A 'look inside' QBO Recertification Training - Part 2

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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 today’s second feature we look at the 'Advanced' Recertification.

The good news is that with the exception of a few ‘additions,’ plus just one module, the vast majority of the ‘Advanced’ Recertification is the same content as the ‘Core’ Certification. This is why Intuit has decided to allow ‘Advanced’ QBO ProAdvisors to earn credit for both their ‘Core’ and ‘Advanced’ certification renewals by taking and passing only the ‘Advanced’ Recertification examination.

We will restate the content from the 'core' training in our summary below; however, we will make certain to 'highlight' the additional content incorporated into those materials for the Advanced curriculum. Of course we will also summarize the additional module (Module 3): Advanced Features and Customization.

QuickBooks Online 'Advanced' Recertification Training

This training is available as a 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.

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.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Module 2: Your Client's QuickBooks Online2

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. Advanced ProAdvisors should be totally familiar with all of these features and have a complete understanding of the underlying mechanisms and concepts supporting them.

Note: Additional content has been incorporated into this 'Advanced curriculum' that was not included in the 'Core' (Basic) curriculum, we have highlighted those additional inclusions.

Here are 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.)

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.

Features have also been added to give QuickBooks Payments users easier access to their merchant statements.

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.

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.

AI, Bank Feeds and Reconciliations ***This is 'Extra to the QBO Advanced Curriculum', not found in the 'Core' Module 2 content*** - Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisors should have a far greater understanding of the concepts surrounding the mechanisms behind 'bank feeds' and the manner in which the QuickBooks Online Bank Center links transactions in QuickBooks to a client's bank and credit card bank feed data source.

This lesson is intended to provide ProAdvisors with a deeper dive into those concepts than the curriculum found within the 'Core' materials and covers the 'logic of downloaded financial transactions' and 'concepts of matching and rules'.

Additional concepts covered include 'beginning balances and changes to reconciled transactions' along with 'how QuickBooks identifies transactions that post and clear at different times'.

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.

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).

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.

Module 3: Advanced Features and Customization3

This module is intended to cover many of the newer more advanced features which have been incorporated into QuickBooks Online and/or QuickBooks Online Accountant over the past year, and also insure that ProAdvisors have the necessary skills to help their clients perform essential customizations of QuickBooks to meet their operational requirements.

Projects - Many businesses perform work on a project or job basis and have a need to track both their revenues and costs on that basis. QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced users now have 'Projects' to provide them with an improved method of performing this task even though it may appear similar to sub-customers.

The Projects Center or Dashboard is the 'central hub' whereby all Projects are managed in QBO, and this lesson is intended to insure that ProAdvisors have a complete understanding of the differences between using Projects vs. sub-customers, how to set-up and use Projects, convert sub-customers to Projects, and even track time/labor costs as part of Project expense.

Automated Invoicing - QuickBooks Online includes automated invoicing to create invoices for unbilled charges and email them to customers. This lesson covers the methodology and uses of automated invoicing.

Batch Create and Send Invoices - If you need to send invoices out on different schedules or time frames automated invoicing really won't do the trick, but you can create invoices in batch and sent them in batch with this feature. This lesson covers the specific of set-up and use of this feature

Progress Invoicing - Progress invoicing allows QuickBooks users to create multiple invoices from an estimate so they can keep track of the progress of a particular job. It is available in all versions of QuickBooks Online, but in QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced it works with the Projects feature. This lesson covers the methodology and uses of progress invoicing.

Create Reports for Bill and Invoice Payments - This lesson looks at two helpful reports, the Invoices and Received Payments Report, and the Bills and Applied Payments Report. Not only are the step-by-step procedures for running these reports covered, but the benefits of these reports are presented within the curriculum.

Partial Purchase Orders - Expanding upon the Purchase Order functionality within QuickBooks Online Plus and QuickBooks Online Advanced, QuickBooks has added, within the past year, the functionality to 'partially receive' against a purchase order and keep remaining balance of the order open to create additional posting purchase transactions as the remaining quantities are received in the future.  This lesson begins by providing a recap of how QuickBooks track inventory.

The lesson continues by reviewing how Purchase Orders are created and then partially fulfilled, and subsequently filled.

Prepare for 1099-Misc - All levels of QuickBooks Online allow users to create and print or e-file (for an additional fee) 1099-MISC forms. This lesson reviews this feature and the steps associated with use of it including 'Contractor Information Setup' including sending your contractors a link to complete their profile via a QuickBooks portal.

The lesson also includes step-by-step guidance on 'Preparation of 1099s'.

New Features and Updated Functionality - includes several newly enhanced features introduced over the past year. The intent of this lesson is to insure that ProAdvisors are not only fully aware of these features/functionalities, but are also fully able to implement their use if so requested by their clients.

  • Item-based Class tracking - provides a default class posting anytime a specific product or service item is used on a transaction without the user having to manually select the class for the item or transaction. 
  • Reorder Points - provides a minimum 'on hand' quantity of a particular inventory item. The Products and Services list will then display those items quantities on hand that are low (in orange) or out (in red) of stock. 
  • Import Accounts & Sub-accounts - an enhancement in the past year now allows users to import sub-accounts directly into QuickBooks Online, whereas previously they had to separate parent accounts and sub-accounts for importing, import them individually and then modify them after import. The revision uses a naming convention familiar to QuickBooks Desktop users in that parent accounts and sub-accounts are separated by a colon, (e.g., Parent account name:Sub-account name).
  • Multicurrency Revaluation Screen Improvements - enhanced visibility for currency revalutions of multicurrency provides greater detail on the exchange rate and revalue date as well as the gain or loss associated with adjustment of transactions to or from home currency.

Cited References:

1 - Content adapted from: What's New in QuickBooks Online - Advanced Recertification Course: Supplemental Guide - Module 1: Practice Management by Intuit, Inc. Plano, TX 2019.

2 - Content adapted from: What's New in QuickBooks Online - Advanced Recertification Course: Supplemental Guide - Module 2: You Client's QuickBooks Online by Intuit, Inc. Plano, TX 2019.

3 - Content adapted from: What's New in QuickBooks Online - Advanced Recertification Course: Supplemental Guide - Module 3: Advanced Features and Customization by Intuit, Inc. Plano, TX 2019.