Over the past five or six months, Insightful Accountant has brought you news from Intuit about the Recertification process for QuickBooks Online ProAdvisors including both 'Core' and 'Advanced' Certified individuals. Recently, we pointed you toward the specifics of those requirements, and also featured an article on a training opportunity that Intuit kicked-off to help prepare ProAdvisors for re-certification early.
In this feature, we wanted to give you a 'look inside,' or more like a 'glimpse' at both the 'Core' and 'Advanced' level QuickBooks Online Recertification training curriculum to help prepare you for the examinations that are required for annual renewal by July 31st. In this feature we look at the 'Core' Recertification.
QuickBooks Online 'Core' Recertification Training
This training is available as live webinar, recorded webinar, self-paced, and it is anticipated that at some point it will be available in some locations as a live 'in-person' event.
"What's New in QuickBooks Online"
Intuit now intends to develop both a training curriculum and examination based around "what's new in QuickBooks Online" over the year prior (to the previous curriculum). The focus will be on two aspects of QuickBooks; first what's changed with regard to QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online-Accountant from a ProAdvisor perspective, and the second being what's changed in QuickBooks Online from a QBO user perspective. With regard to the ProAdvisor perspective, the curriculum is outlined in Module 1: Practice Management; with regard to the QBO user perspective, the curriculum is outlined in Module 2: Your Client's QuickBooks Online.
Module 1: Practice Management
Here are some of the topics covered:
What's New for ProAdvisors - This lesson covers areas related to how the program has been redesigned based on accounting industry trends to recognize more of the work accountants do for their clients, and offer additional benefits and tools. 'The Redesigned ProAdvisor Program' features a new points and tier structure to ensure ProAdvisors receive the benefits and support they need to help their firm grow. Guidelines are also provided to help ProAdvisors manage their Find-a-ProAdvisor Listing.
Source: Intuit
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Client Management including 'how to add clients who don't use QBO' and 'how to permanently delete clients from your client list', and 'reinstate permanently deleted clients in ProConnect Tax Online.'
Source: Intuit
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Client Overview provides a helpful feature to review a client's QuickBooks Online company to estimate the time it will take to clean up the books and/or complete the ongoing work they want you to do. The Client Overview tab provides insight into the health of a client's QuickBooks Online company and can help determine the scope of work and value of the engagement.
Source: Intuit
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QBO-Advanced (Product not Certification) - a review of the benefits and features of this new QBO offering along with guidelines for recommending when QBO is the right product to meet the QBO user's requirements.
Source: Intuit
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Manage Subscriptions - Over the next few years, Intuit will be moving all offerings in the QuickBooks Online ecosystem to a single global billing platform. A unified billing system will enable a single bill for QuickBooks Online, Payroll, Payments, TSheets and the Accountant Partner Program’s third-party apps. This topic provides a look at the billing platform with regard to your subscription(s) and billing dashboard, as well as how to downgrade a subscription.
Source: Intuit
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Work with Apps - Apps are becoming an ever increasing important aspect of not only the QBO ecosystem, but the ecosystem of each QBO user. This lesson covers how to manage Apps on behalf of your clients inside QuickBooks Online Accountant and how you can purchase Apps on behalf of your clients at a discount through the Accountant Apps Discount Program.
Source: Intuit
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Manage Team Access - If you are growing your practice, then your 'team' is important to you, and the ability to manage your team within QBO-Accountant is just as important. This lesson covers changes to team member permissions and new functionality when searching for team members in QuickBooks Online Accountant.
Source: Intuit
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Manage Your Work - Just as important as managing your teams is the ability to manage your work within QBO-Accountant. Projects and tasks in QBO-Accountant are at the core of managing your firm’s work, whether you’re a solo practitioner tracking your own work or part of a larger team of professionals. In this lesson, you'll learn how to create projects and tasks for both internal work and add new Non-QBO clients when creating work. You'll also learn how to use the pre-filled QuickStart templates in the Work Center to set up new projects and tasks to meet your specific needs.
Source: Intuit
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Work Notifications - Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines. It's all about deadlines in an accounting, bookkeeping or consulting firm. If you fail to meet one of those deadlines, you find yourself not only in 'hot water' but 'big trouble.' There are numerous tools out there that you can spend 'big bucks' on to help manage your deadlines, but switching between those tools as well as spending those extra dollars isn't always the way to go, especially if you can just use something that works with the QuickBooks Online-Accountant that you already love. In this lesson, you'll learn how to set up Notifications in the Work Center to keep your team up to date whether they communicate using email or Slack messaging, and that will save you both time and frustration.
Source: Intuit
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Module 2: Your Client's QuickBooks Online2
Remember, this Module is aimed at covering features within QuickBooks Online and is intended to insure that ProAdvisors have a thorough familiarity with those new features that have been introduced during the past year which are available to their clients, even if their clients may not be using those features. In that way, the ProAdvisor may be able to introduce their clients to new features in order to benefit their clients and provided enhanced value.
Here are some of the topics covered in Module 2:
Customize Invoices - All versions of QuickBooks Online allow users to customize their invoices, estimates and sales receipts to reflect the company's unique branding. This lesson is designed to review the methods for customizing form styles, customizing an Invoice Email and for viewing Emailed Invoices within QuickBooks Online.
Price Rules - Many companies offer different prices to the various customer groups. QuickBooks' Price Rules allow users to segment their customer base and assign different prices to each group by creating Customer types. They also allow users to apply a price change to specific products and services for a limited time period. This lesson covers when to recommend Price Rules to QuickBooks users, how to configure Price Rules, and how to use Price Rules on sales transactions. (Price rules are only available in QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced subscription levels.)
Source: 01
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Sales Tax (Automated Sales Tax) - Over the past 18+ months, QuickBooks updated from a manual sales tax (only) functionality in QuickBooks Online to an Automated Sales Tax feature which automates sales tax rates and calculations. Some QBO Clients are still using the manual sales tax methodology and setting up their own sales tax and rates and risking the chance of improper sales tax computations. This lesson is designed to insure you, as a ProAdvisor, are thoroughly familiar with the Automated Sales Tax features and the steps in converting a client from the manual to automated sales tax functionality.
Connect to PayPal and Payments - This lesson explores both the Connect to PayPal App and the Payments settings in the Client's Account and Settings. There have been major improvements to the way PayPal connects and imports data into QuickBooks. A more seamless experience provides improved visibility of fees and deposits.
Source: Intuit
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Features have also been added to give QuickBooks Payments users easier access to their merchant statements.
Source: Intuit
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Bank Connections - The QuickBooks Online Banking API is changing, and with it, the way QuickBooks connects to your client's bank accounts is changing. This is intended to provide faster, safer and more reliable bank connections that should minimize bank errors due to updated or outdated login credentials. The revised Online Banking API will use the OAuth open standard for authentication, which Intuit uses for connection with other Apps, and this should provide for more reliable connections.
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This lesson is intended to insure that you as a ProAdvisor understand the new Banking Connection methodology, identify those banks participating in the new connection method, that you can assist your clients with the transition from the old method of bank feeds to the new bank connection methodology, and that you also understand another are of banking that had a refresh, which was reconciliation for paychecks deposited in two accounts.
Source: Intuit
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Preferred Vendors - Preferred Vendors is a feature only available to users of QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced, and allows users to add a preferred vendor to any product or service to help make the task of purchasing easier by prefilling the vendor name and contact information when creating a purchase order for those items. This lesson takes you through the process of creating and using Preferred Vendors.
Redesigned Reports Center - Over the past year, the Reports Center in QuickBooks was redesigned to make it easier to find the information that most users need. This lesson is designed to insure you are totally familiar with the redesigned Reports Center's organization and features.
Source: Intuit
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Manage Client Access - A recent change to user permissions in QuickBooks allows you to restrict access to payroll information when setting up a standard user. This lesson provides you with the steps for configuring this restricted permission, along with details regarding the nature of the restrictions (summarized below).
Source: Intuit
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A standard user without payroll access will see QuickBooks Online slightly differently than those with full access. There will be restrictions to what they can see but they will still have access to all the areas of QuickBooks needed to fulfill their role.
In Part 2 we will examine the Recertification content for the QuickBooks Online 'Advanced' Curriculum.
Cited References:
1 - Content adapted from: What's New in QuickBooks Online - Recertification Course: Supplemental Guide - Module 1: Practice Management by Intuit, Inc. Plano, TX 2019.
2 - Content adapted from: What's New in QuickBooks Online - Recertification Course: Supplemental Guide - Module 2: You Client's QuickBooks Online by Intuit, Inc. Plano, TX 2019.