Quickbooks Advertisement Campaign

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Quickbooks have recently started advertising on billboards, stating "Self-Assessment without a Doubt" and using words like making it a "doddle".

Are they not trying to replace us Accountants or compete with us, considering we are actually paying them for taking us out of business?

If self-assessment was a doddle then why do we even have Accountancy Bodies let alone Accountancy Qualifications?

Any views...should we write to our respective bodies and question this approach by these software giants!

Thank you for your time.

Replies (16)

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RLI
By lionofludesch
02nd Jan 2019 12:47

Might be better complaining to the Advertising Standards Authority.

It's a good job HMRC weren't selling anything when they released their John the Plumber video.

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By bernard michael
02nd Jan 2019 14:01

Quickbooks are also advertising on TV they are MTD ready. How? - when we don't know yet what HMRC really really want

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By sanjay100
02nd Jan 2019 14:10

I am surprised its taken them this long to work out if they manage to get a fully integrated system that can do all tax filings then this will open up more customer opportunities and provide a competitive advantage.

Perhaps one day we will be employed by the big software houses just to check their customers data.

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Replying to sanjay100:
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By weuk
02nd Jan 2019 14:36

That time is not far away with the way we are financing these Fintech companies under the pretext of MTD compliance and other cloud technologies!

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By david.bransbury
02nd Jan 2019 15:57

Xero brainwashes how wonderful their product is to accountants and bookkeepers, for them to recommend the software (it has worked on me).

QuickBooks (& Sage) are advertising direct to SMEs, for them up to sign up for the software. If you ask them, of course they do not want to get rid of accountants , just better records!

Don't forget some time in the future, the current self assessment tax returns will be scrapped once MTD is fully in place.

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By bernard michael
02nd Jan 2019 16:02

I should live that long !!

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Replying to bernard michael:
RLI
By lionofludesch
02nd Jan 2019 16:18

Quote:

I should live that long !!

None of us will.

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By MECtax
02nd Jan 2019 17:14

Look at a clients Quickbooks for the first time just before Christmas. He has announced he was using it 9 months into his year and not mentioned it to me. Says it lists the items to go straight on his tax return so should be a doddle for me.

Income is about £20,000 short of what I expected which is roughly what he took in cash the previous year.
Bank transactions don't start until May, no entries for April 2018 at all.
Wages of £20,000 are his drawings.
Claiming 45p per mile on the QB mileage tracker and also claiming all motor expenses.

He has also told me that QB says he wont owe any tax this year!

Simple this Quickbooks stuff!

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Replying to MECtax:
RLI
By lionofludesch
02nd Jan 2019 17:23

He missed out that step in John the Plumber.....

"Then, all you need to do is check it's all correct."

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Replying to MECtax:
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By weuk
02nd Jan 2019 17:27

Where did we go wrong!!

I have seen QB automatic transaction allocation...it was allocating bank charges to telephone and telephone to bank charges even though I thought with the limited no. of banks around it should be no rocket science.

Future looks bleak unless someone steps in!

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By MissAccounting
03rd Jan 2019 09:32

Quickbooks today, Xero tomorrow!

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Stuart Walker Yellow Tomato Copy
By winton50
03rd Jan 2019 11:52

Looks like a brilliant marketing opportunity to me.

QB spends all that money telling people how easy it is to 'do accounting' in quickbooks but when they sign up they realise that it perhaps isn't as easy as they first thought.
I'd be targeting people with buyers regret right now and in around 9 months time start blatting out a load of content around people who set up their own QB finding it in a mess or paying too much tax.
"Bought Quickbooks? - We can help you out of the mess!"

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Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
04th Jan 2019 09:56

I think its a bad move from QB. I get why they would want to deal direct with the client as accountants expect a permanent discount whereas going direct the client will get an introductory offer then go onto full price.

For me the first 6 weeks of setup of software is key, if you are involved you can nip any errors in the bud so they dont re occur, once set up correctly the automation kicks in and it will work

Letting clients do it is dangerous as they will tend to mess up if you are not involved and all the errors just repeat. I dont find it that easy correcting QB, as it lacks the find and recode feature Xero has.

I have had a client who saw the adverts and had a go himself, ran into trouble then got us to sort it out. Only a small business but ended up a right mess.

You could argue its a good thing as we get paid to correct the mess caused by the direct sale but I don't think it works like that as clients think its only a 5 minute job putting it right.

Xero see the route to market as via the accountant channel which Is why I use them as you are properly supported by them to do so. i have not had a client fail to get there with Xero, whereas many have struggled with QB.

I don't get the connection with the Indian fella they use in the adverts as he is not a business man of note, so fail to see the connect with the white van men types, surely showing actual users using the software is more relatable.

They must be spending a shed load on the campaign though so it clear things are hotting up and competition has got to be a good thing for us as end users, as Sage operated without a "Pepsi Cola" for years and look how that all turned out.

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Replying to Glennzy:
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By david.bransbury
05th Jan 2019 12:00

If you sell the software direct you expect to get the support calls direct. (Do Sage charge for support for their cloud products?)

If the accountant is selling or recommending the software such as Xero, then it is more likely the client is going to raise the query with the accountant rather than Xero direct. Because of this, is one reason why Xero does not have telephone support.

Easy questions are filtered out by the accountants. On the few times I do have a question, I always seem to get a good response time, two hours at worst. I think the queries recipients at Xero probably knows who is asking the client, is it an accountant/external bookkeeper rather than a business owner/employee at an individual business. Xero supports the accountants better than the business owners as this is their business model

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By andy.partridge
05th Jan 2019 12:41

It's only advertising.

Think of the positives - the amount of work you will pick up from small businesses who have tried to use S*ge and others because it's such a doddle, only to find out that they are unable to master a doddle.

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Replying to andy.partridge:
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By david.bransbury
05th Jan 2019 13:02

The trouble is Jo Public signs up to QBO. Posts on a complete mess. Realises they have a problem, pops round their local accountants. They tell Jo he should of started with Xero. Jo says can't your sort out the mess on QBO. So all accountants in the UK will have to learn QBO due to a large advertising budget and cheap short term subscription deals.

I do like cloud software but clients expect you to know it in much greater detail when they used the desktop version.

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