QuickBooks-Blog

Intuit Stock Dives, Xero Stock Soars

When Intuit stock dives back to where it was TWO years ago (not even keeping pace with the Dow), while Xero stock soars almost 500%, the market is trying to tell us what to expect in company product excellence and related growth.

That is why even QuickBooks insiders like me have been dumping Intuit products for Xero and Drake Software (pro tax). It also is why you should consider doing this.

When Intuit stock dives and Xero stock soars, the market is reflecting a 120% a year increase in Xero customers, while QuickBooks Desktop keeps losing users. When Xero soares this fast, a QuickBooks and Xero user like me can get $300 for a one-hour discussion of the companies with an investment advisor. When Xero stock soars this fast the company must try to explain the increase. It could not do so, so Xero stock soars still more. When Xero stock soars 250%, in ONE YEAR, compared to Intuit, you really should explain why you are not using or investing in Xero:

Intuit stock recently had the biggest one-day drop since March 2003, due to a drop in expected consumer tax returns received. It fell 12.5% in a day, after dropping up to 13.5%. Three analysts cut ratings, after returns received through April 12 fell 2% this year. Intuit expects this to increase 4% for the year, but previously said this division (which creates about 45% of operating income) would grow 10%. In the fiscal third quarter, when Intuit earns about half its annual revenue. It now expects about $2.80 a share, down from $2.88 a share. CEO Brad Smith said, "This was a tough tax season overall."

Yes, it was tough, but not for everyone. I saw this when we had our free monthly South Florida QuickBooks Meetup. I co-founded the oldest and second largest QuickBooks Meetup, with Brad's help. However, I learned that none of us still used Intuit pro tax products (Lacerte and ProSeries/Proline) and few still use TurboTax. After hearing that soe Intuit tax support calls took more than an hour on hold, vs 15 minutes for UltraTax, I strongly suggested Drake Software. Their far better support, with no second person referrals, takes less than 9 seconds on hold ALL YEAR. They even did this on the Saturday evening before April 15 and at noon on April 15.

For $1,500, Drake has the fastest program, unlimited support, unlimited e-filing and unlimited users, with document management, multiple computers, networking and much more. They even have links from your website, to a $10 and $20 consumer tax programs, which pay 80% commission. Compare that to these approximate costs:

    Intuit ProSeries – Proline $4,500 (several years ago)
    UltraTax $6,000
    Intuit Lacerte $7,500

That is why the 2012 CPA Advisor Reader's Choice Awards gave Drake a 42% rating, vs 13% and 12% ratings for Lacerte and ProSeries. It also means Brad should have many more tough seasons.

 

Intuit Practice Manager - Launch and Crash (corrected)

It has now been 10 years since many of the first Intuit QuickBooks Advisory Council members begged Intuit for an Intuit Practice Manager. We then said that we really needed one Intuit Practice Manager to link QuickBooks, ProSeries, Lacerte, Word, Excel and Outlook. We insisted that we had to avoid having one more separate, overlapping and error prone database.

It also has been many years since top Intuit Executives rejected our substantial later efforts to help design a really good Intuit Practice Manager. Instead, after a wait that made many of us give up, Intuit came out with a Practice Manager that was so bad that sales soon stopped. 

Here (below) is the new beta test offering, for a follow up Intuit Practice Manager launch, many years later. It should soon crash as well. Its first big mistake is that it is only for Lacerte users. Lacerte is a package for which many Intuit users pay around $8,000. That means that sales (yes, this is a paid product, for which there is not yet a quoted price) of this Intuit Practice Manager will be a small fraction of those of the Intuit Websites, which Intuit dropped recently, or the sales of Quicken Online, which Intuit dropped a few years ago <I originally wrote QuickBooks Online, in error>. 

This Intuit Practice Manager Launch also will crash because many of us have since found that Drake Tax Software is a far better, faster and more complete program. It saves us a fortune in money and time, starting with its $1,500 price. This INCLUDES practice management, document management, remote and local multi-user and work flow tracking, which are extra with Intuit. It also has a less than 10 second response time on support calls. Their techs not only really know the product, but they almost instantly examine uploaded copies of files. All this reflects itself in major user satisfaction surveys, where Drake beats competitors by three to 20 times.

So here is the latest Intuit Pracrice Manager Launch and crash offering below, if you want to keep on wasting time and money. By the way, how long do you want to keep giving money to a company whose CEO says their focus is on mobil users?

How long do you want to keep giving money to a company whose best friends long ago realized that accounting professionals were mainly valued only for the rapidly increasing price of their QuickBooks ProAdvisor memberships?

How long do you want to keep giving money to a company that repeatedly badly damaged QuickBooks Certified ProAdvisors (who pass a hard test) and QuickBooks users by selling the title QuickBooks  ProAdvisor to anyone with money?

 

If you do want to keep wasting time and money, here is the latest Brooklyn Bridge that Intuit wants to sell you (Intuit Practice Manager - Launch and Crash). Believe me, it will not even last as long as it took to build the first Brooklyn Bridge. 

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Thank you for your interest in Intuit Practice Management.  For the past two years the team has been working closely with customers and other partners to develop a Practice Management solution that will meet the needs of accounting professionals like you. We are pleased to inform you that after making many requested changes and enhancements, we are now prepared to launch our new pilot to a limited number of customers starting September 1st with the goal to have a version available to many more accountants sometime before the end of the year.    In order to make sure you only receive information that is relevant to you, please let us know your preference by selecting an option below.   Your choices are: A) Apply to be included in the new pilot program starting September 1st. Ideal candidates meet the following qualifications. Lacerte user QuickBooks for your own firms books 3 or more employees Everyone in the firm must use IPM during the pilot to track time & manage projects Available for feedback weekly as needed (approx 30min/week)   B) Keep me posted about the commercial launch.     C) Unsubscribe from the Intuit Practice Management list and we won’t contact you again.  This will not impact any other emails you receive from Intuit.   We are grateful to the hundreds of customers who have already offered invaluable feedback during the development process.  We are excited to launch the new Intuit Practice Management application soon.   Regards,   The Intuit Practice Management Team   Copyright © 2012 Intuit, All rights reserved. You are receiving this email because you joined the Intuit Practice Management mailing list. Our mailing address is: Intuit 5601 Headquarters Dr. Plano, TX 75093 Add us to your address book   IMPORTANT: Intuit respects the personal nature of email communication. Every effort is made to offer only information that may be of value to you or your business. If you do not wish to receive marketing email from Intuit in the future, please click here.

Sent to mblock@blocktax.com — why did I get this? unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences Intuit · 5601 Headquarters Dr. · Plano, TX 75093

TurboTax 2002 Resurrection, Thanks to Intuit Good Guy Rich Walker

I recently witnessed a TurboTax 2002 resurrection. thanks to Intuit good guy Rich Walker. Here is an email I recently got:

From: ...
07/06/2012 2:54 PM
To: Mike Block  [ mblock@blocktax.com]

        Subject: Turbotax 2002

I have tax problems and need to reinstall turbotax 2002. Some of the problem was created by TurboTax. I read your why I wanted to boycott and saw where they would continue activation for ten years. Is that true?

I sent this as soon as I readtd it:

From: Mike Block [mblock@blocktax.com]
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 12:03 PM
To: ...
cc: Rich Walker

Subject: RE: TurboTax 2002

Hi ...

You should be able to get a copy of your returns from Internal Revenue with a Form 4506, but that costs $57. You also should be able to get a free transcript of your income from them.

Intuit agreed to keep TurboTax 2002 activation open for 10 years, after users protested over copy protection. It also agreed to give a free copy of TurboTax 2002, without copy protection, to those who had alreay bought TurboTax 2002  (after 4/15/03). It did this at my suggestion. I got mine long ago, but probably no longer have it.

Only a few old timers may remember this now. I hope that this gets to Rich Walker, as he may be one person who can help. I now have a sick wife and can only do this much.

Within a very short time I got a follow up email.

From: ... 
Sent: 07/06/2012 11:56 PM
To: Mike Block
Subject: RE: TurboTax 2002

Thank you for your response, Rich did get in contact with me and has offered a copy of the 2002 software. I would like to include your wife in my prays if you would like to give me her first name.  Take care.

That completed the TurboTax 2002 resurrection, in less than 12 hours, thanks to Intuit good guy Rich Walker. Thank you Rich. Amazing as usual.

 

Secret: Why Intuit Will Not Have Mint or Yodlee Exports to QuickBooks, Quicken or Xero

Here is the secret: why Intuit Will Not Have Mint or Yodlee Exports to QuickBooks, Quicken or Xero. I recently posted a version of this at Community-powered support for Mint.com, under Quickbooks desktop integration with Mint.com. Surprisingly, it survived initial moderation.

In 10+ years as QuickBooks insider, with fast CEO email exchanges up to six times a day (even on Sundays), I never got denials when suggesting why QuickBooks did not introduce killer features fast. This especially applied to my 2004 suggestion for importing all bank and credit card accounts with one click. Quicken (not QuickBooks) now has this. I also wanted automatic scheduled updates, similar to what we have with any antivirus or drive defragmentation program. I even wanted QuickBooks to use its Dun & Bradstreet relationship, so we could choose from a list of our accounts, with numbers and optional overnight verification, instead of having to manually enter each account name and number and wait for immediate feedback.

Senior Intuit execs thought these were great ideas, requiring very little programming. Their top download person called and spoke to me for more than 30 minutes. However, Intuit did not use these ideas quickly, so we got Mint in 2006. Intuit also did not use them by 2009, so it paid $170 million for Mint and dropped Quicken Online. Intuit is still not using them in QuickBooks 2012, so Xero is growing faster than any version of QuickBooks. This is amazing, considering that current Intuit CEO Brad Smith (even before he was CEO) once saved a friend in four days, during the week before Christmas, at my request. He did so with a QuickBooks fix. To me, the speed of this fix showed the secret of why Intuit will not soon have Mint or Yodlee exports to QuickBooks, Quicken or Xero. It also shows why QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Quicken will not soon have direct Mint-type imports. It was even a factor in my telling Brad that he would be the next Intuit CEO, two years before he was. 

This very serious secret problem, not developer priorities, often stops Intuit from quickly using the best QuickBooks upgrade ideas, or from quickly creating a Mint to QuickBooks or Quicken transfer program. It relates to the type of improvement sandbagging Intuit successfully used when Microsoft last attacked QuickBooks. Absent such an attack, the very serious secret relates to QuickBooks already having around a 95% market share. That giant market share means Intuit cannot afford to wipe out competitors like Xero or Zoho Books (which have automatic nightly downloads and powerful account assignment Rules - think Outlook Rules on steroids). It also relates to not wanting to lose a third Justice Department anti-monopoly lawsuit. That is the secret: why Intuit will not soon have Mint or Yodlee exports to QuickBooks, Quicken or Xero. It also is the secret of why Intuit will not soon have direct bank and other financial institution imports into QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online or Quicken. If it did this, Intuit could lose much more than it could ever gain from a few more customers. Shhhh!

Fortunately, independent CPAs like us are not so limited. We already have developers creating a Mint or Yodlee to QuickBooks, QuickBooks Online and Xero import program. It will be great until many users realize that all QuickBooks versions are now overly expensive to buy and far too expensive to use with CPAs. By the way, after 28 years of using Quicken and QuickBooks exclusively, I now am #2 in the U.S. for the number of Xero clients (List View).

After all, why pay $5 to $10 a month for a QuickBooks importer, as a few suggest, if Xero automatically imports everything directly into the right accounts, for $12 a month? This is a Xero Partner price, but my price is your price. After all, the best way to get better products is to help increase competition.

From one of my many former close friends at Intuit (QuickBooks), Xero

From: One of my many former close friends at Intuit (QuickBooks)

     (Intuit seems to obviously discriminate against older workers)

Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2012 5:46 PM
To: Mike Block
Subject: Hey Mike

Long time, no speak. How are you? How's life with Intuit?

- - - - -

I replied at greater length than he expected.

From: Mike Block
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2012 2:23 AM
To: One of my many former close friends at Intuit (QuickBooks)
Subject: RE: Hey Mike

It is good to hear from you. I cannot answer, "How's life with Intuit?"

We both probably have about the same answer to, "How's life without Intuit?"

It is terrific for me. I spoke to the top QuickBooks downloads person eight years ago. I said it was a big waste to download each bank statement each month. I wanted all statements downloaded at once. I also wanted options to do automate it (scheduled times and frequencies). I even asked why we should enter account information, as opposed to logging in, since Dun & Bradstreet can give Intuit most account information. D&B already had a QuickBooks credit-check app.

He thought these were great ideas, but we still do not have them in QuickBooks. This made Intuit buy Mint for $170 million and drop Quicken Online. It opened the door for automatic daily downloads in Xero, Zoho Books, Yodlee and others. We like Xero very much (OMG! Xero is the future of accounting!). Its powerful account assignment rules can soon automate 90%+ of bookkeeping, for $12 a month. I already have more Xero clients than all but one CPA in the United States (List View). The recent head of the QuickBooks ProAdvisor program now works for Xero. Intuit Stock Dived and Xero Stock Soared because Xero puts accountants first in many ways.

That is why Xero is growing far faster than any Intuit program, in 100 countries.

Mik Block