I am a big Intuit fan, but Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND INTUIT.
SUMMARY: Intuit makes QuickBooks Users waste $1 Billion a Year. It gives 42,000 people, paying $449 a year (under $20 million), deliberately misleading QuickBooks ProAdvisor titles. Top Intuit execs know so-called Advisors need know NOTHING about QuickBooks and that QuickBooks users do not know how the untested Advisors differ from Intuit trained and tested Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors (QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors). Intuit execs also know that almost all user complaints against ProAdvisors relate to the so-called Advsors. Finally, they know a QuickBooks ProAdvisor title helps consultants average about $20 more per hour. This means Intuit has QuickBooks Users waste $1.26 BILLION a year on 42,000 overpaid QuickBooks consultants ($20 an hour for 1,500 billable hours a year).
A year-old Intuit rate survey shows QuickBooks consultants made $43 an hour. QuickBooks (uncertified) ProAdvisors made $59 and QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors made $60. This is interesting, until you understand what it means. Then you too should say Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND INTUIT.
To understand this you must know that a QuickBooks consultant is anyone who call himself that. There is no required education, training or test. Some QuickBooks consultants, and some of the 42,000 uncertified ProAdvisors, know a lot about QuickBooks. However, uncertified Advisors need no more QuickBooks knowledge than self-designated QuickBooks consultants (NONE AT ALL). They need not even USE QuickBooks, study training material or pass a test. They can simply use Intuit as a diploma mill by paying it $449 a year. That is a very cheap diploma mill, as ProAdvisor software and support is worth much more than its package cost.
This is actually the cheapest way for end users to buy many not-for-resale copies of QuickBooks and the best Intuit support. These end users can, as uncertified Advisors, buy this software from Intuit for around a third less than Intuit sells it to ProAdvisors for resale. I believe uncertified, untested so-called QuickBooks ProAdvisors do not sign agreements saying they are or plan to use Advisor software in QuickBooks consulting. They cannot resell it, but can just as easily use it in their construction, real estate or other business. Only QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors agree to use the software in a QuickBooks consulting business, That clearly Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors, as Intuit creates and maintains a system that encourages misuse, while making no effort to stop the misuse it encourages.
Around 15,000 QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors pay Intuit $449 a year AND spend around 16 hours studying for and passing an extensive QuickBooks test. It often takes much more than 16 hours to pass this test the first time. This gives us the QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisor title and a listing in the Intuit Find Accountant website. For more prominent listings we can study and pass this test annually. Studying more, and passing other Intuit tests, can give us still more QuickBooks titles and more prominent Find Accountant listings. It does not, however, give us better Intuit discounts, support or training material compared to uncertifiied Advisors.
Intuit now says QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors earn $21 more per hour by becoming Certified. There is, however, no reason to believe that the extra $4 per hour increase, between consultants and QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors (compared to last year) means there was an increase in the $1 difference between the prior rate for uncertified Advisors and QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors. To the contrary, not revealing the current difference between these groups makes it look like Intuit is trying to cover up the ridiculous and statistically insignificant $1 margin disclosed last year. Surely the billable spread, between QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors and its uncertified and untested diploma buyers, should be very important to Intuit, QuickBooks users, QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors and uncertified Advisors. Under the current system, that spread is the main reason (if not the only reason) for the uncertified Advisor to become Certified, thereby improving their knowledge and the quality of their service to QuickBooks users.
Until recently Intuit gave these not necessarily QuickBooks educated or tested uncertified QuickBooks consultants, called QuickBooks ProAdvisors, about three times the client referrals it gave QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors. This was because there are about three times as many uncertified ProAdvisors and Intuit had them in its Expert Locator search. It still wrongly has the Expert Locator come before the Find Accountant search for Certified ProAdvisors. The Expert Locator also still wrongly presents prospective Certified ProAdvisors based only on distance, not on the Intuit-tested qualifications used in Find Accountant. Intuit Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors by not having Find Accountant before Expert Locator, and not making the merit-based Find Accountant its one way to find QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors and Advanced.
I do not say Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND INTUIT simply because it seems obvious that Certified ProAdvisors will provide more informed high- quality service. I say it because top people at Intuit told us exactly this at 2002 QuickBooks ProAdvisor Advisory Council meetings.This Council was unusual in that Intuit publicised the names of members in its initial announcement. It also was unusual in that Intuit agreed we would be its conduit in receiving and transmitting information to and from QuickBooks Advisors and users, thereby negating non-disclosure agreements. As I previously often discussed publicly, these top Intuit people said that complaints against uncertified Advisors and Certified ProAdvisors showed that almost all complaints were against uncertified Advisors. Therefore, Intuit wanted our approval to gradually drop the uncertied Advisors from its Find Accountant database. We approved unanimously and Intuit did this. It never later explained or apologized for its long-term terrible mistake, in temporarily reversing this decision with the Expert Locator search.
Now you can begin to understand why I say Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users, while it Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors. There is no reason to believe uncertified Advisors know any more, or are worth any more than QuickBooks consultants. Any QuickBooks consultant can buy equivalent training material and support. It is clear that only the Intuit-created QuickBooks ProAdvisor title and Intuit marketing makes these uncertified, untested, so-called Advisors inherently worth $20 more per hour than self-designated QuickBooks consultants.
The probable continuing $1 per hour differece, between billing rates for uncertified Advisors and QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors, shows conclusively that QuickBooks users do not understand or value differences between these groups. This can only be due to the QuickBooks ProAdvisor name and Intuit marketing. Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users, as there is no reason to believe that uncertified ProAdvisors are worth $20 more per hour. Multiply this $20 an hour by say 1,500 billable hours per year, and by 42,000 uncertified ProAdvisors. That gives you $1.26 BILLION. This means Intuit Wastes not $1 Billion, but $1.26 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND INTUIT.
The 16 hours it takes to study and pass the QuickBooks test are worth an average of $1,008, at the probably current $63 an hour rate for uncertified Advisors. The extra annual QuickBooks Certified Pro Advisor billing is $1,500 a year, with the same 1,500 billable hours.at $1 an hour. The fact that there are now around 42,000 uncertified ProAdvisors, versus 14,000 Certified ProAdvisors, show that this offers little incentive to pass the Certified test. All this is completely contrary to the interest of Intuit in getting better quality support for its QuickBooksusers and more justified respect for QuickBooks and QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors. To me, Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND, MOST OF ALL, INTUIT.
I do not want to say that Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users and Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND ITSELF, but it apparently will not stop until many say it. I dropped QuickBooks ProAdvisor memberships for two staff people, both as a protest and because Intuit has been making multiple QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors such a waste of money. I also ended $4,000+ in TurboTax ProSeries payments, partly for this reason. This will be the first year I will not use TurboTax or ProSeries since around 1983. That means this already cost Intuit more than $5,500.
Intuit can quickly fix this. New and renewing uncertified QuickBooks ProAdvisors should be Provisional QuickBooks ProAdvisors or something like that, if given any title. There also should be limits on how long someone can be in this status. Such limits apply to Student members of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and many similar groups. Until there are changes, Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users, while it Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND INTUIT.
I cannot understand Intuit becoming a giant diploma mill, when its number one operating value is Integrity Without Compromise. I especially cannot understand it when it is hurting itself and the quality of the support for QuickBooks, its flagship product. I can only conclude that some of its outstanding employees, who I always value as friends, have not taken the time to fully read what I and others have said about this. They also may simply be unwilling to admit to one mistake, in their near perfect records. I will gladly admit my mistakes if anyone comments below or to me privately. I also will remind my QuickBooks friends that Scott Cook built Intuit by creating products and services based on customer directed innovation.
I never compare myselt to personable geniuses like Steve Bennett, Intuit Director and former CEO. In less than six years he quadrupled Intuit revenue and tripled net. One way he did this was by having an attitude that let him write that I should, "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong." He wrote this because I announced a one day boycott of TurboTax, while using only ProSeries and on a ProSeries Advisory Council. However, then as now, I only raise hell about Intuit mistakes that hurt Intuit users and thereby hurt Intuit's ability to keep helping us.
Steve may have known that encouraging such hell raising can help you do an even better job. I have since spent thousands hours on Intuit's behalf, as I am doing now. Brad Smith, the equally amazing current Intuit CEO, told me Steve asked him to contact me even before Brad reported to work. He did, and two Intuit websites were the direct result. These, my persistent Almost Inside Intuit push for tech-support-backed user-to-user forums (not phones on hold for an hour) let Brad later deliver faster and better tech support, with 7% less staff.
Brad also said he reads everything I write to Intuit, so I hope this will end soon: Intuit Wastes $1 Billion a Year for QuickBooks Users, Damages QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors AND ITSELF. If not, maybe the Intuit Green Snapshot should report on this gigantic waste.
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