Top 100: Why a Long-form if You Qualify for a Short-form

by

The 'short' application form form which any U.S. or Canadian nominee who completed an application during 2020 can elect to complete (in lieu of a long form) is a simple way to meet the requirements of our 2nd phase of the 2021 Top 100/ProAdvisor of the Year process and will save you at least 20 minutes of time. But, if you find yourself wondering if you should really just go ahead an complete the 'long form' application rather than the 'short form' and you are sitting around inside because of arctic cold conditions, or because the roads are packed by a record snowfall, or simply due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, here are some good reasons why you might just want to take the extra time.

1) "Ringing Your Own Bell"

Maybe you want to call it, "shining a spotlight on yourself"... what I mean is that you previously were not sure how you should highlight yourself as a ProAdvisor.  You might have been more of a 'generalist' in years past, but now you 'specialize' more in a particular niche. Or five years ago when you last completed the 'long form' you were primarily QuickBooks Desktop focused and worked with almost all Desktop 3rd Party Add-ons, but since then you have transitioned most of your clients to QuickBooks Online Plus and Advanced and now you work with almost all Cloud-based Apps. 

Certainly there are a few questions in the 'short form' that will give use some information about how you have changed your practice and focus, but you really can give us all the details that you would be able to provide in the 'long form'.  In addition, you avoid the risk of algorithmic-data-conflict. For example, the short form will give you the opportunity to tell us that a majority of your clients are now using QuickBooks Online, but it doesn't give you the ability to modify your historic 'Tech Stack' details.  When your new short-form tells us your clients are now on QBO, but your prior long-form gives us details about a 'Desktop-related Tech Stack', that's an algorithmic-data-conflict that is going to result in a "scoring point reduction" on both the QBO and QBD sides of the equation.

Clearly, 20 or so extra minutes is worth the points it will earn you if you 'shine the light' on your accomplishments, "ringing the bell" so we can clearly identify how your practice has changed and all the things you have done 'mesh together' to benefit not only you as a ProAdvisor, your clients, but your 'scoring opportunities' in the Top 100/ProAdvisor of the Year process.

2) "Imparting Wisdom to Others"

If you are striving for Insightful Accountant's Top 'Educator/Trainer/Writer' Categorical Award then you had better not rely on the 'short-form' to laud your accolades. You need to answer questions about how many hours did you actually 'teach' or 'train' (emphasis on 'you') in a professional setting, and can you document those hours? Similarly, if you are a writer we want you to document your 'written work' accomplishments. There are opportunities to expand on information in the 'long-form' well beyond what you can 'check-mark' in the 'short-form', and since we want the current year (since December 2019 to date), we won't be counting the hours information in any prior long-form data you provided.

So now you can see another reason why it is to your advantage to go ahead and take the extra time to complete the 'long form' rather than the 'short form' even if you qualify to use the short-application.

3) "You're Human, and Made a Mistake"

"Everyone makes mistakes"; well, almost everyone. A sign on my desk reads, "Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken!"... someone gave that to me a long time ago, it might have been accurate way back then, but not today... as I said, "we all make mistakes."  Insightful Accountant spends a lot of time in verification of information you submit in your formal application form... critical items that can not be verified mean that your score may be so low you don't ever reach a ranking sufficient to 'step into the arena' (so to speak).  In other words the criticality precludes you from reaching a standing within a categorical ranking of 1 thru 10.

In other cases the 'mistake' simply has a minor scoring-point impact... if we can't verify a certification from 2001, you simply don't earn the credit that such a certification would otherwise earn a participant had we been able to verify the credential. Your overall ranking and standing are impacted solely by the value of that one certification (or lack of it).  The same thing applies if you failed to report that you had earned a specific certification; we only validate what you report, we don't add to your status even if we are aware of missing items because our criteria is an objective measure of your reported data. So you miss out of points you could otherwise have been credited with.

These 'human mistakes' that might occur in one year when you completed a long form are examples of why you should want to complete a new 'long form' application rather than take the easy way out and only complete the 'short form'. The opportunity to complete a new long form is a  chance to 'correct your mistakes'.

How Do You Elect the 'Long-Form' vs 'Short-Form'?

On the first page of the Application Questionnaire we ask you basic information like your Name, Address, etc.  Then at the bottom of the page is a question like the one shown below:

Under typical conditions a nominee who had previously completed the 2020 Awards Application, and was from either the United States or Canada, can elect to use the 'Short-form' of the application simply by answering 'YES' to this question. In that case the remaining portions of the application simply deal with what the nominee has done since December 2019.

A 'NO' response to the question (above) takes the nominee to the full application (aka: the long-form), which is what we expect for all candidates other than those from the U.S. and Canada who completed a 2020 application form. We added a lot of questions and information into questions this year related to 'International' applicants, so we they must complete the full application in order to insure that we have every viable measure to benefit their scoring potential.

But if you read the above question carefully, there is a 'NOTE' telling U.S. and Canadian participants who completed a 2020 form that they may elect to complete the 'Long-form' by answering 'NO' to the question also. In so doing they then proceed on and complete the remaining pages of the entire (long) application form.

To put it simply, when you see this question... a YES Answer = Short-form, a NO Answer = Long-form.

Best of Luck with Your Formal Applications

I want to wish everyone completing their 2021 Formal Application forms for Top 100 and ProAdvisor of the Year my very best. Remember, some of the information we request takes time to compile if you have never been through this process before, so make certain you know your entire certification history, the App vendors you work with, the training locations and hours you participated in (took, taught or developed), and the work you accomplished BEFORE you start your application... it isn't a start/stop/re-start process, it is a sit-down and fill-it-out in one setting process.