QuickBooks Online new features and improvements – January 2024

Happy New Year! We wish you and your clients a joyful, prosperous, and productive 2024. Jan. 13 is National Vision Board Day, an opportune time to put your business goals down on paper in order to help you put them in motion. To help you achieve your vision, here are the latest updates that can save you time and money.

Your Feedback in Action

This is a regular series where we share relevant product improvements specifically driven by feedback from accountants. See the December edition for the latest updates.

What’s new in January

Revenue recognition updates in QuickBooks Online Advanced

Coming soon: QuickBooks Solopreneur

Forecasting in QuickBooks Online Advanced

New 5.00% APY on QuickBooks Checking Envelopes

Start 2024 right with HR support through QuickBooks Online Payroll

Revenue recognition updates in QuickBooks Online Advanced

In a nutshell: The revenue recognition standard (known as ASC 606) is a generally accepted accounting principle regarding how and when revenue should be recognized. 

With QuickBooks Online Advanced, you can automatically recognize revenue when it’s earned. That means clients with accrual accounting businesses no longer need to rely on third-party apps or complex spreadsheets to track recurring revenue or manually move funds from a liability account to an asset account. They can get more of the revenue recognition functionality they need with new customizations, edits, and adjustments—with more to come.

Here’s what’s new:

• More flexibility: QuickBooks automatically calculates a revenue recognition schedule, but to suit different scenarios, your client can edit a schedule after saving an invoice. While this functionality can help many kinds of clients, project-based customers will benefit the most.

• Simplified editing and deleting: Clients can now add products or delete product line items on an invoice or sales receipt, or void an invoice or sales receipt for any reason after the fact.

• Adjustable pricing and dates: Clients can now adjust the price of a revenue recognition item. Before the schedule begins to post, they can also revise the service date of a line item.

Learn more

Coming soon: QuickBooks Solopreneur

In a nutshell: Solopreneurs are one-person businesses, like sole proprietors or single-member LLCs (Schedule C tax-filers), whose business is their primary source of income. While QuickBooks Self-Employed has been serving solopreneurs for many years, we recognized an opportunity to better deliver on the needs of customers who prefer to manage their own day-to-day books,* and as a result, developed QuickBooks Solopreneur. 

QuickBooks Solopreneur includes improved features, new tools to help drive growth, a simpler user interface, and easier connections to other QuickBooks services and tools. It keeps the user interface simple by maintaining single-entry bookkeeping on the front end, but uses double-entry bookkeeping in the background for easy reconciliation. This allows businesses to add additional services and have a more seamless upgrade process as they grow. It also has a simplified setup, along with added flexibility and productivity tools.

The redesigned transaction management tools in QuickBooks Solopreneur automatically separate business and personal transactions using predetermined categories for easy review; this helps maximize tax deductions. Coming soon, QuickBooks Solopreneur will also include access to QuickBooks Live Tax, so these Schedule C filers can prepare current tax year returns with unlimited expert help to get every credit they deserve. They can start for free and pay only when they file.*

Note: Through QuickBooks Online Accountant, you’ll soon be able to add Solopreneur for your clients and use its features like double-entry accounting.

How is Solopreneur different from QuickBooks Ledger?

While clients using QuickBooks Ledger and Solopreneur may share similar needs, these two solutions differ in several ways:

• Ledger focuses on necessary accountant workflows for low-transaction clients and doesn’t include invoicing, payments, estimates, sales/receipts, or the ability to manage/pay bills.
• Ledger offers accountants a customizable Chart of Accounts.
• Ledger suits self-employed/one-person businesses working with an accountant for year-end, or once-a-year tax prep and filing that don’t have their own accounting software.
• Self-employed clients who want QuickBooks to help run their business should opt for QuickBooks Solopreneur or another QuickBooks Online subscription.
• Solopreneur offers several key features that can be used on a mobile device, including mileage tracking; Ledger is only accessible via web browser.
• A self-employed/one-person business cannot purchase Ledger on their own—only accountants can purchase Ledger—and only via QuickBooks Online Accountant.

*Important pricing details and product information

Manage their own books: Initially at product launch, Accountants will not be able to add QuickBooks Solopreneur customers.

Tax filing: Fees apply for QuickBooks Live Tax services. 

Forecasting in QuickBooks Online Advanced

In a nutshell: Get clearer insights on your or your clients’ financial future with forecasting in QuickBooks Online Advanced.

With the new feature, you and your clients can create a Profit & Loss (P&L) forecast of up to 3 years, right in QuickBooks. This saves you and your clients time you may have spent manually exporting data from QuickBooks Online to spreadsheets or outside forecasting tools.

Plus, when you build a forecast in QuickBooks, you can be confident it uses the latest data without the risk of errors from manual entry.

To use this new feature, select Financial planning from the left menu, then Forecasts. 

You can build a P&L forecast from either a prior year’s actuals or an average of the actuals from the prior 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. After creating your client’s forecast, you can convert it into their new budget. You can even create rules to forecast specific accounts by a percentage.

Learn more

New 5.00% APY on QuickBooks Checking Envelopes

In a nutshell: Your clients’ funds in Envelopes in QuickBooks Checking now earn an annual percentage yield (APY) of 5.00%, an increase from the previous APY of 1.75%. That means every dollar they put away in envelopes earns interest at an industry-leading rate that’s 70x the national average.*

Not familiar with Envelopes? Your clients can use them to set aside cash for expenses and keep budgets organized, and they’re right in QuickBooks Checking (accessible via QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Money).* They can create up to nine Envelopes to meet their business needs for payroll, taxes, rainy day funds, equipment, or other expenses.  When they want to spend the money set aside in Envelopes, they can move funds instantly to their main Checking account.

Learn more

Start 2024 right with HR support through QuickBooks Online Payroll

In a nutshell: Many business owners struggle to manage compliance, especially with new 401(k) state mandates becoming effective across the country,and new laws such as SECURE 2.0 that impacts retirement benefits.

If you have clients using QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium and QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite, they can access HR support at no additional cost.

Clients using QuickBooks Online Payroll Premium can get help staying compliant and navigating legal changes heading into the new year with the HR Support Center, offered through our partner, Mineral HR.

Those using QuickBooks Online Payroll Elite can also access unlimited live expert support through HR Expert Advisory to help answer personalized questions about hiring, termination, compliance, benefits, and other key HR topics.

For clients using QuickBooks Payroll for the first time, be sure to let them know that their new HR support can help keep them up-to-date with annual compliance requirements, from basic needs such as workers’ comp insurance and required training, to the latest compliance news.

Learn more

* Important pricing details and product information

QuickBooks Checking account: Banking services provided by and the QuickBooks Visa® Debit Card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to license from Visa U.S.A., Inc. Green Dot Bank operates under the following registered trade names: GoBank, GO2bank and Bonneville Bank. All of these registered trade names are used by, and refer to, a single FDIC-insured bank, Green Dot Bank. Deposits under any of these trade names are deposits with Green Dot Bank and are aggregated for deposit insurance coverage up to the allowable limits. Green Dot is a registered trademark of Green Dot Corporation. 

©2024 Green Dot Corporation. All rights reserved. QuickBooks products and services, including Instant Deposit, QuickBooks Payments, Cash flow planning / forecasting are not provided by Green Dot Bank.

Annual percentage yield: The annual percentage yield (“APY”) is accurate as of December 13, 2023 and may change at our discretion at any time. The listed APY will be paid on the average daily available balances distributed across your created envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account. Balances held outside an envelope will not earn interest. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions.

Envelopes: You can create up to 9 Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account. Money in Envelopes must be moved to the available balance in your primary QuickBooks Checking account before it can be used. Envelopes within your primary QuickBooks Checking account will automatically earn interest once created. At the close of each statement cycle, the interest earned on funds in your Envelopes will be credited to each Envelope in proportion to the average daily balance of each Envelope. See Deposit Account Agreement for terms and conditions.

# Claims

1. Over 70x U.S. average APY: Average interest rate: The average interest rate is based on the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s national rate published the week of December 18, 2023. Learn more. Terms, conditions, pricing, special features, and service and support options subject to change without notice.

2. Industry-leading APY: Competitive rate information based on publicly available data for small business checking accounts provided by the largest national and online banks as of December 18, 2023. APYs are subject to change at any time.