Intuit Canada Focuses on Working Smarter with New Quickbooks Updates

Harnessing the power of AI to help entrepreneurs and accountants work more intelligently is the guiding vision for Intuit Canada, and this year the financial software company debuted a host of new features at the QuickBooks Connect Toronto conference that will be coming soon, all in a bid to better aid companies as they scale into the future.

A large accessibility update lies in the language users communicate with clients in. QuickBooks users will soon be able to assign a language to a customer on the platform, so all communications sent to them will be in the designated language. Removing a barrier like this frees up time to focus on what the actual communication will be, as opposed to finding different ways around an easily-solved problem.

Updating the Platform

Beyond usability improvements, a few of the new innovations lie in QuickBooks’ Online Accountant platform. The recently launched Pro Tax has provided QuickBooks users with a single place to manage work and file forms by plugging in connected data from their associated clients. From there, the updates focus on seamlessly bringing in new clients while easily staying connected to them, free from distraction.

An overhauled client overview tab in QuickBooks Online lets users see exactly how a company is set up—this means no more searching to see if a client has payroll and sales tax turned on, or what kinds of apps they might be using. That information, along with banking activity, uncategorized transactions and more are now all easily visible when they need to be. As another added upgrade to visibility, QuickBooks has built out the Workpapers section, so data, notes, and documents will all fit on one screen, allowing for easy comparison and tracking. Workpapers is now able to integrate with Pro Tax, meaning users can switch from accounting to tax in an instant.

Increasing Communication

The potential for AI to save a user time by automating everyday tasks, such as email, data copying and more is vast. If that kind of busywork could be pushed to the side so entrepreneurs or accountants could focus on scaling and gaining insight into a business, more breakthroughs and more profit would be easily achievable. Well, QuickBooks users can now forward an email to the software platform and a machine learning engine will pick up actions from inside that email and create tasks, eliminating a lot fo the in-between copy work. In addition, a new Statement Auto Import function will import bank statements into QuickBooks whenever a client connects a financial institution to the platform to download transactions. Forget about constantly reminding clients to send the right information—it’s all done automatically.

If that’s not enough, the power of natural language processing is coming to QuickBooks Online users as well. Announced last year and originally only available to self-employed users, the QuickBooks Assistant can reduce busywork and aid users by answering any kind of inquiry they may have into the platform or associated data.

“The essence of QuickBooks Assistant is that when you follow our customers around in their office, they spend a lot of time making basic decisions,” EVP of Intuit’s small business group Sasan Goodarzi told Techvibes last year when the assistant first launched. “We have the data, and we are applying our technology to that data so you can just ask it questions and we’ll answer it in seconds, versus you searching for it or using your instinct and maybe being wrong.”

It’s apparent that the new updates are focused on efficiencies, and for good reason. One of the most important indicators of entrepreneurial success is the ability budget time wisely, and that means working smarter as opposed to harder. Merchants and business owners need access to their resources as soon as possible so they can flip them back into the company and grow at a faster pace. New updates to QuickBooks Online are set to remove any delays that may be caused by improper communication and traditional workflows, bringing a new precedence for how merchants, business owners, and financial experts work together.

Payment process can be lengthy—it might take two days for a transaction to clear, or it could even take five. In a world shaped by real-time data, that kind of delay is unacceptable. QuickBooks will soon introduce next day payments—if there is a payment with a credit card, expect to see it in one business day. On the inward-facing side of things, QuickBooks Payroll is investing in their platform (powered by their partnership with Wagepoint) to bring year-end workflows, records of employment, and TSheet integrations to simplify sourcing payroll information. Speaking of TSheets, QuickBooks can now harness them to further analyze profitability—users will be able to see client’s job figures at a glance, including income breakdowns, costs, and of course, profit.

The updates for Intuit and QuickBooks this year are all rooted in bringing communication and productivity closer together. The faster a user can find data, seamlessly communicate with clients, and navigate the platform, the more time they have to focus on growing a business and saving money. These updates are powered by AI and show just how powerful the nascent field will be in the coming years.

Techvibes is the official Media Partner of Intuit Quickbooks Connect.