Our last chance to sneak into the Exhibit Hall at Intuit VCon. (Vendors Part 3)

As we head through the back-door into the exhibit hall, you can almost imagine the crowds of people wondering from booth to booth, virtually of course, taking in information about each exhibitor's offerings (along perhaps with a free pen or some candy).  Some vendors maybe offering prizes to lucky drawing winners, too bad we can't stuff their drop-boxes with our business cards early. 

And so here is our first booth, NEXT is a CRM specifically designed for accounting software consultants and accounting professional. NEXT is built on Method technology and is tightly integrated with QuickBooks. NEXT was designed by Robin Hall and I would almost bet that Robin will be spending some time here in the Next/Varcsolutions booth. Robin is a highly renowned ProAdvisor and Intuit Premier Reseller and she chose to develop NEXT based on her practical experience running one of the nation's leading accounting software consulting practices. NEXT CRM is designed to manage your relationships and interactions with leads and clients and also tracks cases, time, intra-office communications...and much, much more.  One of the things I like the best is that NEXT is 'centered' around QuickBooks ProAdvisor practices, it thinks QuickBooks almost as much as most ProAdvisors. Learn more at www.varcsolutions.com/next

Next (no pun intended) door (or booth) is TSheets  which has been growing in popularity at record speed, and is currently the fastest growing app in the Intuit App Center. Every second, somewhere in the world, an employee clocks in or out using TSheets time tracking software. The magic ingredient to their record-breaking success? They made tracking time enjoyable for employees. Even better, they created a cutting edge integration with QuickBooks. In just 1-click, businesses can export timesheet data for faster payroll, billing and invoicing. Employees can enter and manage time using a computer, mobile phone, tablet, GPS-enabled app, text, dial in and more. Engineering time tracking with employees at the heart of its application has made TSheets the #1 employee rated and requested time tracking software on the planet. My friend and publisher Gary is a big TSheets fan, I am not so sure what time he has to track, but maybe he is keeping a 'clock on me'. Anyway, you can learn more at www.tsheets.com.

Now down the way we find the booth for Supporting Strategies - If you wear more hats than you can count, Supporting Strategies is the perfect solution for your small business. Their team of highly trained experts can manage your business’s bookkeeping and more, freeing up time for you to concentrate on your core business. Support Strategies supports your business in a way that allows it to use the specific services it needs, only when it needs them – allowing your business to grow at a pace and budget that works for you. Learn more at www.supportingstrategies.com.

Here we are at the booth for the National Advisor Network (NAN) - Joe Woodard's National Advisor Network is a professional group of experienced and highly knowledgeable QuickBooks ProAdvisors and Intuit Solution Providers.  The network provides Intuit Advisors with a dedicated and exclusive space to share ideas, cross-refer QuickBooks-related products and specialized services, and exchange technical information, tips and tricks. By banding together a large group of like-minded and highly experienced consultants, NAN provides a collective "voice" within the accounting technology industry, with Intuit, within the QuickBooks user community, and with developers of Intuit Developer Network applications.  I can pat myself on the back and just let you know that for the last three years I was NAN's MVP in their forum; but I have retired (pretty much) from forum duties, so who knows, you might be the next MVP as a NAN member. You can learn more about NAN at www.nationaladvisornetwork.com/‎ .

Just across the isle is the booth of ACS better known as Laura Madeira who is the owner of ACS, Inc., a software sales and consulting firm located in the greater Dallas, Texas area. Laura is one of the sweetest and smartest QuickBooks advisors I know. Her affiliations with Intuit include being an Intuit Solution Provider, a select Member of the Intuit Trainer/Writer Network, Advanced QuickBooks Certified, Enterprise and Point of Sale Certified and member of the Intuit Solution Provider Advisory Council. Laura is also the author of the QuickBooks In Depth 2012 and 2013, the QuickBooks 2010 Solutions Guide, and QuickBooks Essentials (a 9+ hours of self-paced video instruction). For 22+ years Laura has worked with companies of all sizes and industries. Her focus has been to help the small to mid-sized growing businesses become more successful by automating their internal accounting processes and reporting functions. Laura is a frequent guest speaker for Intuit, providing training to thousands of consultants and accountants. She is also a respected author for Intuit writing training materials and presentations. Laura earned her accounting degree from Florida Atlantic University. If you don't know Laura, you should take the opportunity at VCon to meet her; you can have no better friend in the QuickBooks community. You can learn more about Laura and ACS at: http://www.quick-training.com/

We are almost done with our sneak peek, but here is Scaling New Heights - This year the Intuit Virtual Conference is a partnership between Intuit and Scaling New Heights, another creation of Joe Woodard. The SNH annual conference is a unique, Intuit-centric training experience that provides practical and in-depth professional education, networking opportunities among the nation's most successful QuickBooks consultants and resources that empower attendees to master Intuit products and selected products that integrate with QuickBooks , expand the consulting services they offer their clients , grow their practice , and maximize professional relationships . Each year hundreds of QuickBooks Proadvisors gather for what many consider to be the nation's premier training event for Intuit Advisors!  But Scaling New Heights is more than just the annual conference, it is a multi-dimensional training motif that provides a wealth of educational opportunities throughout the year.  For more information see: www.scalingnewheights.com/

And now we reach the end of our road, here at the Intuitive Accountant booth. This is where you will find me, at least part of the time during this year's conference, unless I am attending one of the sessions.  Afterall, 'Murph' doesn't know everything, I would be a really dummy not to take the opportunity to learn from the talented instructors who will be presenting.  Well, Intuitive Accountant is a full featured media organization providing in-depth, accurate and focused editorial content related to SMB accounting technology and other technologies central to the SMB market.  Through ‘how to’ articles, best practices and product reviews Intuitive Accountant strives to assist accounting and consulting professionals in better serving and supporting their SMB clients.  Editorial content ranges from product features and technical alerts, to tax and practice management topics; from tips and tricks to emerging trends in business; from financial and economic news to technological advancements impacting the future of consulting practices.  Intuitive accountant is steered by our publisher, Gary DeHart and (myself) Senior Editor, William ‘Bill’ Murphy (better known as ‘Murph’). At IA we attempt to deliver content via our E-magazine website, newsletters, web seminars, white paper and more. Learn more information or sign-up for our newsletter at: http://www.intuitiveaccountant.com/.

As we find our way out of this exhibit hall, remember it isn't too late to sign up for the VCon, you can still register for the FREE Conference at:

http://learn.intuit.com/learncenter.asp?id=178421&page=23#sthash.wgz96zzp.dpbs

I will be looking for you next week at the conference,

Murph