Would you trust your business finances to a customer service representative?

Sounds crazy, I know, but Intuit is betting that many small business owners will do just that with the introduction of their new bookkeeping service.

Intuit’s software program QuickBooks is widely used for small business accounting. In fact, a Google search for QuickBooks bookkeeping services returns more than 12 million hits!

It seems QuickBooks has recognized the struggle and is about to introduce their own bookkeeping services, and many small business owners are wondering if these services can replace their regular accountant or bookkeeper.

In truth, I don’t think they can.

Here’s why:

  1. You form a relationship with your bookkeeper.They get to know you and your business, and that knowledge helps to make the process efficient while ensuring all your bases are covered.Intuit will offer support through a customer service line, which means you’ll get a different representative every time. While it’s great that you can have support on demand, they won’t have any prior knowledge of your account.
  2. You can’t ask what you don’t know.One of the biggest advantages of having a bookkeeper is tapping into their knowledge and allowing them to guide you through areas you’re not terrible familiar with. A customer service agent will do their best to answer your questions, but you can’t ask what you don’t know about. That creates a high probability of error because of gaps in knowledge.
  3. You’ll spend more time on your accounting, not less.While Intuit is calling their support offering a bookkeeping service, as we understand it, they will focus on helping you set up your system properly and then provide a resource to answer questions as they come up. This has been described as a “do-it-with-me” (DIWM) model, but at the end of the day you’re going to be the one who must maintain the books.

I believe that small business owners should be focused on growing their business, not falling down the QuickBooks rabbit hole spending their time to try and manage their books.