QuickBooks Ledger, the Next Simple, Great Thing

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At last week's QuickBooks Connect, Intuit announced the addition of something they call QuickBooks Ledger. There was, in my estimation, based upon my own applause-o-meter, a mixed reaction to this product. 

I tend to think that mixed reaction came from not fully understanding what QuickBooks Ledger was. I must admit that even when I first went to the QuickBooks Booth inside the exhibit hall at QBC, I still couldn't exactly figure out if this was a stand-alone cloud product, an add-in, or what.

It wasn't until I had a 1-on-1 briefing with Ashleigh Sutter, Director of US Accountant Sales at Intuit, that I fully understood the nature of the product and its potential uses.

QuickBooks Ledger is a very cost-effective QuickBooks Online SKU, currently priced at $10/month/subscription, not including bulk-subscription discounts, designed for QuickBooks Online Accountants to serve their clients with basic accounting needs and year-end tax filing. QB-Ledger is only billed through firm billing; with ProAdvisor pricing, it is not available for direct client billing, nor can a client directly subscribe to QB-Ledger.

Like QuickBooks Online Accountant, QuickBooks Ledger was designed exclusively for accounting professionals. A QBO-Accountant user can add a QB-Ledger subscription to handle the 'preparation' of a client's financial information sufficient to pass that information seamlessly into software for tax preparation. Don't get me wrong; the software doesn't have to be used, only at year's end.

A QBO-Accountant user could use QB-Ledger to prepare the client's financial information for any period, month-end, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual. Remember that this is NOT a bookkeeping or accounting system; it's an accounting ledger that, in effect, is used to prepare a trial balance. 

It's just another simplification of the basic QuickBooks Online product but has fewer features than 'simple start.' (See the comparison between QuickBooks Ledger and QBO Simple Start below.)

Yet this new QBO SKU simplifies manual workflows through automation, allowing accountants and their staff to focus on higher-value clients and services.

To accomplish the fundamentals of QB-Ledger, QBO features like automated bank feeds, bank reconciliation, financial statements, and 1099 tracking are all incorporated within the product. 

QuickBooks Ledger lets QBO-Accountant users take a client's information from raw data to trial balance to prep-for-taxes in a simple, easy to use workflow. (Murph)

While only QBO-Accountant users can initiate a QB-Ledger SKU, and there are 2 QBO-Accountant user accesses with each subscription, the QBO-Accountant can create a 'Client Admin' Access to garner the assistance of the client to review bank information, review transactions, and to view reports. 

Many accounting clerks, junior or student bookkeepers, and other para-professionals working in larger accounting firms typically rely on spreadsheets to prepare data ledgers for after-the-fact and basic write-up clients. In many instances, these preparers do not ever communicate directly with clients. 

That data prepared by these staff members is then passed on to their supervisor for review. That individual may be the first level of contact with a client to obtain additional information or clarify 'sketchy' data. 

Only some of these people may actually be QuickBooks Online Accountant users; however, with the new QB-Ledger, these individuals are the perfect examples of product users. They both can access the data and even include the client in a review capacity. When the data is clean, they can prepare it for preliminary reporting and seamless transition to the tax application, where the next staff level will review and finalize it. 

QuickBooks Ledger may end up incorporating an accountant's back-off staff into the ranks of QBO-Accountant users and the ProAdvisor community. (Murph)

In discussing this scenario with Ms. Sutter, it became apparent that at least one, if not two, levels of historically non-QBO-Accountant users might suddenly be added to the mix, and further that those individuals could potentially become QuickBooks ProAdvisors with a focus solely on QB-Ledger.

QB Ledger helps you streamline operations and increase efficiency by bringing more clients into QuickBooks Online Accountant, reducing time spent switching between accounting solutions.

The QuickBooks Ledger SKU enables QuickBooks Online Accountant users to manage end-to-end client data workflows that will look something like this:

1) Configure the client and their chart-of-accounts

  • Set-up the client
  • Create a new COA or use the default
  • Use the new COA template feature to standardize clients

2) Import the client's transactions

  • Import bank or credit card data with bank feeds
  • Upload transactions via Excel spreadsheet
  • Create or import journal entries

3) Manage 1099 requirements

  • Add or import vendor information
  • Map transactions to vendors
  • File 1099s via QB-Ledger or export to other 1099 software

4) Reconcile accounts and review

  • Use QBO Books review to reconcile transactions and accounts
  • Prepare and review the Trial Balance
  • Review Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet

5) Finalize for Tax Preparation

  • Use Prep-for-tax inside QBO-A to transition data to Pro-Connect Tax
  • Prep final data to transfer or export to other tax software

Initially available in the United States, QuickBooks Ledger will soon be launched in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

For more information, visit this official Intuit QuickBooks website.

Disclosures

Feature content, including graphic materials were adapted from Intuit media source content. Content created or otherwise adapted by Insightful Accountant from Intuit source content is furnished for educational purposes only.

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