Intuit Offers $100k in Grants to Accounting & Tax Firms

Accounting professionals and their clients now have more ways to save money and save time through a new program by Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU). Through its Power to Get More Done initiative, Intuit is offering significant savings on several of its productivity products and services, $100,000 in stimulus grants for accounting and tax firms, and new training tools to help firms increase productivity and generate growth.

“The accounting and tax profession is not insulated from the economy. It’s imperative that practitioners operate at peak levels of efficiency to meet the needs of their clients and to grow their own practices,” said Jill Ward, senior vice president and general manager of the Intuit Accounting Professionals Division. “As the leader in providing time-saving tools to accounting professionals and their clients, we are doing everything possible to ensure they are able to meet this challenge head on.”

Saving Accounting Professionals Time and Money
To help accounting professionals save time and money as they collaborate with their clients, Intuit is offering discounts on a bundle of QuickBooks© Premier Accountant 2009 and QuickBooks Pro 2009 products. With the new Client Data Review feature in QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2009, accounting professionals save time by quickly troubleshooting client errors, which saves hours in month- and year-end closings.

“Thank you for the ‘troubleshoot account balances tool’ in QuickBooks Accountant Edition 2009. You’re my hero for that feature. I just did a business tax return, and it probably dropped an hour off of the time to complete,” said Bryce Forney, CPA of Forney Accountancy Corporation, in Pleasant Hill, Calif.

Accounting professionals can learn the details of the Power to Get More Done program and discounts at www.accountant.intuit.com/GetMoreDone, and the site will be updated throughout tax season for the best offers on Intuit’s products and services.

Stimulus Grants Give Accounting Firms the Power to Do More
For accounting professionals looking to start new firms and grow existing practices, Intuit is awarding grants of $10,000 – plus up to $10,000 in free products and services – to 10 deserving firms, giving them a boost to hire and invest in their businesses and thus get more done.

Accounting professionals can download the entry form at the above website and prepare a brief, high-level business plan that explains how they will use the money to stimulate growth. Entries are due by 9:30 p.m. Pacific time on April 30. Judges include a panel of Intuit and accounting profession executives, with winners chosen each month from May through July.

New Training to Help Accounting Professionals Increase Productivity
Accounting professionals can save time and money with the latest practice tips and techniques through Intuit Academy podcasts. This free podcast series, with new installments available every two weeks, trains accounting professionals to increase productivity through the use of Intuit offerings and provides a great way to learn best practices from Intuit experts and their fellow practitioners.

For example, attendees at the Intuit 2008 Lacerte Tax Software Update course reported that, due to the training, they saved 30 hours on complex business returns and 54 hours on individual returns during the tax season, based on a customer study conducted by Intuit in July 2008.

Saving Clients Time and Money
Nearly 70 percent of accountants who recommend QuickBooks recommend it as a way for small businesses to run their businesses more efficiently, according to a recent survey by International Communications Research, on behalf of Intuit.

Now, accounting professionals can help clients save time and money by passing along free software and more than $2,000 in savings on select Intuit financial and business management products and services to their clients. Special offers for small business clients include: