About Multi-Company
Support, QuickBooks,
Intuit and ProfitSee
We’ve been receiving some incredible excitement at our recent ProfitSee Pro (Multi-Company, for ProAdvisors, CPAs and Bookkeepers) product recently, and also some major complaints from some.
The excitement is pretty easy to understand, I think. Being able to see how all your clients are doing in one easy interface, getting daily risk assessment scores for them, and generating PowerPoint reports automatically per client is huge; it’s a giant leap forward for selling and service for bookkeepers and CPAs, and I’m really excited about it — our customers seem to be as well.
I suppose then that when we fail, there is more likely to be bitter disappointment, and that’s also been happening a bit lately. Usually what happens when we have a disappointed customer is we have trouble syncing the data they want to sync.
This is frustrating for us, since we lose a previously excited customer, and super frustrating for our customers who have been ready to try it, and then discover that we’re unable to provide the data sync they need.
I’m sorry. I want to provide better sync, I promise. Many millions of dollars of money (ours and Intuits) are going to this problem; despite this, we still need to get better.
I wanted to walk through the current options for multi-company syncing and discuss the benefits and downsides of each of them, as a way for our customers to know what the current state of the art is, and where we hope to be. As always, I like feedback and good ideas, so I’m hoping to generate some useful conversation as well.
As it stands, here are the options for syncing multiple QuickBooks companies into one application:
1. Use Intuit Data Services to Sync up each individual company, and sign up each company for an application at http://marketplace.intuit.com. You will then have one subscription per company file at the Intuit Marketplace.
2. Use our Sync tool to sync up as many files as you like from your local servers, and sign up with us (or Intuit) for a “master” subscription. You will then have one subscription total.
Here’s a list of benefits / features from going each route:
| Feature | Intuit Data Services | ProfitSee Sync |
| First-class support for the sync tool inside QuickBooks | X | |
| Easy way to manage which companies sync from one program | X | |
| Support for Classes | X | |
| Sync tool supported by RightNetworks and other Hosting Companies | No work necessary | Some work necessary |
| Cash-basis or Accrual-basis reports available when necessary | Not always | X |
| Data Resides in Intuit Cloud | Yes | No |
| QuickBooks Online Support | Soon! |
As I peruse the list, there is no clear winner. The reality is that Intuit did not create the Marketplace and Workplace with the needs of ProAdvisors in mind — the original use cases were almost always “One user, One Company.” We know that’s not where most of you live.
That’s not the only decision point for figuring out how to buy ProfitSee and Pro, though. If you bought ProfitSee Pro through Intuit, you can currently only use our sync tool. If you bought ProfitSee through Intuit you can only use Intuit Data Services.
| Subscription Type | Can Use ProfitSee Sync? | Can Use Intuit Sync? |
| ProfitSee — Intuit Marketplace | No | Yes |
| ProfitSee — Direct from ProfitSee | Yes | No |
| ProfitSee Pro — Intuit Marketplace | Yes | No |
| ProfitSee Pro — Direct from ProfitSee | Yes | No |
To make matters more confusing, Intuit has just released a third sync technology called Intuit Anywhere. I’m really excited about it; it’s a great system. Unfortunately, with our current setup, adding a third option would make everybody’s head explode. This development has, along with some vigorous user complaining, convinced us that we need to revamp this system in a way that makes sense for our users (and frankly even our internal support staff).
So, what’s the new uber-system? Unfortunately, I can’t tell you — we’re just working on it now; Intuit Anywhere was released to beta two days ago — but I can promise it’s a high, high priority. Watch this space for more, and thanks for bearing with us.
Peter J. Vessenes, CTO, President, ProfitSee
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Peter J Vessenes
President, CTO, ProfitSee, Inc
@myprofitsee
