What is a so-called QuickBooks ProAdvisors (QPA)? This is a completely misleading title, because they are clearly not QuickBooks PROFESSIONAL Advisors.
An Intuit Survey (last year) said: (self-designated) QuickBooks consultants (QC) bill $43/hour. Uncertified QuickBooks ProAdvisors (QPA), who need know nothing about QuickBooks or ever use it - $59/hour. My 5th grade grandson can qualify if he pays Intuit $449/year. Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors (CQPA) $60/hour. This year the spread between QC and CQPA is $21/hour, but there is likely still only around a $1 spread between the uncertified QPA and the CQPA. To me this means that QuickBooks users do not know QPA and CQPA differences. This makes many QuickBooks users waste an extra $16 - $20/ QPA hour, because Intuit acts as a diploma mill. 42,000 QPAs, times $16 to $20/hour times 1,500 hours = $1 billion to $1.25 billion a year. That is why QuickBooks users waste a billion dollars a year on these so-called QuickBooks Professional Advisors.
This badly damages Certified QuickBooks Professional Advisors, who only average an extra $1/hour more. It takes around 16 hours (CPA Continuing Education Credit), times an estimated $63/hour (QCPA billing rate), or around $1,000 to become a CQPA. This is obviously too costly for the extra $1,500 in annual earnings, as there are 42,000 uncertified QPAs compared to 15,000 CQPAs.
Do not say you charge more, as many do, including me. These are the official Intuit averages. Then consider that Intuit told my 2002 Advisory Council that nearly all complaints against QPAs and CQPAs were against uncertified QPAs. Next, tell me why Intuit should let such complaint-prone uncertified QPAs take advantage of obviously uninformed QuickBooks users.
I am not asking for Intuit to stop educating, supporting or giving discounts to these uncertified and unproven QPAs. However, why should these QCs have this grossly misleading QPA title before proving they are QuickBooks PROFESSIONAL Advisors? Why is Intuit wasting a billion a year for QuickBooks users, while badly damaging Certified QuickBooks Advisors?
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