"it's a baby step of moving from a QuickBooks only program to the QuickBooks ecosystem," said Luis Sanchez, leader of the ProAdvisor program. He notes the ProAdvisors using Bill.com's invoicing processing will pay transaction fees.

Intuit has been talking about integrating the applications small businesses use with QuickBooks Online, which becomes a hub for applications and the business hub for Intuit itself.

Sanchez outlined other important changes to the program that now comprises 100,000 ProAdvisors. That includes combining the ProAdvisor Program with the two-year-old Cloud ProAdvisor Program. ProAdvisors also now get all elements of the program in their QuickBooks copy, along with access to QuckBooks Payments and two new program, QuickBooks Self-employed and Licensees. The last named product is the former DocStoc that was acquired this year.

Intuit also has implemented a tier program for ProAdvisors that provides more benefits for those with a greater number of QB Online clients. Those with five to 19 online clients will receive Gold Level ProAdvisor benefits and those with more than 20 online clients will have Platinum benefits.

The exception to the new practice is that ProAdvisors still need to be certified in order to obtain a "Find a ProAdvisor" listing.

ProAdvisors, who got five free 1040 returns on Intuit Tax Online, will also now be given some free business tax returns. Those who use Intuit Payments and have clients that use the product, will also receiving the best payment pricing.