Well, the QuickBooks Online Community now has a newslettter blog, which is easy to sign up for and if you do, you will get the latest news from Mountain View (our home offices), our other offices (the two biggest in Tucson and San Diego) and all the buzz about what is happening on the QuickBooks Online Community site. So, sign up and keep in the loop.
We are slowly doing more and more podcasts. Like they say, all good things take time. And we have a great way to learn what is really going on out there on the web.. and I recommend you do what we are doing. Check out the Open Culture website. Lots of great podcasts -- most of them are University related, but hey... good things are happening in our schools these days. : )
We just launched the QuickBooks Year End Center -- to help you with your taxes. it will be a guide to help you perform the most common tasks (and taxes) -- that you and your accountant (or bookkeeper) need to take care of in the next few months.
Last week, Intuit purchased Digital Insight, which provides banking services to approximately 1700 mid-sized banks. Together, both companies will serve more than 5,000 financial institutions, nearly 25 million consumers and nearly 7 million small businesses. The acquisition will combine our customer-driven innovation with Digital Insight's best-in-class distribution and application service provider model. (I am looking forward to learning from them -- especially about ASP operations).
Why the purchase? One reason is to try to sell functionality of our record-keeping software as a service through banks, letting small businesses create, send, and get paid for invoices, all online at a bank's site. With millions of QuickBooks customers, we think we have some insight inot small business' needs. We admit, though, there's always more we can learn. (Any suggestions on how to gain more insight into their needs?)
We learned from our tax return business how quickly packaged software can move to a Web service. Last year for the first time, more people used the online version of our Turbo Tax web service than the desktop version.
Like a lot of companies, especially in the small business space, we are looking at how we can leverage the web better. Today's Internet banking's customer base consists of 35 million households and is growing at a double-digit clip... and becoming more and more mainstream.
So, we are doing our research on this growing industry...doing our research about the evolving Internet banking industry..... Any advice for us? Any treands you suggest we follow? Any resources we can learn from? Any research you think we should do?
Got a call from an old friend of mine today who wants to start their own business, but told me they are a bit scared to get started. I listened for a while and then suggested that they just jump in and launch their Pet Store in Ashville, NC. Here are some things I told them:
- make sure you have a local support group of small businesses to bounce ideas off of
- make sure you cultivate a relationship with the loan officer at the bank
- make sure you start simple -- and not take on too much inventory
- make sure you keep costs down at first -- with a few magazine subscriptions, low phone bills (maybe use skype), simple internet access, etc.
- make sure to hire college students cause they have great enthusiasm and are hungry to learn the business
- make sure you find a good accountant (maybe even check out QuickBooksGroup.com to find one : )
- make sure you ask a lot of questions (a little curiosity goes a long way)
- make sure you have a business plan -- or at least some revenue goals
so what did i leave out? i am sure i could have given my friends some more tips
Recently, I was asked why I thought accountants should blog. Well, here it goes.
1. It is a great way to practice your creative writing
2. It is a great way to let potential clients know what you are thinking -- including your inner most thoughts
3. It is a lot cheaper than building a website; all it takes is a few bucks (or you can do it fro free)
4. It is very therapeutic and will make you forget our client's complaining (and their shoe boxes of receipts)
5. It is a great way to let your mom know what you are doing on a day-to-day basis
6. It is a great way to get away from (mostly) numbers for a while
7. It is a great way to stand out in the web crowd
8. It is a great way to let other blogs, web magazines, printed
magazines that you have something to say and therefore they should
consider publishing your work.
9. It is a great way of virtually tapping someone on the shoulder' and
telling them you have something to say without really bein intrusive
10. It provides an alternative finger exercise to working out on a calculator
11. It is a great way to connect with younger clients (they will know your cool (opps, I just showed my age with that word)
12. It is a good thing to do when you can't fall asleep at 2 am.
13. It is a good distraction from your real work.
SO, why do you do it?
Well, I just thought I would take this opportunity to wish you and your business partners, friends and family Happy Thanksgiving. It is hard to believe that the year is winding down. The online Community team really has enjoyed working with our customers, business partners and co-workers. So, we do have a lot to be thankful for.
Enjoy the weekend, drive safely and calculate those numbers correctly.
QuickBooksGuy
Follow up to my last post:
Joey Carstensen 'aka Joey' passed away today. As I mentioned earlier, she was responsible for over 2000 posts on the QuickBooks Online Community site. And this doesn't even include the number of posts she answered on other Intuit websites, such as the Accountants website, or even on other QuickBooks websites, such as QuickBooksUsers.com. And those are only the ones I know about. I am sure she touched many other people via other websites, email, the phone and snail mail.
I learned a lot from her -- from a distance by reading her posts and when I talked to her --- And not just about our products but also about the importance of community -- be it online or offline. I remember calling her up once on the phone and asking her for some additional feedback on the site. She eventually told me that she had some sort of illness that prevented her from going to an office or interacting with people in person on a frequent basis. I remember her telling me that she was grateful for the Internet because it enabled her to help others from a distance as well as be part of a community. It enabled her to just help others just because she liked to help them and because she liked the interaction with others. I learned a lot from that conversation because it made me realize that we (the Online Community team) is doing more than just building a website or answering users questions. We are helping users connect with each other. We are bringing people together from all over the country -- and all over the world (we have users from India, Canada, UK, Australia and some other places).
Joey has shown me that you can get to know someone quite well and learn from someone by interacting with them online. This is an important lesson as we all begin to use Online Communities more and more in our lives.
Joey, you are in our thoughts.
- The Intuit Online Community team
The QuickBooks Online Community website has been online for just about 20 months. And over this time, the Intuit team has gotten to know some of its key answer people quite well. We not only interact with them online, but also offline (via the phone, in person meetings, etc.)
I have to admit that I do love talking to our users -- especially those that are really active on our boards and blogs, and willing to help others. So, I was caught off guard the other day that Joey, one of our top users, had become ill. To be honest, I do not know exactly what is wrong with her and I am not even sure I should be blogging about this. All I can tell you is that Joey is an amazing individual -- not only always challenging us to improve the site and user experience (we had certain search features because she told us we had to have them)-- but also willing to help her other users.
Check this out. During our first 20 months, she has posted over 2000 times. That is an amazing number. Sure she might get some leads from helpingusers, but I doubt that is really why she does it. She participates because she is likes to help Small Businesses like herself.
So it is Saturday evening.. and I just thought I would let Joey know that we (her fellow users, Intuit, small business owners, etc.) are thinking of her.
Well, I know I am supposed to really be the Small Biz Wiz and blog about some of the finances issues Small Businesses deal with. Well, I spent all night watching TV about the looming crisis with North Korea (I have a grad(ual) degree in Asian studies, so this stuff really interests me) and while I was watching I could not help but think about Iraq (OK -- here we go, I am supposed to keep politics out of my blogs postings, but I can't). The war is not nearly as close to home for me as it for some of the people I work with. Some of them served in the military and one person has a son who just returned from Iraq after getting wounded. Needless to say, this is impacted some members of our Community team (Not all because we have not told everyone about it. After all I need to respect this person privacy). Anyway, the good news is that this person's son survived and and has gotten out of the hospital and is now an outpatient. While listening to this soldier's story, his dad asked me to pass around the name of Operation First Response, which supports wounded heroes and their families. I am told that Peggy was nothing short of a superhero in helping out. It is always amazing to me to hear about how much some people are willing to give to help another person out. Peggy and team, thank you for taking care of our soldiers and their families
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