Accountants Experience Breakthrough Productivity with New Intuit Offerings

Accountants and QuickBooks ProAdvisors have converged today at Intuit Inc.’s (Nasdaq:INTU) first Accounting Professionals User Conference to examine important critical issues that currently threaten their ability to work productively across their most critical tasks. To address the need for greater productivity, Intuit showcased two new offerings that will enable accountants to work more efficiently and better serve their clients: Intuit Accountant Work Exchange and Intuit Document Management System for QuickBooks® Accounting. "Our long history of close partnership with the accounting community and small business customers uniquely positions Intuit to be able to solve tax and accounting issues in ways no one else can,” said Jill Ward, vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Accounting Professionals Division. "These latest innovations add to our family of end-to-end productivity products and services that help accountants focus on high-value work so they can effectively grow their practices.” Helping Accountants Connect to Solve Staffing Shortages A major staffing crisis currently faces the accounting profession. According to the 2007 AICPA Top Management of an Accounting Practice Issues Survey, finding qualified staff is the top concern among accounting firms in the U.S. In addition, Intuit surveys have revealed that more than half of its accountant customers regularly experience more tax preparation work than their staff can comfortably handle. Accountants who have excess tax and accounting work will be able to easily find and qualify accounting professionals with capacity to take on additional work by signing up for the introductory version of Intuit Accountant Work Exchange and contribute to its further refinement. Professionals looking for extra projects simply create a profile listing their experience and qualifications, search for jobs in the marketplace and apply to the ones they are interested in. Accountants seeking to hire contractors can easily create new projects and search prospects by geographic locations, accreditations and with which Intuit products they have experience, including QuickBooks, Lacerte®, ProSeries® or Intuit Payroll Solutions. "Previously, if I needed extra help, I’d have to put an ad in the paper, then spend time weeding out the responses and conducting interviews,” said Jay Malik, trial user and Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor of Uncle Sam Tax & Accounting Corp in Easton, Pa. "With this marketplace I can now quickly find, interview and hire contractors that have experience with the software I use anywhere in the country. I can now accept more clients, offer more services and still have time for dinner with my family. This will revolutionize the industry.” Less Paper Means More Productivity Another key issue facing the accounting and tax industry is paper overload. According to Intuit research studies, accountants spend approximately 65 percent of their time working with documents, filing, retrieving and sharing files. On average, a four-drawer filing cabinet can cost $25,000 to fill and $2,000 a year to maintain – 80 percent of which is cost for labor. Plus, misfiled documents can cost up to $120 to replace. With the Intuit Document Management System (DMS) for QuickBooks Accounting, accounting professionals and small business owners using QuickBooks can store files electronically and access them instantly from their PCs. By moving to a "less paper” office, they can help reduce operating costs, improve service and help protect their firms from risk and drastically increase productivity. With the Intuit DMS, customers can automatically import their customer, vendor and employee lists from QuickBooks to easily create a well organized filing system. Accounting professionals can quickly scan client documents or print to PDF files, associate them with specific client records and organize them on a desktop PC or server. When needed, accountants can easily access requested files from the DMS system, including customer, vendor and employee information, without having to open QuickBooks. Documents can also be saved to the system directly from Microsoft Office programs, password protected and e-mailed using Outlook. Multimedia available: Video of Jay Malik (http://youtube.com/watch?v=rshemzion04) Pricing and Availability Both the Intuit Accountant Work Exchange (IAWE) and the Intuit Document Management System for QuickBooks Accounting are currently available through introductory offers. IAWE is currently available for free. Accountants and tax professionals can register at http://workexchange.intuit.com. The Intuit Document Management System for QuickBooks Accounting software is now available for purchase in single-office licenses. More information is available here. About Intuit Inc. Intuit Inc. is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Its flagship products and services, including QuickBooks®, Quicken® and TurboTax® software, simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries® and Lacerte® are Intuit’s leading tax preparation software suites for professional accountants. The company’s financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions. Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $2.67 billion in its fiscal year 2007. The company has approximately 8,000 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com. Intuit, the Intuit logo, and QuickBooks, among others, are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries.