Intuit Enterprise Suite Updates with Hector Garcia | April 2025

There may be errors in spelling, grammar, and accuracy in this machine-generated transcript.
Alicia Katz Pollock: In this episode of the unofficial QuickBooks accountants podcast, I am delighted to welcome back my co-host Hector Garcia for his quarterly update on Intuit Enterprise Suite. How are you, Hector?

Hector Garcia: I'm doing great. Thank you for having me back.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Absolutely. I'm really delighted that you're here. I know that Intuit Enterprise Suite is really into [00:00:30] its kind of focus right now on developing their mid-market tools, and I know that they're hard at work, so I'm really excited to see what you, what they're working on and what you have to say about it. So I'm just going to hand the floor over to you.

Hector Garcia: Awesome. Okay, so Intuit Enterprise Suite Quick Background was released in September of 2024, and it was positioned as an entirely different or separate platform from the QuickBooks online platform to be focused on the mid-market on the larger [00:01:00] echelon of the small business, and sort of the lower echelon of the mid-market. Now, a mid-market could be described by different people in different ways, but generally, the way I describe mid-market, it is once your business requires every employee of the business to touch your your accounting system in one way, shape or form, whether it's just a payroll or just sales orders or just entering receipts. I think that is a good definition for a mid-market. Some [00:01:30] people over Intuit define it as companies with ten or more employees, which is not always true. There's a lot of small businesses with even 50 employees. And another place where I think a good a good place to, uh, to define what a mid-market is, is once you are too big to be a small business and too small to be an enterprise. So that's kind of a kind of the way, the way we describe it. And the reason why I say that is because when you go and you [00:02:00] purchase software, most software companies will have multiple options, right? The good, better, best Goldilocks. And there's always like a fourth option called enterprise. Close. Right. And that enterprise close is because the sales process of software is highly customized.

Hector Garcia: Right. Almost every situation is going to be different. And these companies are getting smarter saying, I just don't want to throw a number out there and let the customer decide with that number whether or not the software is right for us. And that's the exact strategy that [00:02:30] Intuit took. When you go and you buy QuickBooks, you see simple start essentials plus advanced. You don't see enterprise colors yet. That's yet to come, by the way. But you can't like, price out QuickBooks, Intuit Enterprise Suite in the into a website. You actually have to call them now I can throw some numbers, some generic numbers out there based on the last couple of quotes I've gotten from from my clients. So for example I had a client that was a multi entity. They had four additional [00:03:00] entities that were adding payroll to two of the entities, and they were adding MailChimp to one of the entities. And the quote was $17,000 a year. So that gives you a general idea from General Senses. You're going to be somewhere in the $8,000 range and the low in the low range. And as you add more entities and add more modules, you're going to be paying a little bit more. Alicia, have you had any quotes with Intro Enterprise Suite? Any clients?

Alicia Katz Pollock: I haven't had any clients directly, but when I have been talking to different [00:03:30] people, you know, the quotes seem to be coming in in the 16 to $1800 range per month, which kind of puts it right in that ballpark that you're that you're mentioning right there. Now, I have a question for you. When you were describing it as all the different employees have to have their hands in it is is enterprise suite like an ERP system, or is it kind of like the step below for a company who doesn't yet need an ERP system.

Hector Garcia: They are not positioned as an ERP system, and from [00:04:00] a user permissions point of view, we are not there yet. Okay, so I'm actually going to talk about the future of IaaS at the end of the at the end of the episode, I'll kind of talk about where I think this is heading. But this is one of the pillars of differentiating themselves from QuickBooks is to have a very, very, very comprehensive user permission structure. So you can define what that journey looks like. Again, for quote, every single employee of the business being able to access [00:04:30] the ERP. So this is where I, I define enterprise software as that or mid-market software as that. But intra enterprise suite is not there yet. However, they are position and roadmap to have slightly elevated user permission structure that's better or more comprehensive than QuickBooks online advanced.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Yeah. It makes sense that Intuit is going up to the next level of software and client size, because there is that mid [00:05:00] level that's necessary that, you know, typically has been served by Sage or NetSuite, but sometimes those solutions are still bigger than some clients need. And it makes sense to leverage the Intuit platform to serve that, you know, all the stages along the way of growth.

Hector Garcia: And what's interesting, you used the term, the solutions are bigger, and they might not necessarily be more sophisticated software wise than into the enterprise suite. I think the word bigger, it's a [00:05:30] bit ambiguous. I, I feel that when people say it's a bigger software, it just means it's more complicated. It's a longer implementation period and more expensive. Right. That's kind of what we think about that. But the software itself might not be as sophisticated into enterprise suite is actually very sophisticated compared to the other competing ERP software because it contains all the core QuickBooks online stuff, and QuickBooks online is actually a very feature rich, rich software and a lot of ERP actually [00:06:00] don't have as many features as QuickBooks online. Everything sort of resorts to a journal entry at the very end. So it's actually pretty interesting that from a user experience standpoint, um, is actually taking a hybrid is trying to take the best of the simplicity of the day to day mom and pop shop operation needs and some of the complexities of the ERP.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. I mean, for all the things that we complain about QuickBooks online, it's mostly because we want it to be the best product possible, and it does [00:06:30] so much more than any other accounting software out there. So I'm glad that they're able to take it even further into specific verticals and higher company sizes. I think that's fabulous.

Hector Garcia: So let's jump right to the new features. So as I mentioned earlier, it was released in September of 2024, and this is the third installment of new features. So we had the release in September. We had a release of new features in December, I believe it was December 16th, [00:07:00] and we did an update episode on that. And then on March 31st, uh, right, right at the beginning of the second quarter of the year, uh, they had a new big, uh, the third installment of big releases, a big new feature releases, and that's what we're going to be focusing on today. So this is going to be a three categories we're going to be focusing in. It's going to be the multi entity uh features. The second one is going to be uh business intelligence features. And the third one is going to be industry specific customizations [00:07:30] which really really means construction. And we'll talk about why uh is has focused on construction. Now in the same release document that they released for uh 331, they also talked about all the new payroll features, but that's actually available across all Qbo and IAS, so there's no need to go too deep into the new payroll features. But just in case you're following along the release document that Intuit release. So let's start with multi entity.

Hector Garcia: So one of the really cool things [00:08:00] that they added is called the multi Entity Allocation tool within the transaction. So let's take a step back. We have is who is focusing a lot in multi entity. So you have someone that has 3 or 4 companies all being run within the enterprise suite. And at any point in time one of the companies makes an expenditure, uh that actually belongs to another entity. Or they make an expenditure that needs to be split across [00:08:30] all the entities. So one common use case for this is for example you have the holding company. So we have a typical multi entity structure where you have a holding company that has maybe three stores and then a bunch of LLCs for the real estate and the stores buy from I mean rent from the real estate and everything is kept separate. But you want to run one PNL for for all entities all at once. So let's say that the the, the parent entity makes an expenditure and they'll create an expense [00:09:00] or a bill, whatever it is. And they go, let's say to Home Depot. So once they make the expenditure, generally in a regular QuickBooks fashion, you would, uh, you would code that to either the an expense account, right? Because you didn't know that it belonged to multiple entities or in that same bill or that same expense, you actually split and you go, okay, 3000 of this goes to one entity as a do, two do from 2000 goes to this other entity, etc., [00:09:30] etc.

Hector Garcia: that kind of breakdown of the work, it's very strenuous for like the non accountant, non CFO, non controller user in QuickBooks or in this case in IAS. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to create a tool where the average user doesn't have to give it a lot of thought or do a lot of calculation where they create the build, they create the expense, and then they press this little button that says allocate. So the allocation tool opens up. And then the allocation tool allows you to pick every single line [00:10:00] item in your bill. In this case only categories. It doesn't work with items yet. Okay. So only categories. So you pick the item category which you may have coded as a do to do from, or you may have coded into the repairs and maintenance expense. It really doesn't matter. And then you're going to click on allocate. And it's going to ask you okay which of your multi entities did you make that purchase for including your own entity by the way which is kind of interesting. So let's say the holding company is going to absorb 10% of that.

Hector Garcia: And then two of the [00:10:30] other entities are going to absorb absorb 40% and 40% each. So then once once you click allocate you're going to see basically every entity and the chart of accounts of each entity, right. So then you go into each of the entities and you find, you know, what is the actual expense category, or what is the actual asset category or whatever it is. And then you pick the percentages for each entity. So let's say for for your for the holding company is 10%. You literally [00:11:00] put 10%. And then for each of the the child companies or the subsidiaries, you pick the percentages and it will automatically calculate the breakdown for you. Then once you save the allocation in the back end, um, you it will actually, uh, book a journal entry for every one of those entities. It'll book it on the on on each. It will log in into each of their subsidiaries, book a journal entry. And the the [00:11:30] adjusting entry or the adjusting account will be the do to do from account. And you can always go back and see that initial transaction. And then you can see what the breakdown is. And you can also view the allocation entry after it's been created. What do you think?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well my jaw is dropped. This is a huge change from the first iteration. So I kind of want to translate what I'm seeing for the people who can't actually see out there. So in the past when we have [00:12:00] demonstrated these allocations across entities, we were showing you a journal entry. But what Hector just pulled up on the screen was an actual just an expense put to repairs and maintenance. And then he was able to say, I want this repairs and maintenance expense to go out to these three companies. And when he did that, it pulled up the repairs and maintenance with different names from each of those companies. And then he specified, I want 10% to go [00:12:30] here and 20% to go here, and the remaining 70% to go here. And it just spread them out for him. And it did it in an expense form instead of a journal entry. And then he just kind of clicked through to the transaction journal, and we can see the original journal entry down it. That's behind the scenes. So this is a big, big change in how you actually do these intercompany allocations. And it is really slick. [00:13:00]

Hector Garcia: From a workflow point of view. You have to understand that traditionally whenever, especially with the holding company making expenses that need to be allocated across multiple companies. And this is also a similar use case when you put everything into like an admin class, and then you want to allocate across multiple classes or to an admin type job, and you allocate across the active jobs, whatever. So the concept of this is instead of you waiting until the end of the period, looking at the PNL and then [00:13:30] deciding what that's going to look like, you actually make the assignment transaction by transaction. So you're delegating the act of allocating to the end user that's entering the bill or the expense in the first place. This is a huge shift on the way. Cfos and accountants typically looked at the allocation exercise.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And what I'm seeing on this behind the scenes journal entry is all the due to Froms and all the expense account allocations within each [00:14:00] company, all in one place. And just figuring that out in the brainpower that it typically takes to put one of these together is, you know, this is just making one of these expense entries is usually several minutes. And Hector, literally, when I watched him break out the expense, it took less than a minute. So it's really slick.

Hector Garcia: And the really cool thing about this is once the allocation is made, the journal entry gets automatically created in each of the entities [00:14:30] that is driven by one master inner company Journal entry that the parent account owns, and these journal entries actually cannot be modified. They're uneditable. On the other side, and the only way to edit that journal entry is to delete the original allocation or edit the original allocation, and it passes through. So that's creating a real nice layer of protection for for.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So you're saying that if you're in one of the subsidiary companies, you have to go back to the original company to [00:15:00] the original expense in order to do the editing.

Hector Garcia: Correct. If you want to edit that journal entry, I mean, you can make an adjusting journal entry on top of that to make a change.

Alicia Katz Pollock: No, go fix the original.

Hector Garcia: You can always do that. But, but but I'm saying you can't edit the journal entry that was initiated from the parent company. So that was that was a major new release. There are there are some deficiencies with it. As I mentioned earlier, you cannot use items. It's only available in expenses and bills. Checks were left out for some strange reason, but they told me that that was [00:15:30] a little bit of a tiny fluke and they should add checks pretty soon. And I told them, you know, it needs to be in all expense transactions, period. So you got you want to see it in something obscure, like a vendor credit. You want to see it in a in a credit card refund. Right. Because if anything that drives and expands should be allocatable. And they they heard me. And they're probably going to add that in the next couple of months or probably on the next release. So right now it's only in bills and expenses. You cannot do the allocation on the income side. As a matter of fact, [00:16:00] for the income side, there's a whole nother concept that they're working on for the future, which I can speak to in in high in high level, but it's just not available yet because income allocation is more, much more complex than expense allocation. Okay. Uh, the other uh, so still in the multi entity they added something called the multi entity hub.

Hector Garcia: So you are used to whenever you're you're going to QuickBooks, you go into a dashboard and the dashboard gives you your PNL graph, your expense graph, your income, your sales by customer. Like the standard dashboard [00:16:30] stuff. They are now working on a dashboard that's a consolidated dashboard. So the same thing you're used to seeing in a dashboard, like a PNL graph or an expenses graph. You'll be able to see it in the consolidated dashboard, including what they're working on, which is consolidated accounts receivable. Consolidated accounts payable, which is really interesting. Right. Because usually when we think of consolidations, we think of this big spreadsheet style PNL and spreadsheet style balance sheet. We typically don't think of it as a unified graph. [00:17:00] And in the dashboard you can choose whether to select all the companies or one particular company. So it's really cool that you can be you can be logged in in. Let's say you're logged in in the parent company. You can quickly see a graph or the dashboard for one entity or multiple entities without you having to leave and log out and look like log in to that particular entity. So you can pick and choose which entities you want to see and consolidate if you want to own the consolidated [00:17:30] dashboard screen.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Um, second time my jaw is dropped and we've only given us two things. Um, basically, I'm looking at a dashboard that, you know, the typical dashboard that we are used to seeing, and now there's a selector. And so you can select the main company, you can select one of the sub companies. You can select any combination of the companies. And the whole dashboard is updating. And yeah wow another wow.

Hector Garcia: Yeah it's great. And within the same theme whenever [00:18:00] you do a multi entity report. Right. So let's say for example a consolidated PNL. So before this update when you write a consolidated PNL by default, it showed all the all the companies and also showed all the companies, um, with each company as a column, that was that was the default treatment that you saw. Uh, there's a couple of updates that they added to that. Number one is as you add more companies, you're going to have a real estate problem, right? You won't be able to see because your screen [00:18:30] can be so wide unless you have those ultra wide monitors, right? Um, so what? They added this really nifty side scrolling that if you scroll sideways, it keeps the the account column the very first one fixed so you don't lose, you know, which account you're looking at. And then it has the elimination column at the end and the total column at the end. And those are fixed. So it's hard to in a voice only podcast, it's hard to describe. But they fix the problem with side scrolling where you lose the beginning at the end of [00:19:00] those columns.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So the columns that are moving in in the screen that he's looking at are the actual company panels themselves. But the whole framework of the consolidated PNL is staying the same.

Hector Garcia: Correct, correct. Now, the other cool thing that they added is you now can pick and choose which companies are part of the consolidation, so you're not stuck having to see all of them. So you can say, hey, only two of my my subsidiaries are the ones that I want to consolidate. And you only see those two or all five or whatever. [00:19:30] So you get to pick and choose which ones you want to see. And the other update they added is you don't have to necessarily look at it at the company level, that you can just have a simple, um, you can just have a simple PNL that's consolidated for everything without having to see each column separate for each entity. So they added that that was really interesting. So small upgrade, but uh, but pretty big. They also you're going to start seeing some, some new experiments that they're doing. This one, they didn't [00:20:00] even make it to the, to the to the product release document. This was added, I think at the beginning of April, where it's going to start detecting some of the numbers in your PNL, and it puts a little like a little light bulb next to it. And then when you click on it, it gives you a pop up that says, hey, based on what we're seeing, there's a trend in sales.

Hector Garcia: Uh, and that trend in sales means or it might mean this, or it might mean that, or it actually will log into the actual file and say, hey, this particular company [00:20:30] has a project that had a big that had a big percentage of effect in that income, or you had a particular item that increased, you know, from one month to the next. So you're going to start seeing little pop ups here and there in the PNL, which they're calling instant insights or financial insights. So a pretty, pretty neat, likely highly inspired by, um, apps like, like Fathom or Life Flow and Digits. I don't know if you ever used, uh, digits. Digits [00:21:00] was actually a really interesting one. And there's no, um, specific set pattern, so you really don't know what to expect when it comes to these, these insights. Uh, so sometimes they show up, sometimes they don't. So that's kind of the beta portion of it, but not not something you're not going to see in QuickBooks online or something you're only going to see in in is.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I'm actually kind of jealous of that. What happened when Hector picked pointed at the little light bulb as it popped up and it said what the anomalies were that month compared to the other months like [00:21:30] this, this this client had more invoices, or there was a change in one of the prices. And it was really neat to see that this is something that normally I would drill into a number and then have to go look at the transactions and analyze what was different, and it just found the anomalies right off the bat. And that's a great starting point for further analysis.

Hector Garcia: Again, worth to worth mentioning that there is no document that tells you what what what's [00:22:00] being calculated or what they're looking at. So you really don't know when to expect a little piece of of insight. So this is something that they're very much experimenting with getting feedback on. Et cetera. Et cetera okay.

Alicia Katz Pollock: What what's the insights in the upper right. Is that right.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. So on the upper right of the report it will give you insights. Gives you a if there's any insights to display, it will tell you how many of the insights are. It's like a summary of the insights.

Alicia Katz Pollock: That's cool.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. Oh so the next [00:22:30] thing is a forecast reports. So a little bit of background QuickBooks Online Advanced has the ability to create forecasts. Now the forecast do not have an accompanying report. In QuickBooks Online Advanced. You create the forecast and then you must convert the forecast into a budget. And then you would run a budget versus actual report that was created from that forecast. Alicia, you remember we actually did a.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Whole episode about it?

Hector Garcia: Yeah, a whole episode on that. And that [00:23:00] was really enlightening that we actually got stuck in the middle of the episode. We're like, where's where's the report? And then we realized that there wasn't a report. So in Intuit Enterprise Suite, they said, you know what probably hurt us in the podcast and said, you know what? We'll create a report, right? So so it's the same forecast tool. So the forecast tool hasn't changed. But they added a forecast overview and a forecast versus actuals, just like budgets as are budgets overview and a budget versus actual. So now you can you can run both budgets [00:23:30] versus actual reports and forecast versus actual reports. Not a huge thing. You really don't lose much by staying in qbo advanced because you could always convert it into a budget, but sometimes it's just good for the report to say forecast versus same budget because they mean contextually two different things, especially when you're doing financial planning or business planning or whatever. Any thoughts on that?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, just for anybody who's kind of curious about the difference between them, a budget would be like, here's how much I want to to [00:24:00] earn or spend, and here's how I'm going to break it apart across the time and categories of forecast. Looks at your trends and says, well, if things continue like they are and with these additional expected Events. Here's what your numbers might look like.

Hector Garcia: Right. So there's always a what if scenario, so to speak, when it comes to forecasts. So when you create forecasts and this works both in Qbo advanced and enterprise suite, [00:24:30] you get to choose okay we're going to forecast based on you know based on what happened last year. So we'll say hey take a look at the last 12 months. And then based on that, increase my income by 10% and increase my Cogs, let's say by 8% and increase my expenses by 5%, and you basically give it a what if analysis, and then it'll automatically grab your current, uh, PNL, whatever you have for, for the year [00:25:00] before, and it will project out the numbers onto the future based on those percentages that you give it. You get this already with the forecast feature of Qbo advanced. So the only real difference is, is that you can save the forecast by itself and the forecast can be, um, hooked up, can be hooked up with a report immediately. You're not forced to, uh, make it a budget like you are with Qbo advance.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Got it.

Hector Garcia: Okay, cool. All right, so that's forecast. Um, the next [00:25:30] thing is dimensional pnl forecast. So we talked about dimensions, uh, which are these line item level drop down menus that act exactly like classes, which eventually are are additional classes, uh, so, so to speak. And you can run a PNL by a dimension balance sheet by a dimension, sales by a dimension. So now they added and expanded dimensions into forecasts, so you can go as deep as doing a forecast for a specific dimension. [00:26:00] Right? So, um, they started with forecast by class, but now they expanded into dimension. So either on your class or your additional dimensions, you can do specific identified, uh, forecasts for that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: That's great because that means, for instance, if your classes are different revenue streams, just as an example, that means that you can actually break these forecasts and budgets down just like you could with the budget, but break it down specifically into that one department to really get down into the into the weeds with how that one is [00:26:30] going to perform against the whole company.

Hector Garcia: One thing to mention, which is a little bit odd, um, and this is both true in um, in uh, Qbo and Intuit Enterprise Suite, you can import budgets, but you can't import, uh, forecasts. So which is weird because it's essentially the same type of screen. So I think it's just an oversight or they just haven't had a chance to to add the import button into the forecast. But once you're able to import not just budget by dimensions [00:27:00] and forecast by dimensions, I think that this part of the improvement will be complete. So it's almost like 90% there, right?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, you know, I think about making budgets. And the first thing that comes to my mind usually is Excel. But forecasts, I don't, you know, they'd be harder to create in Excel in a way that would interpret into qbo. So it kind of makes sense that that's something to come down the line.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. I think that when Qbo gives you the tools of doing the simulations, like [00:27:30] increase income income by 10% or increase expenses by by 10% or whatever, then you no longer need the spreadsheet as much. The thing is that there's a lot of there's a lot of more quirky and specific programing that people do where they say, hey, you know, you want to increase the sales in in the winter time by 20%, but in the summertime by 5%, and in the fall lower it by 10%. Because obviously every business is different, every every assumption about the future is going to be completely different. So, uh, [00:28:00] Intuit, I don't think it's ever going to give you the flexibility that a spreadsheet would give you, which is why I think that sooner or later they're going to have to bring in forecasts importing as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Gotcha.

Hector Garcia: The other really cool feature they added is project budgets. So which is huge because right now I mean right now in Qbo plus and Advanced, you can create a budget by customer project, which is basically [00:28:30] a standard PNL and balance sheet. You know, by project. But the new, um, the new budget by project is a little bit different. So I'm going to walk you through it real quick. So when you create a, um, a budget in Qbo plus or Qbo advanced, it lets you pick a set of PNL budget or it's a balance sheet budget. Now you have a new option for project based budget, and then you get to pick which of your projects you want to do the project for. And then for [00:29:00] the time being, you can't import. You just click on custom budgets and then you click on next. And the the budget on a project is a lot different than than the budget on a on a PNL by project because it's done by item. So you pick the particular item, the product or service that you're budgeted for, and then you put all the details in there. So you think that for this project, it's supposed to cost you $5,000 worth of that item. Um, and then you pick the particular class [00:29:30] dimension. And then once you create the entire project, then you can run a, um, a, a budget versus actual for that project. And it's all based on the items, not based on sort of the way your PNL looks like.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Oh, so you know, what I'm seeing on the screen is this time when he created the budget by project, it did something different than what we're used to seeing completely. Like if, you know, like, you know, just rephrasing what Hector said in a different way. What [00:30:00] we're used to seeing is when we do a budget by project, it was doing it based on a sub customer style, where it pulled up the whole PNL, and then you put everything into the PNL categories. This is doing it by line item, which is doing it by product and service, and it doesn't have the whole PNL layout. It just has a list. And so you can say, I want this many, this many payroll hours, this many subcontractor, um, [00:30:30] hours, this many, this much cost of goods. But it's all done by product and service line. And then you just literally make a list of them, and then it interprets it into the budget. And that's a completely different approach. It's really a different thing.

Hector Garcia: And the purpose of of doing that is so you are then going into your projects screen, right, the projects dashboard. And then inside of the projects dashboard, you'll get to see [00:31:00] the actual revenue. Um, and then you get to see, um, a budget line, right? Uh, right next to it. So the idea behind that is that you can have your estimates versus actuals, which you always done in QuickBooks desktop. And you, you can still do in Qbo advanced and into enterprise suite. So you can run your you get your estimate versus actuals. But now you have another layer of this which is budget versus actuals by project. So these are essentially the same thing like traditionally [00:31:30] an estimate versus actuals on a project by line item is the same thing. But this gives you a second layer. So you can you can have whatever you put on the estimate as a report. And then you can have whatever you put in your budget as a different report.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, it is very different because an estimate is what you're communicating with the customer and the budget is what you're doing on the back end. And so the, you know, you don't want the customer most of the time to see what you're doing on the back end. It's a lot more [00:32:00] granular when I'm working with contractors, one of the hurdles that we've always had to face is when they're putting together an estimate. They have all these different line items that they have to plan for, but they don't want the client to see those line items. They just have one big summary line. This is kind of the the next layer where they can now do the planning in QuickBooks. Whereas they in in the past they had to go do it in a spreadsheet and then take the sum, the sums or the summary numbers over to put [00:32:30] it in an estimate. So now you can really plan the cost on a line item basis.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. So I'm going to take that back a little bit just to make sure that we don't add any confusion because Intuit did make this a little bit confusing. Okay. In in Qbo advanced and into enterprise Suite there's a feature called Project Estimate. And the project estimate works exactly like QuickBooks desktop where you can line item by line item, put your [00:33:00] costs and then put the the projected sales price. Okay. So that's already available in both Qbo advanced and into enterprise suite. If you if you break down the in the project estimate which is an which is an estimate that contains both your estimated cost and your sales price, and the cost is hidden from the customer, so the customer cannot see it. You currently can do this. And then there's a there's actually an accompanying report called the estimates versus actual uh [00:33:30] report uh, which uh which gives you which, which has always been available in, in uh, QuickBooks desktop for a long time. And you can get to see a report that very simply shows you what you thought you were going to spend versus what you actually spent, what you thought you were going to charge versus what you actually charged.

Hector Garcia: Okay. So that report that mimics what QuickBooks desktop has had for years already exists. And it's available in Qbo advanced as well. What adding a project Bye bye. Sorry. [00:34:00] Bye. Budget by estimate does. That's in addition to that. Is that in the projects dashboard you get to see a new, um, a new graph called the project profitability. And the project profitability projects onto the future, the future profitability of the project based on the trends that that you're spending and your income is coming compared to that budget. So that's a really that's that's a really quick [00:34:30] indicator, uh, because it's different than your traditional your estimates versus actuals, because the estimate versus actual is actually used for your whip report. So you still need to use the estimate versus actual in order to get a whip report. But if you want to start seeing the profit, profit profitability dashboard and the trend for the trend, the profitability forecast trend report, you have to fill in the budget as well.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. When I'm thinking, when I'm looking at this, I'm thinking about the [00:35:00] pro advisors who have said that they still put all their construction projects, their construction clients in desktop because Qbo doesn't have the tools. This is one of your power solves right here. It has some really powerful planning tools where you don't have to work outside of QuickBooks and then transfer your totals in.

Hector Garcia: Exactly. And another thing worth mentioning is, and this is not new for March. This actually was added at the very, very beginning is there's also a little box where you can change your project progress. [00:35:30] And the project progress projects is what I call the observable progress. This is not necessarily the accounting progress, but the observable progress. So like your your spend, your expenditure patterns could tell you that you're 33% there because you spend, you know, 33 you spend, let's say, uh, 3000 out of the 9000 you have budgeted. But when you go and you look at the job, the job, it's halfway done. Or it could be 20% done. So there's a more of an observable, uh, project progress, so you can put whatever [00:36:00] percentage you want in the observable project progress. And then there's a different report that gives you, um, the, the gives you where your report is compared to that observable progress, which is called the cost to complete project. So the cost to the cost to complete by project report actually estimates how much more you are probably going to spend in order to complete the project. So this is what happens. I [00:36:30] estimated that I would spend $9,000 on a project, for example. Okay, that's that's what I estimated. If I am $3,000 into the expenditures, I am technically 33% done. Right. So we agree on that because I spent I have spent a third of what I'm willing to spend. But if I go look at the project and I'm not even 10% done. Then quick, then Intuit Enterprise Suite can actually calculate how much more is going to take you [00:37:00] to how much more you have to spend in order to complete the project. Because you are you've you already spent three grand, but you're only 10% done. So it will start. It can start projecting out how much more you're going to end up overspending on the project based on this concept of the observable, uh, observable progress.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So it's not necessarily based on inconsistent spend timing. It's more looking at if all things stay the same and you continue like you're doing, you're going to be over budget, [00:37:30] correct?

Hector Garcia: Right. Because you told that you were 10% done where you really were, where you were, but you already spent.

Alicia Katz Pollock: A third of your that's really handy management and tell.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. Which is which is why um, is, you know, they picked one industry to go real, real deep in and that happens to be, um, construction. All right. So the other feature that they released is called I import for project budgets. So what happens is when you import your [00:38:00] budget data, many times the items in your spreadsheet don't necessarily match the items that are in QuickBooks, right? Like you could have an item in in in QuickBooks called Concrete pouring, right. And then in your spreadsheet, it's called pouring or concrete. Right. Or something like that. Right. Or you have roofing installation. And then in your spreadsheet is called tile installation. So what it does now, and this is the very first time we see AI being used in a real, [00:38:30] real practical and in, in kind of abstract way, which it will it will look at your spreadsheet, it will look at your QuickBooks file and then try to mediate the items that don't match. And it will suggest how to map them based on the wording. Right. Like what's logical in the wording, and it will guide you through the mapping process so you don't have to go back into your spreadsheet and make sure that you change every single item to match your QuickBooks perfectly.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So it'll translate [00:39:00] on the fly for you.

Hector Garcia: It will suggest that translated it will. It will suggest a translated amount. I mean a translated wording or translated matching.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Gotcha.

Hector Garcia: Really awesome. And this is something that I hope to see across the board. You know, when you're importing invoices or bills or you know, I think that even in Qbo advance any sort of imports and this is this is the challenge that we've always had for years. I've been doing this for over 20 years where I'm importing something [00:39:30] into some system, which is if the name of the customer or the name of the item or name of the vendor or name of the account doesn't match 100%. And it gets even more complicated if there's a if there's an account number involved, if it doesn't match 100%, you won't be able to import. This is a real practical use of AI. I can read to things and go, well, yeah, you missed a character here, but there's nothing else that even looks like this. And you just added an S, you did expense instead of expenses. So that's always been a bugaboo [00:40:00] of mine. That software was never smart enough to catch something with one missing character. Right? So it required a human to kind of like look through that so I can do that with ease. And, you know, so very excited to see that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, it's looking good.

Hector Garcia: So the next one is a really interesting one. What, um, what Intuit has done and this is and I'm, I'm kind of on the fence on whether or not there should be continuous investment in this, but some of the feedback that [00:40:30] they got in from, from their customers is that customers use third party apps to manage more operational things like, like deliver sand to this, uh, to this site, you know, collect this document for this permit, you know, get this signature for this. Take pictures of the site after it's been, you know, cleaned up. Uh, you know, collect a manifest for receiving, you know, this particular, um, materials that the customer [00:41:00] bought and sent. So there's a lot of stuff that has nothing to do with accounting. It's just the management of the project overall. So when you look at apps like builder, trend or Notify, that's really the sort of the focus of what these third party apps do beyond the accounting stuff. So I entered this. They added a tasks section under the project. So you can it's a very simple add a task market complete or market uh not complete. So it's very very simple. And you can create tasks. And then under each project [00:41:30] you can do a little bit of task management, a little bit of job management in it. And on top of that they have these uh, templates that they created for you where essentially Intuit studied and they said, okay, what are the typical tasks that every project does. And then they created this huge template list that has like 100 different tasks. And then you can import them. And basically you don't have to create each of the tasks that you want.

Hector Garcia: And also once you have a perfect task list, let's say you have let's call it a template. You [00:42:00] went into a job and then you you picked that. You created the task or picked the task that you were going to keep. And then you have this perfect job list that you want every job to have. You can actually convert it into a template. And then every single time you create a new job, you import that template and then you have your task list. And again it doesn't have everything like assign it to employee A or employee B. It doesn't really have real heavy context like the way the way you add A, the way you add a task. Um, actually. [00:42:30] Sorry. You you can assign it to the individual employees, uh, inside Qbo, but only Qbo users, which is going back to the the concept of what an enterprise software is is one where every single employee has access to it. So if your employee doesn't have access to QuickBooks, you cannot assign a task to them. So you assign a task, you give it a description, you put whether it's open in progress or completed, you give it a priority. You can even add an attachment. And then you essentially have one big task list that you manage. [00:43:00] And once the tasks are completed, you can select a whole bunch or mark complete or delete. And essentially that's it. Unfortunately, there isn't an accompanying report that would be awesome. Like a sort of like a job task progress report. You can only really see it in the task screen inside of the projects page.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay, I have a list of comments and questions about. Sure. Okay. So the first one is normally when we think of tasks, we think of accounting tasks that have to be done for the file. So [00:43:30] this is extending that ability. So now you can start doing a little bit of project management for the expected steps that you would do in the project itself. In a way, it's like an SOP. Like, here's the all the steps and all the things that we need to take care of. It doesn't have subtasks, so it's really just high level unless you really took the time to make it granular. But you can't see here's the here's the task and here's the steps in the task that's not there. And it would be [00:44:00] really interesting if they could take this as the percentage of completion, like, here's these 100 tasks and you finished ten of them so that you are 10% complete. But of course, some tasks are momentary and some tasks could be, you know, a week. So, you know, I don't know if that's realistic.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. And this is why I said at the beginning that I'm not too sure they should invest in this, is because this is the type of thing that you will invest in it add features, add features, add features, [00:44:30] and you will never be complete. Like I know if I would like very much specify I mean specialized on this and been doing this for eight years, nine years. They're still adding new features. So like, would I pick to try to make into an enterprise suite? Also a complete construction management software? I don't I don't think so. Now for the smaller construction companies, this could work. Again, I think this is a response to people saying, you know, why would I move to IaaS if I'm perfectly [00:45:00] happy with Qbo advanced plus no fee, right? Or I'm happily, perfectly happy with with Qbo plus plus builder trend. Like this is like their response to, you know, what about those customers that are trying to understand what the value is because they already qbo advanced plus know if I combine, it's probably what 500 $600 a month is still below what IaaS costs, right? So so if people don't have the need to do a multi entity, uh, reporting or dimensional [00:45:30] reporting, all this project stuff that we talked about budget by, by by project or importing budget items. All this stuff, these third party apps are going to do really well. So this is their response to try to get some semblance of a like a I don't want to call it practice management, but like operations management into IIs so customers don't leave the platform and use a third party app.

Alicia Katz Pollock: So as I'm looking at it, I'm trying to figure out like where you would position it or what the use case [00:46:00] would be. And I would say that the person who's using QuickBooks to manage the project is the person who's got their eyes on the financials of it. And so this would help that person keep track of where the project is on a eagle eye level. You know, the things that came up on this template say calculate cost, legal, calculate cost of financing, calculate cost engineering rough construction plan, finalize the site plan drawing. And so by checking off those, [00:46:30] the person who's kind of overseeing the it from the. Documentation and financial perspective that will give them a way of tracking where the project is, so that the people doing the project can go over to nullify and actually look at it on a granular level.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. Or like you said, you know what, if you were to use the tasks in here to then calculate that, that we talked about that observable project progress. So [00:47:00] then we can see, you know, whether we're trending up or down in, in what will be the final cost of the project. So if you could, like you say, one group these by a major category or create subtasks where once you mark all the subtasks done, the major task gets done. And that could be like a phase of the job. And then you can assign a weight to the completion for that and automatically update that completion percentage. So you're always running your, um, cost to complete reports without having to go in and put your observable completion [00:47:30] percentage by hand. Have the tasks. Drive that. Then. Then we got something right. But then that's the problem is, all of a sudden we're no longer an accounting software. We're not a construction management software. And then how do you split yourself and how do you prioritize yourself? Because as you add more features, people are going to ask for even more features, right?

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, but thank you for interpreting what I meant.

Hector Garcia: Yeah, well, I'm just trying to like again, I'm also thinking through is this useful? You know, is like, so I'm listening [00:48:00] to what you're saying intently to see. Am I seeing something that I'm not seeing? Again, I'm, I'm worried about this feature just staying like that because it's just so it's so basic. And at the same time, I'm worried about the other side of the coin then, you know, spending less on dimensional reporting or something that's really valuable, right?

Alicia Katz Pollock: I mean, you know, just to reiterate where I would see that useful is if you could weight it like this is 1% of the project, and this is 10% of the project. And it did the the progress [00:48:30] completion based on those task lists that would be slick and useful.

Hector Garcia: The other part that they added, this sort of templated importing of a bunch of list items concept is on your products and services. So when you go into products in into an enterprise suite, when you go into your products and services, you can now import from the their template. So in this Costco template screen, when you go into products and services, you now have a you will [00:49:00] now see a couple of Intuit created Costco templates. You know, for for the typical construction company. So, you know, cleaning up the waste, uh, you know, setting up the foundation and installing the, the drywall, uh, painting the knockout, like all these things. So they're going to be pre-built for you a couple of databases. They said they had up to ten different templates that you can import based on the specific sub industry. So they'll have one for four for electrical. [00:49:30] They'll have one for mechanical. They'll have one for, for, uh, masonry. So, like, this is an area where they want to really be called an industry specific software. And if they are creating templates for your, uh, tasks and if they're creating templates for your products and services, then all of a sudden it feels like they know your industry a lot more. Right? So that's it's part of making that claim that they're very much industry specific features.

Alicia Katz Pollock: And they're using the actual cost codes from the industry [00:50:00] equivalent of GAAP, uh.

Hector Garcia: Standard cost codes. The cost codes are not GAAP per se. Uh, it would be your chart of accounts would be GAAP, but your cost codes will not. So you can have a gazillion cost codes as long as they're, they're they're matching the right account. You know, they go to uh direct cost or they go to overhead or they go to income or they go where they're supposed to go. Then then it would be sort of GAAP, so to speak. But the Costco Costco's themselves don't don't pertain to GAAP. Now, they could [00:50:30] pertain to something called the AIA.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Which is what I meant.

Hector Garcia: Yeah, yeah, that's the architecture institute or association or something. Um, and which, which drives the the how how um, typically in construction you do what's called valuation based billing, where you, where you build based on the progress of the job and that sort of speak. So they will comply to those standards and not necessarily GAAP for sure.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. That's what I was getting at. I just didn't know the actual name of it in the [00:51:00] in the construction industry.

Hector Garcia: Yeah, it gets pretty nerdy when you get into construction. The other thing that they added, and this is super interesting. Um, because of what it means, not because of the announcement. So the announcement says third party integration enhancement via new API. And specifically they call out a third party app called House Pro, which is a field service management app. And they say this new AI integration allows to connect up to 12 [00:51:30] custom fields. So the implication is that we finally fixed the API for custom fields and we have access to all custom fields, but they're calling it out for a particular, uh, app. House. House Pro. So I'm not sure if the API is restricted only to house Pro users, or eventually every third party app will have access to custom fields in the new upgraded API. That's the implication that I think is a. Net positive, because now [00:52:00] that they announced that tags are, um, are going away and tags never really, um, uh, connected via API, and even if tags stay, they're not going to develop uh, more for tags. They're not going to develop an API for tags. And custom fields are now getting a lot more. Um, they're getting a sort of a more, more attention having all all 12 of the custom fields available in Qbo advanced and is in the [00:52:30] in the API is huge because all of a sudden they're useful. Okay, for some background, right now only the first custom, the first three custom fields are available, which is a little bit awkward because they just increased the amount of custom fields you have in essentials and plus to four. So like three out of the four are available. It just kind of weird, right? So like in my my assumption is the implication of this is that, um, that, that all custom fields will be available in the API.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. Yeah. I mean, maybe this is the first [00:53:00] time that they're working on bringing the API forward with all 12 fields. And it just just because it might not translate when Hector says House Pro, it's h o u z p o.

Hector Garcia: And that kind of concludes, um, all the things that were announced. Now I want to I want to talk a little bit about where I think this is moving towards. So I think that very, very soon they will start opening up some transparency and pricing. [00:53:30] I think that this is probably the biggest challenge that I, as has had in terms of visibility, because generally, if you don't know the price of something or the price category of something, it's very difficult to just think about it like if I, you know, if something says this brand new thing but doesn't have a price or you have to jump through like a million sales calls to know the price, it's out of sight, out of mind for the most part. So I think that they will realize and again, this is speculation at some point, that just the being very not [00:54:00] transparent with pricing is not going to be a good idea, especially for the target that they're that they're going after. Interestingly enough, none of the competitors or what Intuit is, um, considering competitors like Sage Intacct or, uh, Microsoft Business Suite or NetSuite, none of them have transparent pricing, and most of them have modular pricing, which for most people is very difficult to know which modules you need. So you kind of have to talk to someone so that [00:54:30] someone can recommend the modules. And then based on that comes up with the price. But what Intuit is failing to see is that the Is customer is not exactly the typical ERP customer, it's actually somewhere in between. So if they really want to enamor that that in between, like the customer's too big for qbo advance or even too big for QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise and too small for these ERP softwares. That little sweet spot. I think that customer still points to understanding [00:55:00] pricing and more transparency in pricing, and I think that once they do that, they will be more successful in my opinion.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, it's the Intuit Enterprise sweet spot. So I've been I've kind of long surmised that the reason why they weren't forward with the pricing was because they needed to figure out what was the value to people, and what were people willing to pay for each of the modules. At what price point would they go? Oh yeah, I'll definitely sign up for that. [00:55:30] And so it sounds like they've kind of narrowed it down into a consistent band of modular pricing. So I'll look forward to it being able to be, you know, kind of like we do with our bookkeeping services through anchor, for example, where, you know, you have a menu of services where you can pick the menu to the exact number that you need, and you know exactly what that price is going to be.

Hector Garcia: Exactly. And I think you nailed it. I think they didn't know what the price should have been. Right. And, um, and it was [00:56:00] to not to shock the world with a price in case they reserve the right to go down, which is not really a very common thing at the Intuit world, but they reserve the right to go down or the reserve the right to go up and not to be blamed, as you know, like mispricing, you know, they they kept it very, very tight. And only only a few people, only a few business owners really know what internet enterprise suite and what the pricing is. So I think that once they nail it and they understand what the pricing is, hopefully they'll again, hopefully that will [00:56:30] that will show up, or at least a range of prices will show up even in the same QuickBooks website. And having that extra, you know, um, enterprise cut loss, I'm okay with that, I get that. But it's good to understand the price category that it's in, because I've spoken to many people that felt that they wasted their time going through the entire sales process. After realizing that the software costs almost the amount of income that was coming into their business in the first place. So, like you, you kind of want to know, you [00:57:00] know, what category is in, right? Like you, because the salespeople will promise the world.

Hector Garcia: But then you realize, well, I'm not there yet. So it's just it's very disappointing to to be told that your QuickBooks currently sucks and you have to go to IIs, but you have to pay three times as much as what you're used to paying. Like that posturing I think is, I think is is rubbing some people the wrong way. And hopefully they change that stance pretty soon. The other thing that as pertains to pricing is Intuit very much wants [00:57:30] to look at modularity. Okay. And the only modules that you really see in IIs is at payroll, at Bill pay, at MailChimp. And that kind of sounds like QuickBooks. I don't see the difference yet. Right. I truly, truly don't see the difference yet. So in order to in order to reach that, they're going to have to figure out how to create modules that they charge extra for. So whether or not it would be a comprehensive e-commerce [00:58:00] module, right. That goes way beyond what the current e-commerce system does, or a comprehensive inventory module, or what is most likely a comprehensive payroll module. Uh, where where it goes deeply into like, HR management. Like, there's a lot of, like, you ever heard of a software called PeopleSoft where people go in there and they request their vacation time, and then they, they, uh, and then they track, you know, their own progress and their own development and, and they, they look up their trainings and they [00:58:30] look up their benefits, and then they, um, you know, they pick how they're going to trade their money and their 401 (K).

Hector Garcia: I think that type of stuff is more in line with what, um, what ERPs and with mid-market does. So I think, I think a highly specialized either inventory module or payroll module and in many ways, in many ways, uh, reporting too. Right? Even though the reporting platform is extremely, extremely powerful, companies like LifeLock and fathom [00:59:00] and uh, and sift and remind me if there's any other that you like, they still exist because it just goes so much deeper into what you can do for reports Or if you remember that old statement writer in QuickBooks desktop. We haven't seen something like that in a very long time, where you can literally design and drag and drop the accounts and choose, you know, how they're going to be rearranged just for the reporting purposes without having to change the chart of accounts. Something like [00:59:30] that might be more more likely. Or Intuit moves into in terms of creating additional modules that can charge for.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. I mean, as the technology develops, it's really it always just opens up brand new opportunities. You know, you're going to hear from me constantly. I just hope they don't abandon the small details of what what works and what doesn't, so that we still do have a delightful experience and just, you know, entering in a single transaction isn't a pain.

Hector Garcia: And where where I think it's [01:00:00] kind of my prediction, where I think there's going to be a huge divide, is in how they do AI. So I think that the, the day to day AI stuff, Um, it will go into the QuickBooks world. And I even think that even in within the QuickBooks features. Right. Um, simple start, uh, essentials plus advanced. I think even within the QuickBooks world, I will be like a paywall. Right. So like you'll get I bank account categorization in all versions, but I [01:00:30] suggestions of on how to what customers to invoice because you have an invoice them in 90 days that would probably be more in plus or I suggestions in terms of what inventory to order because you're running low on or because there's a trend or you're selling more than normal, that would probably be in advance. So like you're going to start thinking about I in categories or level like levels of intelligence, so to speak, because even OpenAI and ChatGPT, they've always also thought, you know, how to charge [01:01:00] based on levels of intelligence. Right. And that's going to be a huge shift on how you think about AI. All all software companies right now, they want to claim that there's AI in their software, right? Whether it's useful or not useful, that's irrelevant. Like they need to be on the bandwagon or they become irrelevant. I think Intuit has has been very slow at this because they're thinking about how to how to think of value ladder steps just with the AI usage.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Well, I mean, it makes sense because even with just [01:01:30] let's just say, reporting the reports available at Simple Start versus the reports available at advanced tier up according to the features that you're using. So it makes perfect sense that the AI would tear up according to what the need or the function or the intent is of each of the different versions or SKUs that they call them. And so the AI that you're going to have is the simple start level is going to be simple analysis. Whereas the AI available for inventory, you can't even see until you hit plus.

Hector Garcia: Yeah. [01:02:00] So my conclusion based on that, um, assumption is that any AI tools that make an individual more efficient will probably be in the qbo world, and any AI tools that replace an entire headcount will be on the AIS world. And that's a huge fundamental shift on how you think of AI, because, um, even OpenAI has has proposed that there will be a $20,000 a month version of ChatGPT 20,000. There [01:02:30] actually are employees that get paid $20,000 or more. So they went straight to, you know what we're going to get rid of, not your $50,000 a year employee. We're going to get rid of your $250,000 a year employee with this one AI. So I think Intuit is looking at it from that perspective that whenever they do something really, truly groundbreaking, that literally means fire your CFO, fire your comptroller, because is it's in here. And, you know, Intuit is going to. They've historically done commercials like this, right where, you [01:03:00] know, is is your new CFO or whatever. Um, and if it's AI powered, it'll probably be reserved only for IIs.

Alicia Katz Pollock: I mean, that's where the value proposition is. You know, that's they're going to have to do that in order to bring people up, that if there's something that the AI does that somebody who normally would need advanced. But if it's in IIs and now all of a sudden they can change their staffing. I don't want to [01:03:30] say fire their staff like I don't. I personally don't want AI to replace headcount. I want the the job functionality of the headcount to change. But you know, I know that everything comes down to your bottom line. So in your in your net profit. So I get it. Um, but what you're saying really looks to the future, to continuing to change how our, our business works, how our [01:04:00] economy works, and For all the talk there is right now about increasing manufacturing in the in the United States, the US, in the last 30 years has moved away from tangible goods and has gone to intellectual property and, and information management as its economy. And that dovetails completely with what you're talking about.

Hector Garcia: Yeah, I'm worried about really smart accountants and CFOs being replaced by AI to be sent back to a factory. [01:04:30] But anyway, a different issue.

Alicia Katz Pollock: We're not going there.

Hector Garcia: Different issue altogether. Um, so that's it for both. The actual stuff that came out on is and my speculations, hopefully when I come back in in 90 days or so, we'll see how right I was about those things. And what are the new things are, are, are in store for the summer.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah. Well, some of the things that you showed really were transformational, you know, especially the first couple features with using being able to split expenses [01:05:00] Is across companies in the expense. Like that's huge. Wow. And that right there will save people hours and hours of time. So I'm excited that you're bringing us these updates. I will absolutely look forward to the next one in the summer. Um, so, Hector, as always, what's going on in your world?

Hector Garcia: All right. Thanks for asking. So very excited that right tool built a pro users power users event. So at [01:05:30] the end of the summer, in, uh, July 28th, 29th and 30th, we're going to bring in about 50 right tool pro users to North Carolina. And we're, we rented uh, we bought out the entire property because we only were only going to do 30 at first, and we put it out for sale. And within two hours it sold out. So we went back to the property and said, let's just buy you out. And we got an additional 20 rooms. So we're going to have about 50, um, right, to pro users. And for two and a half days Stace, we're going to first of all, [01:06:00] we're going to showcase what we're working on. So whatever we're working on at the time, maybe some like sort of qbo power user tips and tricks. But really the ultimate idea is after two and a half days of just thinking about Qbo and right tool, what is Right Tool 2.0 look like, or what is the ultimate accountant's tool look like, right? Like when we think of a doctor, we think of a stethoscope. We think of a of a handyman. We think of a drill. When we think of a fireman, we [01:06:30] think of a fire hose or an ax. Right. But when we think of an accountant, what do you think about a calculator or, you know, a big, thick glasses or that weird green cap? Uh, you know, so, like the, the accountant, the accounting profession doesn't have this cool power, super amazing tool that represents what they do, right? It was a calculator. It was a spreadsheet. And now it's a laptop, you know, with a cloud accounting software. So I want the next version of Right Tool or whatever we [01:07:00] build to be the ultimate accountant's tool. And I'm hoping that two and a half days of just brain trust with 50 of my good friends and right tool Pro users helps us figure that out, or at least come up with some ideas. So that's very excited about that.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Now you're giving me FOMO.

Hector Garcia: Yeah, well, Alicia you get FOMO for everything. I mean, I can tell you I'm going to go have dinner with a friend and you'll get FOMO. So different. Different issue altogether.

Hector Garcia: But, um but so that's so that's that. [01:07:30] And then the second thing, uh, that we're doing is, uh, is reframe, which we talked about, um, in previous episodes, which is going to be in Miami November 2nd to the fourth. We have 117 tickets already with a cap of 150. And this year's theme is called pricing with confidence. If you want to come by November 2025, reframe accounting. Com Sign up and we'll see you there.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Okay. And no FOMO for me because I'm definitely going to be there. [01:08:00]

Hector Garcia: Yeah. For sure.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Yeah, absolutely.

Hector Garcia: How about you? What's going on with you?

Alicia Katz Pollock: So, um, I am getting ready to refresh my QuickBooks payments class. Um, I have long been a QuickBooks payments geek. I actually used to give QuickBooks payments trainings at Scaling New Heights and Intuit Connect or QuickBooks connect back in the the day. And there are so many new features with the new invoices that it actually I have to completely rewrite the class and change my approach [01:08:30] to it. Uh, QuickBooks payments is the merchant services that's built into QuickBooks online, and it absolutely streamlines your accounts receivable. And I love using it. And I love the fact that there's all the new features like, um, go payment and tap to pay. So the class is going from a one hour class to a two hour class this time around, and it's going to be held on April 22nd. But if you can't make it on that particular date or you're listening to this [01:09:00] after the date, the class is recorded and available and it will be to CPE. So I would love all the listeners to come and check out everything new in QuickBooks payments.

Hector Garcia: That's awesome.

Hector Garcia: I'll be checking out that class for sure.

Alicia Katz Pollock: All right. Thanks. Well, Hector, absolutely delighted to have you back again. And I'm glad that we've been able to maintain, even though you're not with the the podcast anymore, I'm really delighted that we still get to hang out and chat all the time. So. [01:09:30]

Hector Garcia: Yeah, I'm glad yeah, I'm this is a this is good. This is good for me too.

Alicia Katz Pollock: Excellent. Okay. So with that we'll call it and we will see you in the next one.

Hector Garcia: See you on the next one.