QuickBooks-Blog

Steve Bennett – Symantec Chairman, CEO and My Friend at Intuit / QuickBooks

Steve Bennett, the new (Norton) Symantec Chairman and CEO, was my good friend while holding these positions at the much smaller Intuit.

I became very popular with Intuit top executives by providing thousands of QuickBooks news group and forum answers, praising Intuit or QuickBooks, visiting Intuit and winning two QuickBooks beta test contests. I also were justified some Intuit price increases or lapses by saying that it was making very little compared to other software companies, despite near monopolies with Quicken, QuickBooks and TurboTax.

A winning boycott for tax table fees on each copy of QuickBooks, not on each QuickBooks company, made me temporarily unpopular. Part of this involved a program that told QuickBooks that its tax tables were current, when they were not. It shocked the Ukrainian programmer when he learned he could sell this program and keep related revenue, though I conceived it, paid him for it and publicized its availability, without revealing that it was mine. Intuit quickly dropped the increase, which cost it dearly. This actually may have been a big reason Steve became Intuit CEO.

In his eight  years, Intuit sales and profits rose incredibly (three and four times respectively). This mainly related to his Six Sigma focus on quality and costs, rather than big price increases, as often noted in my posts. That is no longer the case, as shown by recent QuickBooks ProAdvisor price increase discussions ($698 to $803, 151 comments already).

Despite my boycott, Steve later let me on the first QuickBooks Advisory Council. While on the Council, I began leading a TurboTax boycott over copy protection, which did not affect my ProSeries version of TurboTax. Steve quickly took steps to end the boycott, including accepting my suggestion that users get (on request) a copy-protection-free program after April 15, for 10 years. Rich Walker recently got a user such a copy a few days ago.

Steve did not dump me from the Council, as feared. He also did not stop responding promptly to my many emails. He instead used his amazing ability to engage others in intensely appropriate personal ways. He wrote me this after a Council meeting:

Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong!

As I gasped over it, other Council members were gasping over what he wrote them. That is why Steve’s message will always remain at the top of my BlockTax website.

When Symantec announced Steve’s new jobs, this went out from me:

From: Michael Block CPA [mailto:mblock@blocktax.com]

Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2012 01:11 PM
To: Steve Bennett
Subject: Congratulations

Hi Steve

No matter how much I like Brad, I was always very sorry to see you leave Intuit. It was terrible for Intuit. If there is ever any way I can help, beyond buying more Symantec products, please let me know. 

 

Steve replied promptly (as usual):

 From: Steve Bennett 
Sent: 07/29/2012 5:46 PM
To: Michael Block CPA
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Mike... Your email means a lot to me... Thanks for the kind words... Drinking from the fire hose as you can imagine but having a lot of fun... 

Stay in touch... Hope all is well with you... Steve

 

This followed:

From: Michael Block CPA
Sent: 07/29/2012 8:56 PM
To: 'Steve Bennett'
Subject: RE: Congratulations

Hi Steve

It is amazing that leaders like you still find time for responses like this, though that may be part of the reason you are such good leaders.

All is very well with me. I am now #2 in the U.S. for Xero clients, with 156% more this month. That is even better than Xero did (100% more paid users in 10 months), but I expect big things from Ian Vacin (former QuickBooks ProAdvisor head). I complained that Xero had too many setup questions. Xero CEO Rod Drury quickly said Ian was already hard at work simplifying and initial results were out in days.

Can I publicize this?

 

Steve instantly responded, as he did to my similar Intuit request years earlier:

From: Steve Bennett
Sent: 07/29/2012 9:03 PM
To: Michael Block CPA
Subject: Re: Congratulations

Sure

 

To me this meant we should soon start hearing very good things about Symantec. In fact, we already have:

Is New Symantec CEO Steve Bennett Worth $1.5 Billion? Not A Chance

The somewhat surprising July 25 announcement that Enrique Salim's three-year tenure as Symantec CEO had ended -- and the reign of Chairman Steve Bennett had begun -- put the lead change front and center. And that was on top of Symantec's fiscal Q1 earnings announcement. Trading volume nearly five times the norm and a 13% jump in share price were proof that the news captured the attention of investors. But what's really changed to warrant a $1.5 billion (give or take) increase in company value?

 

A $1.5 billion dollar increase in Symantec stock value, in only a few days, may seem extreme for the immediate value of one man. However, Symantec rose about 5% more since this narrow-minded uninformed writer probably wrote his story. Based on Steve’s past performance with Intuit, even this does not begin to reflect his true value. As he quickly increases the Symantec bottom line, by an expected four or more times, investors will keep buying at far higher prices.

That is why my best wishes continue to go to Steve Bennett, Symantec Chairman, CEO and my friend.

Urgent: QuickBooks Payroll Error

Here is an urgent QuickBooks payroll error for Florida users. A new Florida law cut the maximum annual unemployment tax wages to $8,000 per employee per year. Florida computed new unemployment tax rates, in notices sent a few days ago. These changes were effective January 1, so this QuickBooks payroll error made prior QuickBooks payroll tax accruals wrong.

It is, of course, not Intuit's fault that the Florida Legislature acted irresonsibly, by passing a retrocative law. However, it is Intuit's fault the the current QuickBooks desktop payroll tax table does not reflect the new law. I did not yet check this with Intuit online payroll, or call Intuit to find out when they will have a correction, for this QuickBooks tax table payroll error . Therefore, DO NOT FILE your April 30 Florida unemployment tax return until you verify the tax rate and maximum amount.

In accordance with a long standing Florida policy on accelerating receipts, these UCT6 returns say they are due April 1, but that a penalty applies after April 30. That means the due date is April 30.

Please contact us with any questions. Of course, if you use our $12 monthly automatic payroll, we do all this for you.

Florida Unemployment Tax Insanity #9, Good News?

Few web pages had the term Florida Unemployment Tax Insanity when I began using it in September, 2009. Google now has 2.5 million such web pages.

Mark Twain said, "No man's life, liberty or property is safe, while the Legislature is in session." That is especially true in Florida, with the latest Florida Unemployment Tax Insanity. By April 2012, Florida employers had spent countless hours and dollars calculating wages based on an $8,500 per year unemployment maximum. We now have new retroactive rates, to January 1, based on an $8,000 maximum. The new rates will not prevent sharp increases in our federal unemployment taxes, plus extra interest on separate bills to every employer. That relates to the deficit in the Florida unemployment benefit account.

Many must now recalculate their accrued payroll tax and hope their payroll system is equal to the task. It will not be unless you AGAIN download new QuickBooks payroll tax tables, as part of your $200 to $349 manual QuickBooks annual subscription. Even then, you must hope QuickBooks can retroactively adjust your prior accrual. It seems unlikely that QuickBooks will do this automatically.

You also can end payroll problems forever, by automating the top-rated PayrollRelief program. Payroll once cost me $1,000+, per client per year, in billable time. I also often had missing return and other tax notices. Many related to Florida Unemployment Tax Insanity losses of repeatedly filed returns.

I am now sending one combined email, to my PayrollRelief CPA, for most of my clients. It tells him to pay fixed amounts, weekly or monthly, for many employees of many clients. In many cases, this will be for $8,000 a year ($888.89/month for 9 months). He will mark most payments as hand (non-existent) checks, so PayrollRelief only e-pays needed taxes. He also will automatically file related tax returns. This will cost clients only about $12 a month.

Please tell me why you want to waste time and pay much more, for a much less accurate and error prone (you, QuickBooks, Internal Revenue and state government) system. I will gladly print your comments, with credit if requested.

Best Free Payroll Service, Best Payroll Service (updated)

How would you like the best free payroll service, at the industries lowest price?

My writing and 40+ years of small and medium company experience made me an internationally famous QuickBooks expert. The linked article was the cover story of the September 2007 Accounting Technology magazine. Close friends included two Intuit CEOs, who quickly answered emails (even on Sunday), so I did not want to go beyond Intuit for payroll. However, QuickBooks desktop payroll soon went from $60, for a table you could use for years, to $295 a year. It would be much worse if, as CNET said, I was not mainly responsible for getting Intuit to charge for each QuickBooks payroll tax program, instead of for each separate QuickBooks company file. However, recent QuickBooks payroll increases ($295/year for one employee) made me spend countless hours, over several years, looking for the best inexpensive payroll service. Here is a recent related Google search (127,000 links) for the best free payroll service:

			PER
	EMPLOYEES	PAYROLL	MONTH	CHECK	TAXES	TOTAL
Simplepayroll	5	15.00	2.00	3.00		20.00
Servdex	Varies					20.00+
Accountedge	1					21.00
Surepayroll	1					46.80
Patriot Software	1	10.00			24.00	34.00
Top 10 Reviews	Varies					25.00+
10DollarPayroll	1-10		10.00	0.50	11.67	22.17
PayrollRelief	Varies					Varies

Servdex and TopTen have many detailed reviews.

You need the best payroll service, not a payroll program, to handle direct deposit of employee paychecks, plus automated e-file and pay of all federal and state tax returns. You also need an accuracy and timeliness guaranty, which you can only get from the best payroll service, to stop the many unjustified tax notices and penalties you get (they pay penalties for mistakes).

The best ratings go to Payroll Relief. They do not show up in many reviews because they sell only to accountants. However, you can use 10DollarPayroll to get PayrollRelief plus unequaled extra CPA support and ridiculously low prices. The extras include a willingness to accept data by email, phone and fax, in addition to the web interface. They even do returns manually if you miss e-File dates. I began using them more than a year ago and now have 25+ clients on this best payroll service. This volume gives me a total price of $11 a month and 50 cents a paycheck, for the best payroll service. That includes all the payroll returns that are extra with some other budget services.

You can now have this best payroll service for less than the $11 a month that I pay. To simplify this, I can bill you $30 a quarter, as I know my cost will go down as I add many new clients. Even better, you can pay nothing for the best free payroll service if you become my client.

I also do not bill clients for these free extras (per computer per month):

• Unlimited Livedrive backup (normally $8).
• GFI remote access and monitoring (normally $10 retail). This fully protects you and fixes many computer problems before you know you have them.
• Help with Automatic Free Accounting from Yodlee. This is an outstanding way to get all of your daily account balances and transactions, while you increase accuracy and prevent fraud, without interfering with QuickBooks.

For the ultimate in QuickBooks support, you can have remote QuickBooks hosting at $25 to $40 per month. You then have the option of renting the latest version of QuickBooks Pro at $7.50 per month or QuickBooks Premier at $12.00 per month. This is FAR LESS than the cost of buying QuickBooks each year. However, even with all that, I suspect you will soon want the very inexpensive Xero Future of Accounting, so Contact the Best QuickBooks CPA now.
 

Lowest QuickBooks Price - $10 Payroll

We have the lowest QuickBooks price for payroll. It is $10 payroll per MONTH, for up to 5 employees. This lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll includes:

• Web, email, Excel, fax or phone data entry.
• One email or Excel can include data for many companies.
• All federal, state and local tax returns, e-filed and paid.
• Easy QuickBooks download.
• Help from two CPAs and our staff. 
• We pay any penalties and interest that are our fault.

The lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll only adds SMALL extra charges for extra employees or optional direct deposit of employee pay checks. You can compare this lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll to  the Intuit / QuickBooks Online Payroll at up to $42 a month. However, the lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll is more like their full service payroll at $99 a month.

Is this AccountantsWorld Payroll as good as QuickBooks or ADP payroll? No, it is better, according to repeated reviews from CPA Technology Advisor, CPA Practice Review and others.

So why do we have the lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll? We want you to consider using us for your other accounting and tax work, but we will only charge payroll at $10 a month regardles of whether you use us for other work. 

When you contact us about the lowest QuickBooks price for payroll - $10 payroll, be sure tro ask about how you can supllement or replace your accounting system with automatic free accounting. We have the top Google link for automatic free accounting, out of 365 MILLION WEB PAGES for this.

That means you also should probably contact us us about our search engine optimization services.