially if we can't answer it live on the webinar if you have just general comments about being a grandparent or Anything like that. Just please put them in the chat in the comments, as well and then we have the link which hopefully Matthew was nice enough to share for the handouts. Excellent for the handouts there. And we'll also have the podcast once we complete the webinar today. We also have we're trying to simulcast which I didn't get to do into the Facebook group just yet. There'll be in there. But if you are watching on social channels, especially Facebook, The streaming service that we use to put them into those those social media channels especially Facebook needs your permission in order to see you otherwise when you comment there, it just looks like a nebulous Facebook user and we don't know who you are when you're trying to communicate with the engagement here, but there's QR code there for that. If you're, if you're watching us on the Facebook group. We also have a store to help support our efforts here. So let's just jump into what we're going to be talking about today. We're going to talk about QuickBooks news and updates. Every time Matt and I were just talking, every time we seem to get together on a webinar, we're talking about pricing updates, either that they do a lot of pricing updates or Matthew is a bad look. Of talking about pricing updates. We will try to coordinate that better so that we're not always talking about pricing updates. With Matthew, but we are going to be unpacking the latest round of pricing updates. If you if you hadn't noticed there was a lot of news last week about layoffs at Intuit. So we're going to be talking about that. And we'll, if we have time. There's a lot to unpack in just of those two things. We'll talk about some of the QBO updates and Facebook group Q and A's, which will likely be very similar things that we're talking about today. So let's start with our first poll. Just what version of QuickBooks do you use to support your clients? Is it QuickBooks online desktop, both, something else. Or maybe you're not an accountant and it doesn't apply to you. So yeah, Matt what do you prefer Matthew or Matt? Let me just start there.

Matthew Fulton: 6:59

Most of my friends all know me as Spot actually, believe it or not. From there, you can call me Matthew or Matt. Doesn't, it really doesn't matter. Usually Matthew or Spot. Now there's no Matthews out there nowadays. So I'm having to readjust in a sense. And since I can't vote here, I'm going to say it out loud. Primarily QuickBooks Online myself, but I do still do some desktop. But I definitely am a QBO type person.

Dan DeLong: 7:25

Okay, fantastic. So let's go ahead and we're just about ready. Wrapping up on the whole, minute, I'll end it, share the results. So yeah most people are both but then closely followed by solely QuickBooks Online and then Desktop gets the nod as, as always, those loyal few that still like in the Desktop it is It is the dog versus the cat. You can train the dog to fetch. All right, so let's let's talk about the QuickBooks pricing updates. We do have a link in the handout to the Intuit article, which will, it's a great place to get the more information about frequently asked questions and whatnot. No one is is fair from this year's round of pricing updates. I think last year, QuickBooks Online didn't get didn't get too much, but yeah, it did. I'm sorry. It did get a pricing update last year. But, so let's just jump into that and unpack that. QuickBooks Online pricing everything across the board is it looks like it's getting a pricing update. And these are just monthly prices. If you want to figure out what the what the annual price is, it's really 12 times the monthly price less 10%.

Matthew Fulton: 8:40

Okay.

Dan DeLong: 8:40

So that's an easy way to, to figure it out because they, for some reason, they don't want to know. They don't want us to know what the annual price is, but that's the the mapping convention. Is that whatever the monthly price is multiply that times 12 months and then give yourself a 10 percent discount for paying annually That's what the annual price will be, but pretty much$5 across the board up until plus. Then we get$99 for plus, and then advance gets a huge increase this time of$35. Now the dates on that for we're at about 15 days for if you purchase through Intuit direct. New and existing will, we'll get that update. If you are on accountant build, whether that be through a reseller or your co advisor preferred pricing firm build is a mouthful that will occur. After September 1st, if you have a client or if you are in a subscription that is under some kind of promotion, they will continue to honor that promotion until the promotion expires. And whether that's, three months, six months, whatever that motion happens to be, that's the pricing that you'll pay until that expires. And then you'll be in the new MSRP.

Matthew Fulton: 9:59

Do you mind if I because this is always an area that everybody's going to ask questions again. So if you don't mind, I'm going to try to reiterate what you were just saying as well. The, because this is pretty much true on the different date wise, the dates may change a bit, but the concept is the same. So again, the first date is. If you do not have any kind of an account whatsoever, you're going directly to QuickBooks Online and you're creating a brand new account, you will see the new pricing as of August 1st on this area here. And if you already have an account, but it's a direct account. So in other words, no accountant involved in the relationship of the pricing, so forth. Pricing increases The beginning.

Dan DeLong: 10:41

Okay. That's a good point because when I say into a direct, that means into it is managing the billing. So you can, if you create the client in your QBOA. After august 1st that it will be subject to these new prices, right? So Is as long as that is the case that you are either using the revenue share, right? through your qboa or

Matthew Fulton: 11:07

also billing no

Dan DeLong: 11:08

direct just direct discount but if you're at august 15th, for example, and you do a firm build qb You PBO transcription that is not going to be subject to the new price rate base rate until September after the September 1st threshold, which will then. This will be the base rate and then you get your 30 percent discount off of that. Good point there. So that, did that answer the question or?

Matthew Fulton: 11:38

No, it just I know that always comes up every time and that's, so we're going to go through pricing on quite a few different things. So when you guys are seeing the dates below, this same kind of logic will follow along with those dates. But be sure to ask questions in the Q and A as I'm looking to the side, I'm watching for those questions to help with that too.

Dan DeLong: 11:56

Got it. Perfect. All right. So desktop. Oh this one's it's on her. Yeah. I think this is part of input strategy, right? Of, of taking the pricing out of the mix when it comes to am I, would I stay with desktop or would I go to QuickBooks online at this point? And they're looking for the. Looking for the breaking point, I think the past couple years this is, this has increased dramatically. With that to say the least. So Pro pro Plus and Mac Plus has gone, it will go from 6 49. This is for a single user to 9 99. So$999 for pro for single user every year. And that's gonna take take place at. The October 1st on the annual renewal. These are annual subscriptions, even if they are paying monthly, I don't even know if you can pay monthly for these things. But when it comes to renew that will, this price will be the pricing. So premier plus. Significant increase at 350 increase next over year. And I believe the additional user costs, I couldn't find any reference to that. It was 200 last year for each additional user for plus 300 for each additional user under premier. I assume that there is going to be a premium. For user increase as well, but I don't have the details of that. Matthew. Have you heard anything about

Matthew Fulton: 13:32

that? Even last year I was, they didn't ever list that on the website itself. It was only through a fillable form that I actually found. Those prices that you'd have to then submit to try to get the extra user. So I, I think you're probably pretty close on the pricing, but we don't know for sure. My question is what's going to be the dollar that breaks desktops back?

Dan DeLong: 13:55

And now that everyone is in a subscription we are at a we are at the mercy of of those pricing decisions. And I'm sure we're going to be hearing Feedback from our, from clients who are still in the desktop space that were, that are I think ridiculous and And can't yeah, you know can't afford will probably you know in that sentence somewhere But as they reach out about that because they're going to talk to you first and not into it any any thoughts about that about the desktop increase?

Matthew Fulton: 14:30

So there was one other piece that At least it's still working now through the end of September that I made a video a couple months back on my YouTube channel showing people where they can go to, to actually directly buy from Intuit the desktop license, whichever one you need without having to go through the phone calls and the circular what's available, what's not, that is one way you can save a bit of time. This is going to keep happening this way. It's like you said, Dan, this is their this is their manner in which they are migrating people over to the online platform.

Dan DeLong: 15:02

Yeah. And they've made they've made statements and claims that, QuickBooks online is essentially on par with. Most features of pro and premier, right? That's that their logic, if there is one with regards to that as Hey, if you're really, cost is what's keeping you in QuickBooks desktop. Then we'll remove that. From the equation until, until there's a realization. Oh, okay. Let's go ahead and make that jump now. One other thing I do want to mention about the the pro and premier. They did extend to September 30th, right? Yes, the stop sell date, which was in 15 days, July 31st, meaning that Intuit will no longer sell new subscriptions of ProMir after July 31st, has been extended to For three months to the end of September. Great news for those that still want that, but that's going to be, it's at the current pricing until October 1st and then the next time that it renews, it'll be at the the 999 rate or the 13 14. And I'm stuck. Where's my cursor? There it is. Oh, I went too far. All right. So the online payroll is getting is getting a pricing overhaul again, across the board, 5 for the base but also 1, except, yeah, 1 across the board for employee charge. Could be significant for the number of employees Those bear that in mind again, the same date structure if it's billed through into a direct new and existing ones after August 1st if it's accountant billed, that won't happen until September 1st, as far as the new pricing model there. Again, the promotion, if they're on a promotion, they will have a current price until that motion expires. Any thoughts there, Matthew, on the payroll?

Matthew Fulton: 17:07

On the payroll stuff for sure. I was looking at the pricing this and. I didn't realize how far the pricing has increased over time at the base rate. They are adding additional value on. I do and I know we're going to talk about in a second here, the whole thing with QuickBooks Time and how that's engaged into it. My personal preference is using QuickBooks Online with QuickBooks Time and QuickBooks Online Payroll. That's where I think the three pieces come together. But I cannot deny the pricing just keeps increasing. So I'm wondering when it will level out.

Dan DeLong: 17:38

Yeah. The and that, that's the thing with the premium and elite you're getting the premium and elite QuickBooks time, included with that. And It's a, it's a double edged sword. Hey, it's less per person than doing it a la carte. However, if not everyone is a time entry user, you're spending more per employee to have some of those functions now you don't have the, the base cost of QB time. And you can take that into consideration, but if you have three time users and 30 employees that ends up being a very costly add on, by bundling

Matthew Fulton: 18:17

the, again, I know we're going to talk about QuickBooks time in a bit, this, where that comes into play also is if you're using different third party payroll software and you're just trying to use the time, but I'll pause on that till we get to more of that information in a second here. Got it.

Dan DeLong: 18:29

Yep, good idea. Because we've still, we're on 20 minutes and still haven't gotten to the pricing. Alright, so desktop payroll not immune to this year's round of pricing increases. September 1st is the date. Of course there's no account and build option here, so it's all direct build. I can't believe there's still a basic payroll options still available. I have not found a way to purchase that said thing, but they're no longer actively selling that either. So that's an enhanced payroll is on the stop sell. Timeline as well. So July or not July 31st, but September 30th now. But any active subscriptions is now getting a substantial increase as well for the base. If you're on basic payroll, which is basically, sorry to use the word basic too many times there. But if you're on basic payroll it just doesn't allow for e filing and, um, e pay of your taxes. So it's basically payroll, right? Running paychecks and those types of things. And then everything else is outside of that. That's getting a base increase of$150 annually. And then the per employee cost is going up a dollar for that enhanced payroll. It's also getting 150 base increase and a dollar per per employee as well. And those are active employees, right? So as long as you have an active employee, whether you're paying them or not. You're paying them the per monthly charge. This one is a unique one enterprise. They're not increasing the price but they are removing the accountant discount, right? So if you have a pro advisor discount that you offered or for Extended that to your client that discount of 20 percent for seats up to 10 or 12 and a half percent off of MSRP from for 11 or more is being removed after October. I always say October and August, October 1st. The interesting thing about this is that Any new modification to existing licenses, adding the changing metals, going from silver to platinum or silver to gold. Because incidentally, you go back to The desktop payroll updates. If you are using silver and you upgrade to gold that includes the enhanced payroll service without any payroll fees for the employee costs or anything like that is, is is bundled in to, to the enterprise gold subscription. If you were to do that, go from silver to gold, just to save yourself on the. On the the payroll services cost They would view that as a new subscription after October 1st and subsequently you wouldn't have the discount after that point. So keep that in mind. This is something that, you'll likely need to do with what's the word I'm looking at? Got his mouth

Matthew Fulton: 21:42

on it. Be specific.

Dan DeLong: 21:44

One, and when you talk to Intuit or, however you're managing these subscriptions, keep make sure that, you and your client are aware, Hey, these things could be determined as a as a new subscription and that all in mind before, just just let's bundle it into gold or, those types of things, or you don't need this, these many seats, you let some people go or whatever. Bear that in mind that could potentially be seen as a. A new event, a new subscription, which would could potentially be more costly than what the money that you were trying to save them. But as long as their license is unchanged, discounts will remain. So if they're in a silver license or platinum or diamond or whatever, they currently have a ProAdvisor discount associated with that, their discount will remain. But. As they're as we're seeing play out here is, um, they're looking for anything to be a trigger event. Aha. Okay. Now you're new pricing.

Matthew Fulton: 22:48

So the key thing to that, I would say as a takeaway is if you're thinking you're going to be adding to your head count, you want to probably take a look at this before that conversion date wise. And it may actually make more sense if you're going to diminish a person to continue to pay for that extra seat. You know instead of messing up your subscription If you are changing anything request a quote via email and get it in writing to make sure and look at it to make sure You're not having an unexpected impact

Dan DeLong: 23:18

Exactly a good point there. Accountant is is part of the pricing update as well. So desktop accountant, if you just have the premier desktop, that desktop accountant software that subscription is going up 200. If you are a pro advisor. With the premier desk desktop that is going up 200. I'm not sure. And I know there's always cases for this, but the difference between those two, those first two columns of desktop accountant and not being a pro advisor I'm not sure what qualifies you for either one. I was even confused about that. We'll work deep there. It's like, Why would they not be a, do a pro advisor or multiple, be multiple pro advisors and just purchase the software themselves. But they made it as an option, but that is both of them are getting a 200 increase, Angeli and the pro advisor enterprise, which includes enterprise and Premier. And if there is Mac's no Mac and point of sale used to be an added point of thing thing in there but both of those are being discontinued as well. That's right. But that's now a 300. And that will begin after October 1st. Again, if you're on a, whatever your annual renewal date, that's when the new pricing will take place. This one it snuck that in the accountant payroll service which they no longer actively sell, no longer actively sell. I think Matt was reading that for the first time. So enhanced payroll for accountants is is the ability for you as an account to have up to 50 EINs under your subscription. And typically it's an add on to your ProAdvisor bundle which Whatever the price happens to be and you bundle it in with your desktop pro advisor membership you typically get a 50 percent discount off of that. Last year it went up from seven 52 or 700 to 1, 400 this year. It's going from 1, 400 to 2, 800 annually. And the direct deposit fee per, so this is per paycheck is going up from 4 for direct deposit to 5. Now those direct deposit fees are typically planned. Paid and they're not necessarily billed to you. However, that is something to consider. And this is only for the big difference here with this subscription is this fee is only when you do direct deposit, right? So if you're printing paper checks or doing things after the fact these fees don't don't apply unlike the, all of the other payroll services where it's per employee it doesn't matter if they're. How they're getting paid this one actually does matter, how they're getting paid so initial thoughts, there since I you dropped your jaw there

Matthew Fulton: 26:19

i'm well the fast version of it is the thanks for the 50 off discount Which takes us back to the price for the previous year. I appreciate that one and then so I want to actually bring up grace had asked in the comments the why is the proviso premier called bundle? So dan was trying to talk about that earlier, it's you get the special pricing where you get the QuickBooks desktop accountant version, and you get to be a pro advisor, which means you can take the test to become certified for you can have use that as part of your profile, so forth. I believe they're trying to support the account very specifically that way. When they're engaged in that part of the community with the extra discount, you can buy just the accountant version independently, because we have different tools that way. And they're trying to make sure that people are using it with the right intent, which is why doing the pro advisor premier bundle is less than just buying the software by itself is my thought.

Dan DeLong: 27:16

Yeah, so certifications. And the support for such things when you call, that's part of the ProAdvisor bundling of the desktop. Some people just, Hey, just give me the software. I just need that. That's where the desktop account comes in. Good point. Lot of times you can look at this and go, Hey, this is terrible. But the big features of the enhanced payroll for accountants is of course the 50 EIN. So if you have 50 EINs that, that is a substantial savings over, purchasing enhanced payroll a la carte. But if you have maybe five that this is a significant per client increase. Now thinking of, the other things that are out there, right? So enhanced payroll is included with enterprise gold, and that allows for up to three EINs under Under the enhance. So that may be something to consider as well. Maybe I can move people to enterprise gold. They have their own subscription. There's no payroll costs associated with that. This might be a trigger event. Again this may be on purpose to say, Hey, okay how do I offload my enhanced payroll for accountants subscription? This may be an option to do that. The other thing that you can do, the only thing that enhanced payroll for accountants does is allows you to do payroll after the fact a la Excel spreadsheet. And and it allows you to do the paid preparer, fill out the paper, the paid preparer piece of that. If those things are requirements, then, you're in this area if you do let your account enhanced payroll for accountants lapse and it goes past its grace period they will not be able to reinstate such a thing. I've heard some horror stories of, Once that door closes and that subscription lapses it's really difficult to get it reinstated and it has significantly higher pricing point in order to do that anyway Matt, any thoughts there?

Matthew Fulton: 29:23

This is causing quite the kerfuffle in the comments here on Zoom. I

Dan DeLong: 29:27

figured it would.

Matthew Fulton: 29:28

Which. So the key takeaway, because people were asking so you're saying that it's going to be 1400. If I'm doing ProAdvisor, I need the enhanced payroll and I need my ProAdvisor for the desktop, you're going to be paying your 999 plus. The 1400 which is the 2800 minus your 50 percent discount is going to be the base amount that you'll be paying for The one year for all the stuff that's up to 50 EINs And then if you're doing direct deposit, you'd be still paying the five dollars per direct deposit check fee.

Dan DeLong: 30:05

Wow big increase Yeah, and a little honorable mention to desktop payment and we talked about last year, there was a big big change to QuickBooks Online payments, and so you can check us out you did a great video last year on that, but Desktop Payments is just getting homogenized with the online payments when it comes to ACH used to be a per transaction fee of 3, regardless of the dollar amount, Now it is being moved to 1%. If they're a new customer, it's 1% no cap. And then if they're an existing customer, it's 1% of with a cap of$15. So basically they'd have to be, what is it, 1500. Higher than 1, 500 to have that cap charge for transaction. And that's going to take place after October 1st, are you going to say something,

Matthew Fulton: 31:05

One thing to add onto it from what I understand, at least this was for QuickBooks online you, if you are not linked under an accountant with merchant processing, you can link under an accountant to invoke that. Cap piece. I know for sure QuickBooks Online, you could. It may be possible. I'd have to look into if the desktop realm will do the same thing or not.

Dan DeLong: 31:26

Yeah it might be, that might be an uphill battle. Yes. I'm not sure if it depends on where you started and how long those those accounts have been open. So as Mike as Matt had mentioned QB time standalone is being removed. And this is just the ability to sell QuickBooks time as a standalone timekeeping option. So the direct stop sell is August 1st. Most payroll options, they bundle, QB time. So the QuickBooks Enterprise Diamond includes QuickBooks. Option for timekeeping. This one is actually nice because you can just pay for the timekeeping users that, that you're using. And not necessarily every employee that, that might be eligible. And then QBO premium and elite includes the premium or elite QB time service as well. Just that standalone, which kind of coincides with their other announcement of their closing the Boise office which is where T sheets or QuickBooks time actually was based out of. It doesn't mean that they're not supporting QuickBooks Time. It just means that they're no longer actively selling it as its own standalone timekeeping option.

Matthew Fulton: 32:39

That's a great point that you brought up. That was a question that Caleb brought up within QB Community Live, because I think there's a bit of misunderstanding on that part of it. This, that definitely add the context to it. So QB Time's not going anywhere, it's still around, but it's the independent selling of it that's important. It's changing.

Dan DeLong: 32:54

Because most of the things are bundling it in. It's it's just a, it's just an option, or it's not an option to buy it by itself. Okay this kind of coincides with and edges into the Intuit announcement of restructuring. There was an announcement last week that 1, 800 positions, 10 percent of Intuit's workforce is being laid off. Now this is fairly common as a, as an employee of Intuit for nearly 18 years, this was a yearly. I guess that's the nicest way to put it, right? So Intuit's fiscal year ends July 31st. So June and July a lot of people were on edge, right? What's new, what's what are they planning for August 1st? And how does that impact impact me and my employment there? They're closing sites, Edmonton, Canada, and Boise, Idaho. In the communication, there's a link there to it. They plan to rehire all, if not more of those positions. And this was fairly a common practice, which when I explained it to people, it was a little foreign and as a non employment into it. Person Matthew I'm curious of your your experience and the people that are watching as well. Does this make sense? Is there logic to it? Cause typically there will be a restructuring, somebody typically somebody new will come in from the outside and give their perspective they'll create a restructuring. Which will cause they'll look at their workforce and their their job positions that are tied to support that, and they'll potentially eliminate some positions. There were many years where nothing happened. So it it wasn't always every July or June. There was like, okay, who's gone now? But it just depended on those what was happening and then response to the marketplace, right? So what Intuit would typically do is they would eliminate those positions. And Allow for those people who are eliminated to reapply right for the positions that they were rehiring for also outside people could re rehire or apply for those positions as well. So it was this catch and release type of thing. And I always joked about it when I was working there that Intuit was such a, such an environmentally friendly company because they recycled employees, right? But. I understood the logic because they had this initiative called hiring for awesome, right? Which allowed people who were passionate about the job position or the qualifications or those types of things to apply for those position and they could actually get the talent that was interested with that, right? We're a traditional company. Might look at it like, okay, here are these positions that we're going to be letting people go and assess their workforce that they already have and say, hey, here's what we're going to do. We think you would be good in this position and move people to those positions as opposed to you're gone. You're welcome to come back. What what are your thoughts on that from a non intuit culture person?

Matthew Fulton: 36:20

I'm torn on this two different ways, and you guys have heard me say this once before, that first thing we have to remember, this is a publicly traded corporation. Which doesn't make me feel good about the fact that somebody like Allison Allison, I'm sorry. I don't know how to pronounce your last name the right way, or I would try. She's been so supportive in all the different proteins. Thank you. Exactly. She always jumps in to help people out, ask questions, do all that kind of stuff. So that is 1 example of a true loss that all of our communities is going that we're going to feel. I. I understand the need to shuffle people around or look, some people, as they said they feel will just be more successful and outside of into it. We've all worked in companies where you had an employee that just was not, they weren't happy there. And one unhappy employee takes down more than one person traditionally. But the idea of letting. Letting go a whole force of people to bring other people in. It's a bummer. We don't want to hear of anybody losing their positions, but they're doing it because they need talent in different areas of growth. I'm not a developer. I can't write code. So that means if they need somebody who can do AI, they need somebody can do that part. So it just, it's a bummer.

Dan DeLong: 37:45

Yeah. And I wanted to throw out this this poll question because I'm really curious about what what other people have done, as far, and this is multiple choice, right? So you can choose multiple options, right? What is your experience with layoffs? Was, were you the one that was like, no, you were the one letting people go, or you were the survivor and watching people go or not at all. I'm just curious How that kind of plays out. Any experiences on your side, Matthew?

Matthew Fulton: 38:11

Yeah, so in a prior career being a manager i'll never forget two people that I had to lay off one of the best educations I ever got was running a Luxury item business in 2008 during the housing crisis everything else and that was really tough It came down to we survived through most of it, but either I had to let myself go Or I was going to have to let go of like 2 other people and I ended up letting myself like firing myself, which was the right decision at that time. But it sucked. I will say from what I'm hearing, and this really only helps for a short period of time, the way they're trying to approach it from what I understand with into it is. The compensation package for the severance packages are, it's better than most industry people do. It's still scary, right? Just cause you have it, there's no guarantee what your next job is going to be like. But I will say, I'm also excited to see where the people we do know, where they land because it's great people will find a home. And now we have a new opportunity to create a new relationship with a new company.

Dan DeLong: 39:17

Exactly. Yeah, the first time that I had had this news delivered to me was the summer of 2008. And this was like, right before, the housing market crash of 2008. And a lot of people are like, okay, I'll take back it. And then, boom nobody was hiring right after that. It was significantly Odd timing, for all of those things to take place. And in those. I just want my cursor so I can go to the next one.

Matthew Fulton: 39:46

We wouldn't have you here today, Dan, if it wasn't because of a prior layoff, right? And Joyce said, I would not have the breadth of experience that I have if I had not been laid off. It was never pleasant, but in the long run, I gained much more experience by working at multiple places. Ultimately we wish everybody the best that this becomes a positive move for your career.

Dan DeLong: 40:11

Yeah. Yeah, I didn't see it at the time, but I was blessed that it happened to me which was 10 years later, it was 2008 when the first first effect. And then 10 years later when that was when I would have volunteered to. To take the bag and didn't like, I was the only one rejoicing that I was getting the news because it now gave me this opportunity to do other things because of those for lack of a better word, a golden handcuffs, right? It was funny because David Leary as from the accountant podcast, he left the same day I was let go, like he, he walked out the door Hey, I'm leaving. And then he realized that there was a layoff going on. I was like, wait a minute. Can I can I agree, renegotiate this? And they're like, no, you made your decision.

Matthew Fulton: 41:01

He's doing okay now. He's doing

Dan DeLong: 41:03

fine as well. Exactly. So I wanted to talk a little bit about what was the reason, right? Sasan made a a communication. We'll talk a little bit about that and, uh, how we might feel about that, but Sasan made a global communication to all employees to let them know, Hey, this is happening. And he itemized out four things. As to why, right? So they wanna revolutionize their speed to benefit, which is I mentioned the big bets here. Which are the big bets of Intuit, to make, to make sure that the, their business is sustainable, in the future. Connecting people to experts was the other one. Accelerating money solutions. QuickBooks bill pay QuickBooks Payments, those types of the capital. Options, all the things that have to deal with money options and then disrupting the mid market. But I wanted to point out this connecting people to experts, which is their big bet too, and I'm just going to read it. Our AI driven expert platform is a game changer for Intuit. No other company can deliver a digital platform with embedded AI powered human expertise at our scale to serve the financial needs of consumers, small, And mid market businesses and partners, we are increasing investments in data and AI to more effectively leverage accurate and complete data to do the work for our customers and match customers to the right experts. It's very telling that the right is in quotes there in real time to provide specific personalized assistance to fuel their success. To advance this area, we are hiring additional talent to bolster our expert network teams that are augmented by AI to assist our customers. And we are investing in hiring market, marketing talent. The deep expertise in digital service, no mention of account.

Matthew Fulton: 42:58

So I want to say that they have absolutely accomplished the disruption process with the new Intuit assistant side, QuickBooks online. It's driving me nuts. You can't get past, you get stuck in the loop um, they're trying really hard to build this stuff out, but it's just. It's needed, right? And they have been in this market. They have been putting the time and energy towards AI for quite some time. They have more data than any other company. So I think we're going to look back in 3, 2 years, not even 2 years and be grateful for the functionality we have. But it's the growing pains we're going through right now, and this, the worry and concern that has us emotional.

Dan DeLong: 43:43

Yeah and this particular snippet here is I am, with Intuit Assist and AI and connecting people to the right experts. I don't know where keeping accounting professionals fit into that. With regards to being that right act. So this tells me, hey, We're going to be hiring our experts, whatever that might be. And the independent practitioner may not be a part of that. And that's that's concerning to to, to me and to the community in general because it's a big bet, right? It's, it is something that they're doubling down as a big bet. And there is no mention in here of accounting partnerships, which is, um, this note this link here that I've included here is available. This communication that Sasan sent out is available on their blog, you can read it, I've linked to it in here couple of things that backfired on this communication. Was Sasan had itemized out the groups of people who were impacted. They didn't list them out. Okay, you are gone. You stay, that, that sort of thing. But he grouped them together in his communication to let people know, Hey, this is what's happening here. Typically because they do this, on a potentially an annual basis. And they're very good at taking care of their people. They give them, Outplacement services and the severance package is phenomenal. I myself got three six months of pay basically by leaving, which was great. But in the first group, he labeled al over half of the people, 10 1050 employees not meeting expectations. That's a hard

Matthew Fulton: 45:35

thing to say that way.

Dan DeLong: 45:37

Yeah, and that, that kind of goes counter, counterculture and counterintuitive to taking care of people as they're leaving because if you're labeling people as not meeting expectations and you'd be better off somewhere else Now that, that hinders their future employment opportunities, right? I don't want to call out Alison, is she part of that group, right? Not in my book, because we've had personal relationships with Alison, but how does that make people feel like prospective employers like, Oh, you came from Intuit in the past, that was a that was a blessing, people would my wife, when she was let go from Intuit, she was hunted by other employees because she came from that Intuit culture. And hey, we need that in, in, in our company, but now it may cause some pause, right? Oh. You were like, oh, this year, over half of those were not meeting expectations. Am I going to be, is that, could I be concerned about that? What are your thoughts?

Matthew Fulton: 46:42

I think though that because of the amount of news and everything else that's out there, I think pretty, people are pretty intelligent with it. If you happen to be one of the people that were let go, hopefully you have a direct supervisor you can be reaching out to, and getting a letter of recommendation, something of that nature. That will help you but this definitely screams a it's not us. It's you Instead of it's not you. It's me kind of a breakup. It's right flip flop. That definitely doesn't feel good

Dan DeLong: 47:11

Yeah, and it definitely has culture, coming from that side of the badge, so to speak and this is probably a common practice these days, not knowing, not having employees myself, not not being so close with payroll is typically there is a base and then there's a variable component. To the compensation and they had completely adopted this right where, you had your base pay and then you had stretch goals each and every year. And. Those goals is what caused people to not meet expectations because they would keep stretching them year over year and tie that to your variable compensation. So I imagine that's, what's not meeting expectations. And when they say non meeting expectations is their expectations are pretty darn high. And sometimes you just can't as a, as an employee reach those expectations. The other thing that was really burning my s'mores was that he sent out this email as a global communication and notified people, put everybody on alert that this is happening today, but also put everybody on alert that people will get notified by 9 a. m. Pacific time. And if. You didn't get an invite of a calendar invite leaving into a discussion by 9 p. m.? You were not people, not one of the people that were impacted

Matthew Fulton: 48:44

unless there was a problem with an email or something. And that just doesn't feel good.

Dan DeLong: 48:49

Yeah. This smelled of like Elon Musk at Twitter, right? Like you, if you get a company email you're good. And put a, basically put the entire workforce, 18, 000 employees on Pins and needles that day until that time passed, so what do people do during that morning? Do I work, do I not work? Do I, what, what is going to happen here? That, that particular thing is I, that was my, my wife was worked for Intuit for 10 years and she had nothing but great things to say about her experience there. This actually cost her to, take some second looks Oh my goodness, this is I can't believe they were doing this sort of thing.

Matthew Fulton: 49:30

There's this concept of what they call a wartime CEO and a peacetime CEO. And I believe that Brad Smith was the peacetime CEO in comparison to Sasan. He is, he's very it's known since the beginning. A. F. focused, heavily driven, stock price, paying attention to it heavily. I strongly recommend to people every quarter they do an annual update meeting that is publicly available on their website. It has to be. Listen to them. You'll get better insights. I know you get the articles afterwards but you can get a lot more by listening to it and understanding where things are going at times. So

Dan DeLong: 50:11

that's a good point. Good point. All right, so we are about out of time, so we'll probably need to save these QuickBooks or QBO updates for another time, but we did want to talk about about, about those things, because all of these things are in service to, making the product better. And, QuickBooks Online is definitely each month is getting some things and we wanted to talk about those things, which kind of warrant these pricing increases and the changes that they're making here. Importing journal entries. You can now use products on the bank feeds of products and services texting invoices. If you're emailing invoices, you can also text them to people. And the long suited or sought after payroll corrections, being able to correct, correct payroll transactions is finally making a debut. And role based. Firm and client access for QuickBooks online account and users is finally getting its its share there. So I did want to throw out this last poll here before we before we end after this webinar has your opinion of today's topic change, I can't imagine of this helping but hopefully it puts people in gives people some context. And also, make sure that, people are aware that these impending pricing changes and when they're happening to have that open communication with your clients to make sure that they're aware of that as well and being able to speak to it because when these things happen and when Intuit makes a change oftentimes that is, you're the first line of defense as an accounting Accountant professional to be able to explain what is actually happening here Matthew, any closing thoughts there?

Matthew Fulton: 51:58

Just wanted to, I put the link into the chat again for everybody that you can go and you can download these slides. Dan put a lot of time, energy and effort into this information and the work he's showing you. QBO updates there, but he goes into a little bit deeper detail. You can download the slides, get a little more context from that but I'm sure there'll be other ways we can also help educate on these other things that are coming up.

Dan DeLong: 52:19

So we'll actually have these QBO updates a little bit more deeper dive on the future future webinar and then and then we'll go go from there Matthew, I appreciate you joining us here today and sharing your insights into into these hot topics.

Matthew Fulton: 52:36

Can I come back for a fun topic next time?

Dan DeLong: 52:39

Yes. Absolutely. Uh, I'll take a look at the future ones and okay, this one's a little less Debbie Downer. Let's have Matthew back on.

Matthew Fulton: 52:48

Love it. Thank you again for the opportunity. Thank you to everybody who joined us. Today for this we hope it was educational. Again, this is the nature of business. Things are going to be changing at times. It's just up to us how we choose to look at it. If we keep it from a positive perspective, we're going to be able to grow, mature with it, and do something great with our businesses.

Dan DeLong: 53:09

All right, and we'll see you next time on the QuickBooks Power Hour. I hope everybody has a great day.