QuickBooks® Online new features and improvements – February 2021

Did you know that you can manage your firm’s books for free in QuickBooks Online Accountant? Now, that experience gets better with access to QuickBooks Online Advanced features. Advanced enables you to gain deeper insights into your firm’s performance, more efficiently manage work within your team, and spend less time on bills and expenses. These features will be in addition to the functionality already available and will not impact your data or existing processes.

Rollout of QuickBooks Advanced features to QuickBooks Online Accountant subscriptions will be phased. Our goal is to provide you access to these tools by the end of April, but sometimes we encounter unexpected delays. To ensure that we don’t interfere with your critical tax time work, we will not migrate any accounts between April 1 and April 15.

Learn more, or get started today, by taking the QuickBooks Online Advanced specialty training, found within the ProAdvisor® tab of QuickBooks Online Accountant.  

Coming soon: Autopay on recurring invoices, Schedule Pay on single invoices

In a nutshell: When sending invoices through QuickBooks, business owners can now offer their clients the option to set up automatic payments for future dates.

QuickBooks now gives small businesses and their customers two options:

• Send a recurring invoice with online payments enabled. This allows the small business’ customer the option to enable autopay. Their customers can save their payment information to pay every recurring invoice automatically, on time.
• Send a single invoice with online payments enabled. This allows the small business’ customer the option to schedule their payment for a specific, future date they want to pay their bill. It must be before, or on, the due date set by the small business.

Autopay and Schedule Pay are available for both credit card and ACH transactions. For more information on QuickBooks Payments pricing, click here.

New chart of accounts experience for service-based sole proprietors 

In a nutshell: Experience a new, customized Schedule C chart of accounts to improve bookkeeping entries for customers that identify as sole proprietors of service-based businesses.

The chart of accounts is frequently misused by first-time QuickBooks Online users, which could result in messy books. We’ve now introduced an improved search experience for accounts, customized accounts based on line items in schedule C, and guardrails on account creation in Business View.

The new default chart of accounts experience for sole proprietors includes:

• An enhanced search tool, so that you can use your own words to find accounts (category dropdown).
• Accounts organized in high-level buckets that make more sense to small businesses (category drawer).

With these improvements, we hope to help your clients stay more compliant and track business insights with ease.

Cash Flow Center improvements in QuickBooks Cash

In a nutshell: Now, you can see credit card and loan balances in Cash Flow Center for a more accurate snapshot of your business finances.

The upgraded “all accounts” section will allow business owners to see how much money they have across their accounts, including outstanding credit card and loan balances. Instead of having to check multiple accounts, clients can have just one place to understand and determine next steps for cash flow.

• New Money-in section shows overdue invoices, upcoming invoices, paid (not deposited) invoices, estimates, and unbilled time activity.
• New Money-out section highlights upcoming bills, overdue bills, sales tax, and payroll.

QuickBooks mobile receipt capture categorization

In a nutshell: Match receipts to transactions from the QuickBooks mobile app. 

QuickBooks Online app users can get more done – from snapping receipts to categorizing them. Everything can be done from the app. Perfect for those on the go! 

Simplified search in QuickBooks Online Accountant

In a nutshell: Improved search functionality in QuickBooks Online Accountant.     

You can now easily search by tags, customer address or telephone number, or use multiple search criteria at once. From type ahead searches (predictive phrases you can select from) to search history and navigation, the same progressive features we have grown accustomed to with everyday search engines will now be available in the QuickBooks universe.

Advisory training for ProAdvisors

In a nutshell: For ProAdvisors looking to expand their skills and offer advisory services, we now offer new advisory on-demand training. You can complete this multi-part series at your own pace, gaining advanced insights on how to successfully advise your clients.

The topics covered include how to best frame your advisory work, deep dives into the core of advisory practice, and taking your advising skills to the next level. To learn more about each series, visit this site.

Wells Fargo now supported in Statement Auto-Import

In a nutshell: Wells Fargo statements are now automatically imported into QuickBooks Online.

During reconciliation, statement auto-import allows statements from supported banks to be viewed directly within QuickBooks. Wells Fargo joins the list of more than 3,000 supported banks.

If you are enrolled for statement auto-import and have banks we don’t currently support, you or your client can upload and attach the statement to the specific account, so that it’s available for you when it’s time to reconcile.

Contractor Payments upgrade to Payroll

In a nutshell: Small businesses using Contractor Payments can now upgrade to Core, Premium, or Elite Payroll in a few clicks.

With easy upgrade capabilities, new and existing Contractor Payments users can navigate to the Billing and Subscriptions page to manage their plan. After selecting “Upgrade to Payroll,” they can confirm their billing payment information, and make the plan change in seconds.

Terminology change: “Master admin” to “Primary admin”

In a nutshell: We’re changing the term “Master admin” to “Primary admin” across the QuickBooks ecosystem.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are priorities at Intuit®. In support of this mission, we are actively replacing the term “Master admin” with “Primary admin” throughout our products. There are no changes to user permissions or experience. This terminology has already been updated in the QuickBooks Online “Manage users” section and will be updated throughout the QuickBooks ecosystem in the near future.