What Makes a Top 100 ProAdvisor?

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This article is the first in a 4-part Series developed cooperatively with ADP, one of the sponsors of Insightful Accountant's 2021 Top 100 and ProAdvisor of the Year Award Program. ADP will be hosting a webinar titled, Secrets to Becoming a Top 100 ProAdvisor on February 4th at 1:00 pm Eastern that serves as a companion to these articles. 

Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisor and ProAdvisor of the Year Awards Program is, to put it simply, a search for the "Best ProAdvisors in the World". While clearly the majority of our nominees are from the United States, a growing number each year are from other parts of the Globe.

The Top 100 is not one long list of a hundred names out of the numerous nominees submitted each year, even though it is published in that fashion. The list represents the best of each of the various ‘Categories’ we recognize.

Since our categories are so important, let's begin by looking at some of the questions we use from our ‘Formal Application’ to help rank each participant’s categorical status. One of the key questions related to categorization is this one:

That’s pretty straight forward when you think about it, we are essentially asking you to rank yourself into specializations very akin to our ‘categories’. Of course, we don’t just use this one question because we actually evaluate each individual in all applicable categories. So, let’s look at another important factor in the equation.  In the question below we ask you to tell us about the percentage of your QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online practice.

If your practice is predominately Desktop, we expect you to have selected an option in the top half of this question, and if your practice is predominately Online then we expect you to have selected an option in the bottom half. But, if you tell us that your practice is 90% Desktop and 10% QuickBooks Online, and in the earlier question you Ranked your Practice as a 5 for General Practice – QuickBooks Online, that’s a real conflict when it comes to categorization because we would expect one of the two answers to be just the opposite. It doesn't happen very often, but we still have other questions that help clarify your strongest status, like this one:

This further refines the type of work you do relative to both Desktop and Online and benefits each candidates' ranking in a number of categories.  

You see, our Formal Application is designed to measure ‘your strengths’ not your weaknesses. Please take your time and think through your answers and be consistent in what you believe are your virtues as they relate to the categories of these awards.

Hopefully, you now have a better understanding of the relationship between our Categorical Scoring and Awards Process as well as the Formal Applications you submit. But if you still have questions about how you best fit into one or more categories then I really encourage you to register for our upcoming webinar on February 4th.

Secrets to Becoming a Top 100 ProAdvisor

February 4, 2021 -- 1:00 p.m. Eastern

Presented by William 'Murph' Murphy

Featuring: Dawn Brolin, CPA, CFE, Matthew Fulton, and Caleb L. Jenkins, EA, CQP

Register Here

Now let’s look at some of the criteria that are involved in the process and some of this year’s application questions we will use to measure those criteria.

Certification

Certification as it relates to the Intuit ecosystem is one of the key factors in our scoring criteria. For example, in the QuickBooks Desktop Category it not only means the most current QuickBooks Desktop certification, but QuickBooks Enterprise certification as well since Enterprise is a 'form of desktop'. For the QuickBooks Online Category it means the most current QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online-Advanced certifications.

But these are not the only categories, and not the only certifications we consider so that’s why we will be asking much more about certifications, but our current certification question is shown below.

We have additional questions regarding ‘tenure’ because a person’s certification ‘history’ comes into play, and those individuals with a long history of having been certified tend to rank higher, but it is also true each year we have highly ranked historical certification participants drop several points because they haven’t yet completed the most current certifications when they submit their applications. That stresses the importance of the most current certifications vs tenure.

We also have questions that are specific to our International Country/Region Certification participants and while we recognize that QuickBooks Certification may not be available on a country-by-country basis, where it is available participants should consider it an absolute necessity in being considered for one of our International Awards.  We will address this more later in this article.

Training

Training has always been another significant factor in our scoring criteria. Staying current and keeping-up with what is going on in the profession are essential; if you are not participating in training events each year, you can't be doing that. We don't mandate a minimum number of hours in specific topics as a part of each categorical award rankings; however, we recognize training related to the various areas of practice.

We ‘value’ training as it relates to the categories we recognize. So, training related to the QuickBooks Online ecosystem has a ranking value within the QuickBooks Online Category and training related to the QuickBooks Desktop ecosystem has a ranking value within the QuickBooks Desktop Category. That's not to say such training may not have ranking values within other categories as well. For example, QBO training obviously has a relative ranking value in the QBO App-ology Category, and QBD training obviously has a relative ranking value in the QB Desktop Integrations Category. Some training, unless it is specific to a single platform (QBO or QBD), typically has a relative ranking value to both QBO and QBD categories.

One of the questions we will use to assess training this year is:

But just telling us that you attended a conference or virtual event that isn't simply certification focused isn’t specific enough, so that’s why we will ask you to be more specific with regard to courses/sessions that matter to our categories:

All of these improve your ranking within the applicable categories, but remember, we might just ask you to produce a copy of your certificate(s) if there are any questions regarding your participation.

Client Reviews

Another scoring factor involves the 'client reviews' that appear as part of your Find-a-ProAdvisor profile. This is one reason why we ask you to 'expose' your Find-a-ProAdvisor profile for 4-weeks (if you have it hidden) when you submit your Formal Application.

We use a unique process to 'equalize' large and small ProAdvisor practices within big and small areas of service, it also adjusts for participants who are both long-tenured and newbies just starting out. Our process factors the total number of reviews a ProAdvisor has received and multiplies those times the review score for each and then factors in the total number of clients reported to us in their formal application.

As an example, if a ProAdvisor has 110 rankings of an average of 4.8 points, and reported that they had 450 clients, then their ranking represents (approximately) 25% of the computed ranking score. Similarly, a ProAdvisor who only has 5 rankings of 4.8 but has only 20 clients, essentially earns the same ranking score. On the other hand, someone with 450 clients who only had 20 ratings of 4.8 would have a much lower raking then either of the previous two examples.

This approach is designed to provide an equalization in rankings between smaller practices including those within smaller geographic service areas in contrast with large practices located in large geographic areas. We are striving to prevent a ProAdvisor’s geo-location from overly influencing their standing as it relates to serving clients.

In preparation for Top 100 you should open your own ProAdvisor profile, if you recognize you are ‘weak’ in this area, we suggest you reach out to your clients and ask them to provide a review of your services using the Find a ProAdvisor website. You are likely to be pleasantly rewarded with some great new reviews simply by asking.

In countries not yet offering 'client reviews' as part of their ProAdvisor recognition, a lack of such reviews does NOT adversely impact your ranking in regard to any of our International awards.

International Categories

And speaking of our International Awards, the growing number of ProAdvisors from around the world is why we recognize two different international categories: Our ‘Americas’ Category identifies nominees who participant in the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program in Canada, Mexico, Central or South America or the Caribbean islands.  Our ‘Non-Americas’ Category identifies nominees who participant in the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program and live or practice anywhere outside 'the Americas' and United States.

All international participants, regardless of the country in which they live or practice, must hold Intuit QuickBooks ProAdvisor 'status' 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. So, a question like the one below will appear in our formal application:

The term 'International' in this question applies to any Intuit issuing authority, so participants from Canada who have QBO Certification would select the QuickBooks Online ProAdvisor Certification (International) option as one of their choices (others may also apply). An Australian participant who has just received their new QBO Advanced Certification would select the QuickBooks Online Advanced ProAdvisor Certification (International) option as one of their choices. 

While there are some very specific options, from a 'global' perspective we would anticipate that the majority of our international participants would be selecting the last option: "No, I don't hold any International QuickBooks Certifications even though I am an International Online ProAdvisor from another country in which I practice."

International participants should be aware that Intuit offers multiple training opportunities ranging from self-paced study to webinar-based instruction, to virtual training throughout the year. To help you find training in your country we have included a few official Intuit websites (based upon our most common international readership) below, unfortunately we cannot list every country or related Intuit website.

We look forward to having more participants from around the world this year than ever before and we hope that the adjustments we have made in our processes for 2021 will more closely allow for the evaluation of each participants standing as a QuickBooks ProAdvisor no matter what country they are from.

Next week, in Part 2 of this series, we will be discussing how your tech stack with leading partner apps in the QuickBooks ecosystem ties into the search for Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisors and ProAdvisor of the Year. As part of that article we will not only talk about the importance of your tech stack to the QuickBooks Desktop integrations and QuickBooks Online 'App-ology' awards, but how we measure your tech stack participation with partners within our formal application.

By the way, don't forget to register for Secrets to Becoming a Top 100 ProAdvisor on February 4th at 1:00 pm Eastern a special webinar that ADP is hosting that serves as a companion to these articles.  And remember that Nominations are Open for this Years Awards, you can GO HERE to Nominate Yourself or another ProAdvisor.

Register Here