General Consultant Discussion

Intuit announces 15-city local tour to educate accountants and consultants. Sounds very similar to the tour Sage has been doing the past two years except it seems Intuit is more focused on accountants and training. http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20141230005082/en/Intuit-QuickBooks-Connect-Local-Tour-Inspires-Educates#.VKbfLYrF8z0

Accountants continue to think QuickBooks is a pretty cool thing, including most of my CPA partners.

What CPA wouldn't find a software package that keeps them busy with bookkeeping work a great idea?

If they were doing value pricing, they (or the client) may change their tune. They fully understand the issues with QB, but their answer is ""What are we supposed to do? The clients already have it or buy it, so we just work with them.

Well @JohnHoyt as you say if value pricing was in play they'd likely change their tune. To bad its the customer that ultimately pays, year after year, for the initial low cost of QB.

Well said, @MoiraGoggin !!!! But then, that would also mean the client would have to learn to do something differently also. Stupid is as Stupid does....

I'm going to disagree with @MoiraGoggin that a client pays year after year for the low cost of QB. At least technology wise. When I compare what a Sage 100 ERP user pays for an upgrade of their Sage 100 ERP (unless you are subsidizing it with free night/weekend/after-hours) I do not think QB is costing most companies more money. I'm fresh off three back-to-back v4.4 to 2014 upgrades. I'd say that I was pretty effective at minimizing time on these and as I have to go on-site to perform workstation updates (which are tougher to do via remote due to Sage's archaic system of updating workstations) and manage a myriad of ""little issues"" the typical ""clean"" 4.4 to 2014 is likely to be $1,500 unsubsidized. Now granted you can make an upgrade cost come out to whatever number you are comfortable with - however the end result is that companies on Sage 100 are likely to incur fairly substantial annual upgrade fees and in my view they are no longer able to delay upgrades until something breaks since Sage is now cutting off older unsupported versions from IRD/PU support. I'm also not sure I buy the ""QuickBooks keeps the records a mess"". I think that may be true for a portion of the users on QB - just as it may be for some Sage 100 users - but the majority of the QB users are likely keeping their CPA firms pretty happy. And as to @JeffSchwenk comment that ""client would have to learn to do something differently"" -- I agree wholeheartedly that clients need to embrace change. However my Sage 100 installs tend to cling to their comfortable procedures even as paperless office, positive pay, and other features have rolled into the product. I have had more (many more) than one customer look at me with fear as I explained how they now could go paperless with Sage 100. Convincing clients that they need to adopt a new feature is tough - no matter whether it's QuickBooks or Sage 100.

@WayneSchulz - I was referring to paying for bookkeeping services, not the QB software. I truly respect and admire the CPAs that use their knowledge and experience to help their customers understand and grow their businesses. Too often, I find CPA firms that put their customers on QB as a way to keep more bookkeeping income for themselves, which is really short sighted. The services a CPA can offer beyond bookkeeping are of great value. The CPAs that I've worked with that encourage and recommend that their clients take more if not all of the bookkeeping services in house and then provide the advance analyses, business planning services and advice are the great ones to work with. I agree that the cost of M&S for Sage 100 and other ERP systems is very high and often has no direct repayment other than a 'supported' op sys. It has been my belief and stated to many, that I feel the best way to reward ERP customers for years and years of loyalty to the product is to reduce the M&S EACH YEAR as they renew. I'd rather see the first year M&S 30% with a reduction every year of at least 3% until the customer reachs a basis of no more than 5% (or less) of SLP for M&S. I'm glad that you have worked so very hard to find an efficient and valuable path for upgrading your clients and thank you again for all the contributions you make to this group and your generosity in sharing that information with all of us. You customers are finding great value in their M&S fees each year due to your efforts.