Since a e-mail note from QBO support I received regarding getting a new client a wholesale billing adjustment that didn't happen automatically did not allow a "reply" to that address, and I had already written one already I will post here, and perhaps that's even better.
"The QBO-Accountant platform is designed to provide assistance to accountants and accounting firms in gaining clients and income, and managing their client's books through Quickbooks Online. Aside from making the QBO-Accountant product free of charge, Intuit also provides options for billing your clients. You can either set your client's QBO subscription as Accountant-billed or client-billed. The best thing about this is you get a 30% discount if you set up a client's QBO as Accountant-Billed subscription.
The 30% discount is being selected in the process of setting up the client's QBO subscription inside your QBO-Accountant. This step is usually being taken when the accountant or the firm have potential clients that do not have any QBO subscription yet. This process sets apart the actions being taken by the client when they set up their own subscription directly in Intuit's public website online.
However, for clients who have existing QBO subscription already the process is different. Those clients whose existing QBO subscriptions were set-up originally in Intuit's public website will carry over the same pricing when the client's billing is transferred to the accountant or the firm. For those clients who have their QBO subscription set up inside a QBO-Accountant platform regardless of the Accountant or Accounting Firm will get the 30% discount when transferred to Accountant-billing. Since there are client's whose QBO subscriptions went through several billing changes, it's possible that the 30% discount does not apply automatically just like in the case of your client . You don't need to worry, because you can reach out to us, and we can have it changed to the Accountant pricing for as long as we can confirm that the client's QBO subscription was originally set up in an QBO-Accountant platform. As you can see there is a process in place already to address this kind of scenario which is a reflection of Intuit's commitment to ensure that the product and it's purpose is realized.
[snip]
With Service and Care,
H. Rei
Intuit Quickbooks Accountant Care"
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Why did this take an act of god and an hour and 15 minutes with approval of the supervisor if it was marked as an accountant created account? I can't honestly charge my client for this time! Its time down the drain, and thus money down the drain. Headache.
- How does this policy make our jobs of selling business accounting using QBO easier? It doesn't from my perspective. When I chat with prospective clients it would be preferred to be able to offer the discount in my presentation as a feature of being a Certified Proadvisor who is a knowledgeable and trusted provider. With this most recent policy by Intuit / QBO, now I cannot tell what the historical billing details are on a prospective client and have no way to tell what the eventual status ruling coming down from up high at QBO will be when I discuss with clients. Perhaps I should suggest another product? Personally, I've used many different accounting systems including SAP for a large multinational corporation, the old Peachtree, etc and there is nothing really special about QBO that I could not do on other systems.
While I own stock in $INTU and can appreciate the desire to maximize revenue, the partnership with ProAdvisor's is a critical resource to maintain the leadership in the small business market. The many recent changes - just about all negative to my business - have many of us on the [external] forums wondering if we have hitched our horse to the wrong cart so to speak. Management at QBO with the pushing of direct "Live" help EVEN FOR CLIENTS WHO ARE WHOLESALE TO A PROADVISOR shows the disregard for the relationships we have with clients and the relationship we thought we had with Intuit/QBO. Seriously, this will impact business.
There are numerous bugs & shortcomings in the QBO product that have existed since I started using the product many years ago - but management seems to be oblivious to many of them and it's obvious they don't use the product much or it would function much better and have these issues resolved instead of worrying about redesigning the reports (during tax season no less) and other things that are superfluous to the basic functionality. I have "suggested" some but at this point I'd like to get compensated $ for making corrections to the product that the company should already know about if they truly used it like we do.
Regards, S
