In far-ranging comments, Wernikoff also noted QBO is now integrating with PayPal and is shifting demand generation at retail to QuickBooks Online. Intuit will also add advanced inventory capabilities to tempt desktop users to migrate and target self-employed users "for the first-time ever." It is also accelerating its international move with France the next country on its calendar.
With the new accountant cloud product, Intuit is seeking to improve its standing with accountants so that it can gain more endusers. Net Promoter is a measure of satisfaction with a product or service and it is calculated by subtracting the number of those who would not recommend someone else make a purchase from those who would.
Wernikoff described QuickBooks Accountant as being harmonized, the term that Intuit has applied to the most recent release of QuickBooks Online. The harmonized version was aimed at making QBO work in the same way as the desktop version of QuickBooks.
The new product will incorporate what Wernikoff described as a "new collaboration space between the accountant and client." The accountant will be able to see everything clients are doing via the new features and will be able to drill down on transactions such as expenses. "The idea is small businesses don't even need to do accounting, if they had an accountant there," Wernikoff said.
Intuit also wants to improve the integration of products from third-party developers. In terms of letting other parties work with QuickBooks, "developers is the place where we've made the least amount of progress," Wernikoff said. However, he continued this would be the area in which observers will see "the most velocity" over the next few months.
The QBO integration with PayPal was discussed but not spelled out in great detail as to the immediate impact. "It's not going to make the headlines today for PayPal. This is an incredibly important relationship for us," he said. With many QuickBooks customers using PayPal for invoicing, those users need PayPal to integrate with their accounting system.
He noted besides accepting payments that "PayPal does a lot of other things well." Wernikoff said this includes Point-of-Sale capabilities.
Intuit also plans to increase the percentage of desktop users who can migrate to QBO. Currently, only 30 percent of desktop users "can migrate to QuickBooks Online based on features," Wernikoff said. He said that will rise to about 70 percent at the end of the year based on the addition of advanced inventory capabilities.
The company is also going after the self-employed workers for the first time. "We are going at the self-employed and winning with a very targeted solution," he said.
Wernikoff did not give a name for the self-employed product publicly. However, his comments indicate it was shown to those who attended Investor's Day in person. But he said that a first version with a "very narrow set of capabilities" is already being used and new versions will be ready for tax time.
However, the Intuit website shows the company has introduced the online QuickBooks Self-Employed https://selfemployed.intuit.com/, which says it will enable users to untangle business spending. It is designed to pull in bank and credit card transactions to help easily find, track and auto-categorize income and spending The product is shown with a stated price of $9 per month, but discounted to that price for the first year.
As to the purpose of the application, Wernikoff aid, "There's a very specific need these customers have, which is detangling their personal and business expense, and getting ready at tax time."
