With technology permeating nearly everything an accounting firm does, it is imperative those tools, and the vendor relationships that come with them, evolve along with them. So, does one matter more than the other?
It’s a question that’s been vexing me for some time, but having returned from the recent Intuit Connect event, it made me wonder even more if the power of the products accountants use overshadows the relationship they have with their makers.
This is going to be a bit lengthy, because there is a lot to unpack, particularly on the product side. Even then, I am only scratching the surface, as there was not a very deep dive offered at Connect, but rather a preview of what is here, coming, and could be.
What I can comment on is the question I raised in my headline: If you are continuing to use a vendor’s products and services, is it more important for there to be a true partnership, especially when what you use (and pay for) is essential to your firm and your client work? Or do how well the products serve your needs and those of your clients justify the costs and everything that comes with it?
These questions are specifically pertinent to Intuit and their relationship with the accounting profession and ProAdvisors in particular. because it has, in my view, never been more strained. As I’ve mentioned previously, the growing consensus among ProAdvisors and accountants using Intuit products in general is that it has become increasingly difficult to be in business with the company.
This feeling mainly stems from having to incur and ultimately try to pass on the overall cost of doing business with Intuit and using their products. On top of that, many are also feeling the emotional toll from firms that once believed they had a true partnership going back decades, as their role in the success of the QuickBooks brand was integral.
I use “feeling” because, again, it is subjective, and rising software costs are the norm no matter what industry you are in. So, let’s first touch on what is changing from a partner perspective.
Whether it is a response to the growing consternation or not, Intuit’s partner program is slated to change, for good or ill. During Connect, Intuit announced that it is updating its long-standing ProAdvisor Program to be a Global Partner Program, one that is tiered. More details on this program will come in the New Year, with expected implementation in May 2026.
One item that did have some more details for supporting current and future accountant partners was the Intuit Accountant Suite. Intuit plans to officially replace QuickBooks Online Accountant at the end of 2026.
The Accountant Suite will integrate five core capabilities powered by Intuit’s platform: client management, client collaboration, service delivery, business planning, and team management.
The current highlights of Intuit Accountant Suite state that it provides:
● Consolidated Client Management: Manage all client files in one place with a single sign-in, providing better insight across services provided and eliminating data exports or multiple account logins.
● A Custom Dashboard: Ensure nothing falls through the cracks with each team member’s ability to customize their home base, clearly surfacing critical tasks, reminders, and AI-powered insights. For example, the dashboard can show ProAdvisor points, the training level of teams, and the ability to assign courses to team members in Intuit Accountant Suite
● Role-Based Access Controls: Delegate tasks with customizable roles and permissions, enabling compliance and efficient management of accounting, bookkeeping, payroll services, and more.
● Unique Client Identification: Assign a firm-specific Client Number to each client for streamlined searching, tracking, and billing, reducing manual effort.
● Optimized Performance: Experience more responsive performance, regardless of client volume, with a modern infrastructure designed for scalability.
● Books Close at Scale (currently in Beta): Standardize the review and close process with customizable templates and progress tracking to ensure on-time client delivery.
● AI-powered Client Insights (currently in Beta): A new Client Insights feature provides firm-wide client analytics and benchmarking for more informed business decision-making.
As for its latest product line, Intuit had much to share on its present and future in AI. For example…Intuit Intelligence.
At the core of Intuit’s all-in-one platform transformation is Intuit Intelligence, a system of intelligence that aims to unify a business’s data and provide access to a team of AI agents across all financial pillars—including growing and managing customers, payments, payroll, accounting, and tax.
Intuit Intelligence is simple, ‘Ask Anything’ in its nature. Core features include:
● Instant, Accurate Answers: Customers can ask any business question—from “How do I turn leads into sales?” to “What’s my projected profitability?” — and receive immediate, data-backed answers and customized recommendations that drive growth.
● Automated Task Completion: Simply use a prompt, like “Run my payroll,” to complete complex tasks automatically, or build custom solutions that provide businesses with actionable insights that matter most to them.
● Actionable Insights: Securely ingesting data from Intuit sources, third-party systems, and spreadsheets, Intuit Intelligence will instantly generate rich insights, reports, and KPI scorecards that drive confident, faster decisions.
An All-in-One platform
Intuit’s new, all-in-one platform, powered by Intuit Intelligence, features a virtual team of AI agents and “trusted human experts” who together deliver data-backed insights and recommendations designed to drive faster, more confident decisions.
New and enhanced AI agents, along with a deeper integration of human expertise, introduced across the platform include:
● A Sales Tax Agent:(new) Will help keep a business compliant by charging the correct sales tax for products and services, identifying potential sales tax issues, and suggesting fixes before filing.
● A Payroll Agent: (new) Helps ensure payroll is run accurately and on time by proactively collecting hours directly from employees, spotting anomalies, generating insights, and sending a ready-to-approve payroll draft via text.
● Accounting Agent: (enhanced) Expanded anomaly detection, AI-powered reconciliations, and more accurate automated transaction categorizations across classes and dimensions are designed to deliver cleaner, more accurate books.
● Project Management Agent: (enhanced) Now converts signed contracts into projects during project setup and provides deeper project profitability insights that take into account changes in project scope or item cost increases, all summarized on a refreshed project overview dashboard.
Enhancements to Enterprise Suite, a mid-market product, and Intuit’s answer to the long-standing issue of what to do when a company “outgrows” QBO.
Expanded and enhanced capabilities in the Intuit Enterprise Suite include:
● Access to More Intuit AI Agents: Run all aspects of a remote team, from project management to finance, payroll, payments, and more, that deliver data-backed insights designed to save time and drive faster, better decision-making.
● Faster Onboarding: Improved data importing and AI-driven suggestions will standardize Chart of Accounts across entities, and with new dimension capabilities, businesses optimize operations, focus on higher-value work, and simplify transaction management.
● Advanced Multi-Entity Management: Expanded user controls and advanced multi-entity reporting will improve financial accuracy and decision-making. A new consolidated control center allows businesses to manage apps, such as payroll, across entities, while AI-powered automations detect anomalies, execute tasks, and surface personalized insights and actions.
● Enhanced Reporting and KPI Dashboards: An extended catalog of financial and non-financial reports, combined with intelligent KPI dashboards, will deliver deeper, organization-wide insights into business performance.
● Industry-Specific Editions: Beginning with construction, Intuit Enterprise Suite will soon offer tailored workflows, capabilities, and tools designed for larger, more complex, multi-entity construction businesses, helping them win and deliver more profitable projects on time.
Conclusion
As I mentioned, these product and program offerings are only scratching the surface of where Intuit is headed. From a product perspective, like the big, bold statement it made 15 years ago about being “all in” with cloud, it appears to be following suit by going “all in” with AI, as every product and service it offers will be AI enhanced.
This again begs the issue of partnership. Will the level of product offerings be enough to keep the accountants who have long supported the QuickBooks brand and most tools Intuit as a company has rolled out for them and their clients?
One must also look to its third-party partnerships as well. How long will it make sense for integration partnerships to last when Intuit’s future is headed towards an AI-powered suite approach?
At this moment in time the future for Intuit, which has leaned more into its brand recognition than that of its individual products, seems fairly bright. Whether its accountant and product partners share that future and vision remains to be seen.