We here at Insightful Accountant decided to 'kick-off' our Top 100/ProAdvisor of the Year process at this time of the year because we felt that the opening of nominations would get you motivated to prepare yourself for the formal application process. We knew a lot of ProAdvisors used the year-end holidays for certification testing, especially when desktop certifications had just rolled out after the new desktop releases, and a lot of Advanced (Desktop) ProAdvisors were due for renewal in January.
We designed a formal correlation between ProAdvisor training and certification as one critical factor of these Awards and we strive to maintain that correlation in our application process each year. You see, our 'Formal Application' is fundamentally a classification tool, designed to qualify candidates into one or more classifications that correspond to our 'Categorical Awards'.
The majority of the questions within our application are focused toward these categorical classifications. Additional questions within the application impact individual standings within each category. Not all questions posed in the application are related to all categories.
A lot of people have the misconception that our Top 100 is simply one long list of 100 names out of the 800+ nominees submitted each year. But, the Top 100 actually consists of the top 10 ProAdvisors within each of the categorical classifications we examine during this process (10 X 10 = 100). It represents the best of each Category we recognize, and our ProAdvisor of the Year, well they represent the 'Best of the Best.'
2021_Top-100-Awards
If you think about the process based upon the above, you should realize how the various application questions, and criteria they reflect, drive the points in each category. Later this week we will 'Open' our Nomination Process, but I wanted to use this article to remind you about some general aspects of this year's awards. I will be writing a much more detailed series on the awards to help you better prepare in a few weeks as we get closer to the actual application process.
- Insightful Accountant’s ProAdvisor awards are designed to recognize individual ProAdvisors, they are not intended to recognize a ‘firm.’ ProAdvisors must have an active practice with one or more actual clients using QuickBooks (QuickBooks Online and/or QuickBooks Desktop).
- Nominees from the United States must hold one or more current Intuit ‘U.S.’ ProAdvisor certifications in order to be considered for these awards.
- International participants, regardless of the country in which they practice, must hold Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor status, or the equivalent*, for their country or a country within their ‘Intuit Global Region’ or hold a formal ProAdvisor Certification from one of the countries where Intuit issues formal ProAdvisor certification.
- Staying current and keeping-up with what is going on in the industry and ecosystem are essential; if you are not participating in training events each year, you cannot be doing that. We do not mandate a minimum number of hours in specific topics as a part of categorical award rankings; however, we recognize training related to the various areas of practice.
- 3rd-party Products, call them software or Apps, matter in our process and we now evaluate the extent to which you assist your clients with solutions above and beyond QuickBooks by letting you tell us about the specific Apps and software you use (in other words 'your App/software stack', how you use them, and the details (such as number of clients or installations for each) solution. We issue two categorical awards in this area because we recognize the growing importance of these products so there is an Award for QuickBooks Desktop Integrations and a QuickBooks Online Appologist award.
- Another important factor involves the 'client reviews' that appear as part of a ProAdvisor’s (Find a Pro) profile for participants where that factor is available. Obviously for our International participants where Intuit does not provide 'client reviews', this has no impact on their scoring potential.
Remember, long before you ever complete your formal application, or we even 'open the application process', is the Nomination Period. Each year I have people tell me "they never got nominated by the persons they thought were going to nominate them" and they didn't nominate themselves.
When we open nominations in a few days, don't be one of those persons, there is only 'One Person' you can rely on to 'Nominate You'... and that person 'is you'. 'There is Absolutely Nothing Wrong with Nominating Yourself... that's why we allow you to nominate yourself.
ADP-Feb webinar
We will provide you with more details and registration information regarding this joint Insightful Accountant - ADP webinar in future articles regarding our Top 100/ProAdvisor of the Year Process.
Footnote:
*-the equivalency for each country is based upon the available offerings Intuit has for Accountants, Bookkeepers, and Business Advisors within those countries. Insightful Accountant actively monitors such availability during the nomination and application process to determine candidate qualification and closely coordinates with officials at Intuit when questions arise regarding same.
This article is an editorial feature, it is NOT sponsored content. Even thought it may contain references or 'inserts' that refer to sponsored webinars or other sponsored content, the actual feature is intended as an informational resource for our readers.