I used to love talking on the phone. With my sisters, my friends, even clients. Now? Not so much.
If you had told me a few years ago that I would end up being the type of person who doesn’t like to talk on the phone, I would have laughed and laughed and laughed at you. These days, I barely use my phone as a phone. I can almost run my entire business from it, and on occasion, I’ve had to do exactly that, albeit on a very short-term basis.
I mostly use text, email, and instant messaging to talk to everyone. I’ll still spend time on the phone when some sort of written communication just won’t work, but it’s pretty rare.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor Mobile App Availability
Just a note: I asked Intuit if the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Mobile App would be available for both traditional QuickBooks ProAdvisors as well as new Cloud ProAdvisors and was told the following:
“The current app is designed for traditional PAP [ProAdvisor Program] users as target audience, but as seen in the screenshots below, when a CPAP [Cloud ProAdvisor Program] user tries to log into it with their CPAP user ID and [password], they will be able to log in, but the experience will be a bit non-optimized; i.e., as seen in the pic below, their Membership tab will be empty, etc. What is that they can use from this app? They can use the Online Chat feature, but again the CPAP users will have a non-optimized experience. Yes, they can call the 888 number, but I believe that is a dedicated number for our traditional PAP users, and the CPAP support number is different, in which case the support agent will be transferring or guiding the CPAP user to another number to call.”
Easy to Set Up and Use
Once installed, you get the following screen (Figure 1) when you open it. Standard log in. You’ll need to sign up for the ProAdvisor Program prior to using it, which you can easily do from this screen.
Figure 1
The second screen (Figure 2) is pretty straightforward. It just explains what the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program Mobile App can do, like send product and membership alerts. I like the product alerts, and I think anyone who is a ProAdvisor would want the app to at least get product alerts (e.g., “QuickBooks Online will be down for maintenance,” “a new release is coming for the desktop editions”). I say this because I see this complaint in online forums quite often: “How come we’re not told that <insert product/service here> is down?” Now you can get those notifications sent directly to your phone! Yay!
Figure 2
After you click Get Started, you’ll be asked if the app can send you Push Notifications (Figure 3). I would recommend choosing “OK” here. That’s one of the main reasons for having the app, right?
Since I pretty much ALWAYS choose “Don’t Allow” when a new app asks this, I clicked it here, even though my brain was thinking: “Yes! Please let me know things so I don’t have search the interwebs for them.” Fortunately, you can change this later by going to the Settings “gear” icon in the bottom right of the screen.
Figure 3
In Settings (Figure 4), you can set a PIN code to access the app as well as choose what notifications you want to show and/or get pushed to your phone.
Figure 4
Speaking of notifications, they’re easy to scroll through, well marked, and searchable. You can email or print them if you’re using Airprint on your iPhone.
I like that the member page (Figure 5) shows me when my membership renews, but I’d like it even more if it showed me when I need my annual QuickBooks Online recertification or when my advanced certification expires, so that I know when I have to have my Advanced Continuing Education (ACE)
Figure 5
Online Chat Support Feature
While I think the notifications are great, we’re now to the reason I love the app: The Online Chat Support and its special features (Figure 6). I dearly love good chat help, and this is a great tool. It’s easy to launch, and it already has your name and license number entered (I deleted my license number for this screenshot). (Note: You can also call. If you click the phone number, the phone dialer will open.) This is, by far, my favorite aspect of the app. There are many times – when I’m traveling or I’m on my laptop doing a screen share with a client – and opening a chat screen just isn’t the best
Figure 6
You can also choose what you need help with from the “What can we assist you with?” drop-down (Figure 7). I picked “QuickBooks Question,” but you have other choices as well – “Membership” and “Purchase.”
Figure 7
Depending on what day and time you engage Intuit’s chat support, you may not have these same options. I contacted Intuit to inquire about chat availability and was told:
“The current chat option enables our traditional PAP Mobile app users to avail the chat facility from Mon–Fri, 6:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m., PT. For after-hours support, they can call 888-333-3451 to be routed to the general QuickBooks Support. This information is available to ProAdvisors on the Support page after logging in to their ProAdvisor Member Website.”
The chat loads quickly, and both times I used it, I was able to begin chatting very quickly; in fact, for this article, it was less than a minute (Figure 8):
Figure 8
As with the notifications, you can also print or email the chat transcript as needed.
To be able to open the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Mobile App and use it to multitask to solve problems makes it worth having. Add in the push notifications about product and service alerts, and it’s a great tool to have in our ProAdvisor pockets!