Information First to QuickBooks ProAdvisors

By: Bill Teague, Managing Editor, QuickBooks ProAdvisor Newsletter

Many QuickBooks ProAdvisors® responded to our request late last year through the Intuit® ProConnection® newsletter to share your rates. We had our biggest response yet, with over a thousand responses and almost half of those who responded being QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

In addition to sharing the overall results, we also wanted to break out responses from ProAdvisors and compare them to other designation segments.

Executive Summary: We expected to find that Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors charged more than QuickBooks ProAdvisors. However, the data does not support that assumption. Instead, the rates are quite similar. Moreover, ProAdvisors tend to mimic the overall response to the survey.

Elsewhere we look at national trends from this year to last across the various categories of rates and fees; in general, we see continued upward pressure on rates but the majority of practitioners keeping rates at the same price points as last year.

While becoming a QuickBooks ProAdvisor (certified or not) does not appear to allow a practitioner to reach parity with CPAs, it provides a significant increase in rates over non-CPA bookkeepers.

Related Articles

• Intuit Rates Survey 2007
• Lifetime Value of a QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions Client
• Setting Your Rates
• QuickBooks Quarterly Review: Don’t Leave Money on the Table
• Intuit Rates Survey 2006

Hourly General Bookkeeping as Proxy

For a general idea of how these groups of practitioners compare, we use the hourly rate for bookkeeping to stand in for all ratings.

*This category does not include CPAs or QuickBooks ProAdvisors.

All Responses
Bookkeepers (No ProAdvisors or CPAs)
All QuickBooks ProAdvisors Who Are Not CPAs
QuickBooks ProAdvisors (Uncertified)
All QuickBooks ProAdvisors, Certified or Not
Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors
All QuickBooks ProAdvisors Who Are CPAs
All CPAs

All Responses

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

Bookkeepers (No ProAdvisors or CPAs)

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

All QuickBooks ProAdvisors Who Are Not CPAs

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

QuickBooks ProAdvisors (Uncertified)

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

All QuickBooks ProAdvisors, Certified or Not

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisors

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

All QuickBooks ProAdvisors Who Are CPAs

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

All CPAs

Hourly Rates Overview

Fixed Fees Overview

Closing Remarks

Rates charged by all QuickBooks ProAdvisors are significantly higher than those charged by bookkeepers, and on a par with the average of all practitioners, from bookkeepers to CPAs.

Bill Teague is Managing Editor of the Intuit ProConnection and QuickBooks ProAdvisor newsletters. For many years he was an Editor and Associate Publisher at Harcourt Inc., which published CPA Digest, Tax Accountants Weekly, and other publications for accountants.

Last Updated: 02/14/07

Every year about this time we are probably involved in reviewing and revisiting numbers and our goals for the previous year and/or preparing new goals for the current year. Preparing numbers is synonymous with new years resolutions, we simply can’t talk about the latter without talking about the former. This year unlike preceding years, I find that I am now more than ever motivated to write about resolutions holistically away from the usual personal finance messages that are associated with my messages.

Setting goals has never been easy even to those that have been doing it for years. What is important is that personal goals unlike organisational goals appeal to you the individual and this poses a major problem as many of us have grown in a culture where we spend on impulse and do very little financial planning, which is very evident on the level of savings in the populace. As a guide lets start by setting SMARTER goals. I have identified other areas apart from personal finance. I must confess that I too found it very difficult to isolate these areas without looking at the numbers until I was introduced to this format that has since become my guide to formulate family goals as outlined below

1.      Goal -what do you want to accomplish.

2.      Objectives – What activities you will undertake to achieve the goal

3.      Strategies – How will you achieve the activity

4.      Habits & Knowledge required

Take the example per the attached file . You can think of many more areas like education, housing, asset acquisition, savings & investments etc. The key note here is map out you near and/or distant future to help you measure out your expectations against your goals as you progress.

When we were reviewing our goals for the previous period, I noted that much of the load we set in the first year was actually achieved in our fifth year. At least we were able to note where we are coming from. Once you are able to do this, then you know you are on the right path. Success requires and demands a lot of planning and time. I guess that’s why financial advisors recommend that you seek for long term investments which have the ability to reward you higher returns than short term investments. Short term investments are mostly discouraged as they are sometimes package as “get rich quick schemes” which although at face value look rewarding are not pocket friendly.

Surprisingly we identified other unexpected sources that helped us meet our goals. I have also noted that once you have you eyes set on God to help you meet your goals you will achieve your plans even if it means that the source isn’t from you usual sources of income.

So lets plan this new year 2008; and prepare to take on the new year with renewed zeal and anticipation.

Be blessed!