Community Blog

    Morgan is passionate about all things communication. You can find her in the QuickBooks Community engaging in discussions around small business topics and answering customer questions. She has written over 2783 posts, provided 88 solutions, and received cheers on 245 of her posts!   Let’s get to know her a little better and hear what she has to say! 😃 How long have you been a Community Care Expert for? I’ve been a Community Care Expert for just a few days short of 5 years. November 14th is my Community anniversary, and I got started back in 2017. What do you love most about your role? I love lending a hand when people are faced with tricky situations and helping them get back to work. I also really like the aspect of getting to talk with people from all over the US, and even some from around the globe. What is your favorite QuickBooks Tip or Trick that you would want others to know? This may sound a bit basic, but my favorite troubleshooting trick is clearing

Why support small businesses? Supporting local small businesses has a lot of benefits for both you and your community. It helps strengthen your local economy, create more jobs, reduce environmental impact, lower your taxes, and even improve your family’s health! This upcoming #SmallBusinessSaturday is on November, 26th, so mark your calendar and make sure to head over to your favorite small shops on this day or even better, throughout this whole month.     5 Ways to Support Small Businesses on Small Business Saturday: 1. Buy Gift Cards Buying gift cards from small businesses as gifts for the upcoming holiday season is a great way to get some of those family gifts out of the way while also showing your support. It is quick, easy, and efficient! And most of the time, people will enjoy a gift card to a local shop 100 times more than your typical chain one. It makes the gift even more special. 2. Shop at Local Businesses This upcoming holiday season, try swapping chain stores fo

  Meet Sara, one of our Conversation Design Experts!   Today I want to introduce you to our amazing Conversation Designer, Sara.  She is extremely passionate about designing conversational experiences that QuickBooks customers have with our Digital Assistant chatbot. Let’s learn a little more about Sara and her role.   How long have you been a Conversation Designer? I've been working in Conversation Design for over 5 years.  2.5 of those have been with Intuit and prior to that I spent 2.5 years with Capital One. What is Conversation Design? Put simply, it’s the art of anticipating how a conversation will go with a customer.  We take into consideration their emotional state, the urgency of their need, the stakes if they don’t get an answer right now, and then support all the ways in which that conversation can turn. Conversation design combines the study of language and interaction design to deliver the right responses to a customer in order to solve their

    Hello Community! Today I want to introduce you to our awesome Social Media Expert, Kristina. She is passionate about her job which shows in the way she interacts with our customers. Let’s take a dive in and get to know her a bit more!   How long have you been a Social Care Expert for? I've been on the Social Team for almost 2 years.   What do you find most rewarding about your role? What I find most rewarding about my role is being able to help people outside of the typical methods of  receiving support!   What is your favorite QuickBooks Tip or Trick that you would want customers to know? One QuickBooks trick that I love, is that you can change the color scheme of each company in the Desktop versions. Making it easier to visually identify which company you're working in.   Check out how to do this here!   How would you describe your ideal vacation?! My ideal vacation is getting a cabin in the mountains and staying in to enjoy the views!

      Hello Community! Today I want to introduce you to our awesome Social Media Team Lead, Rose. Rose is passionate about all things people. She truly cares for our customers and it shows in the way that she guides her team in providing the best support. Let’s take a dive in and get to know her a bit! How long have you been a Social Care Lead for? I’ve been a Social Media Team Lead for 5 years.   What do you find most rewarding about your role? I find that being able to guide people on how to help others is the most rewarding part of my role. By assisting the individuals on my team, it empowers them to provide  the best support to our customers!   What is your favorite QuickBooks Tip or Trick that you would want customers to know? My favorite QuickBooks Tip is that there is a plethora of video resources on how to complete most tasks in the program. You can search for what you're wanting to do and more than likely, there is a video to walk you through

Hello!   Today I want to acknowledge 2 members of our QuickBooks Community. Although it may not seem like it, our members truly do have a big impact on each other. When we help and lift each other up, everybody wins!   Recently, we saw the way that Hurricane Ian impacted so many people in so many different ways. And here in the QuickBooks Community, we witnessed a couple members of our community showing empathy towards another member who was apprehensive about how the hurricane was going to impact their internet and their work.   We want to give a big shoutout to Clutterbug and Itooth for showing compassion towards another member in one of our QuickBooks Community threads! Your kind thoughts and care really shows through.   Both of these members have contributed to posts and engagement in the community and for that we thank you! 👏🏽   You can check out their profile’s here: Clutterbug Itooth   Let’s keep it up and please let us know in the comments bel

    Lu is our Social Platform Lead for our QuickBooks support channels. She is a content and strategy guru and truly shines in her day to day work aimed at making our customers’ support experiences more positive.  She’s creative in her approach all while maintaining customer empathy and success in mind.   Let’s get to know her a little better and hear what she has to say! 😃               How long have you been a social media platform lead for?   I started at Intuit in 2009. I've worked in the social media space since 2014.   What inspires you most about this role?   Social is a unique space, and I've watched its massive growth and constant evolution over the last eight years. I'm most inspired by how easy Social makes it for people to find their community. ♥️   What is your favorite QuickBooks Tip or Trick?   Forever and always keyboard shortcuts. ⌨️   Describe your ideal weekend!   My idea

Hi QuickBooks Community! Today I want to do something a bit different and celebrate one of our Featured Members of our Community. These members have a huge impact when it comes to providing deep QuickBooks insight and engagement with our customers. Please join me in giving one of our Community Champions, John Pero, a huge shoutout! John has gone above and beyond when it comes to interacting with our community. In the last 5 years since he became a member, he has accomplished the following: ✍️  Published 4554 posts ✅ Provided 406 confirmed solutions ⭐ Received 1259 cheers from other members of the community! 📣 Given 65 cheers to others in the community   Some fun facts about John are that he used to be an engineer and agriculturist before he began focusing his efforts on his real estate property management company! What a neat career story! Check out his website here: https://www.perorealestate.com/   Thanks for all the time you’ve spent engaging and providing valuable

  Jasmine is responsible for all things social media when it comes to providing helpful and positive experiences on our support channels. She uses her creativity to create engaging content and experiences for our customers. Let’s get to know Jasmine and hear what she has to say about her role!   How long have you been a social media care expert for? I’ve been in this space for a bit over two years now. It’s definitely expanded in daily tasks and roles over the past couple of years and I love taking care of all things social media. What is your favorite part about this role? I really enjoy getting to know about new tips and tricks within QuickBooks and Intuit. Seeing how to implement Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives into social media have been a challenge and ultimate reward as well. What is your favorite QuickBooks Tip or Trick? Being able to hop onto social media and get help in a timely manner is my favorite thing about QuickBooks. If anything were to go wrong

OK, in fairness, this is my weakest category. 🙀   I used to be a reasonably good sleeper. But as you get older, that somewhat goes away. But it doesn’t have to.   I read the book called, ‘Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker.  I highly recommend the book because it’s genuinely fascinating. It’s written by a professor of neuroscience and science that studies sleep. In his studies, he discovered how animals sleep and also how humans sleep. There are tons of great data in this book, which is right up the alley for an accountant or bookkeeper.   Have you ever heard of REM sleep?  Did you know that there are different phases of REM?  There are three stages of REM sleep.  The first is when we close our eyes, we initially fall asleep but we can easily be awakened.  The second stage is when your heart rate slows, the body temperature drops and your body is readying itself for deep sleep. But it is during the NREM sleep when the body is doing the most. 

I was a terrible meditator. Yes,  that’s what I convinced myself.  Think about that statement for a moment. How could you ever be a terrible meditator? All you do is sit, breathe and close your eyes.   Simple, right? Yeah, if you’re a type-A person as most of us claim to be, that’s like the hardest thing to do. I can remember the questions that would pop up in my mind as I considered adding meditation to my life.   Am I doing it right? How long am I supposed to do this? Why am I uncomfortable? How dan I shut off all these thoughts? Why am I falling asleep?   Let’s tackle each question one at a time.   Am I Doing This Right? It seems like meditation is simple, but starting to meditate can take a little bit of preparation.    Can you do it sitting at your desk?. Absolutely. You can sit with your back up against the back of your chair, feet firmly placed on the floor, spine in a nice beautiful elongated place. All you have to do is drop your chin

      I'm sure you have heard about all the benefits of a regular yoga practice. What's holding you back?    Does yoga scare you?  Do you think of yourself as not flexible at all? Were you aware that there are many forms of yoga that you can practice?    We always like to say there's yoga for every "body." There's also yoga for every season of life.   So let's tackle these questions one at a time.    Does Yoga Scare You? I can imagine that some people are afraid of yoga because it has a spiritual aspect to it. But there is a yoga type for every season of life and there is no religion attached to yoga.  Some yoga types are just a series of poses or flow that is almost an “athlete” type of yoga.   Power Yoga Season of Life I have practice yoga since my late 30s. And the yoga I practiced back then is different from the yoga I practice today at age 60. Back in my late 30, I was going through a divorce, and it was a time

  We are so close to the next accounting season. You can almost feel it. And we still have to finalize all our files for the current year.  And you can feel it in your body, your shoulders are creeping upward towards your ears, and you wake up in the middle of the night thinking about things that you forgot to do. Your shoulders ache, and your back hurts. Have I just described you?   I speak from personal experience by describing moments I have felt in January, February, and March, where I stress out big time.  January is typically the season that the new leads come in and the cleanup work starts. Eventually, overwhelm takes over. How can we mitigate this intense feeling of exhaustion and anxiety and experience a sense of calm during the rush season?   The answers are as follows:   Yoga Yoga has been my main go-to for a long time. The benefits of moving your body in all directions is so healthy for the body.  Remember the old adage, "you rest, you ru

With Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday happening, November is an exciting month for business owners and shoppers alike. Providing shoppers with a positive experience during these critical days can set a small business up with repeat customers throughout the year. Make sure your business is ready for the weekend of deals by following these top five preparation tips. Get Active on Social Media As the holidays approach, utilize the countdown feature on Instagram to keep the excitement building.  Use #SmallBusinessSaturday on your social posts promoting your deals, and clue your followers in on how you’re preparing for Small Business Saturday.  You can even incentivize customers by offering special deals to those who post and tag your business. Register for Small Business Saturday Be sure to register your business with Small Business Saturday to secure a listing in the Shop Small Map. Registering also grants you access to free Small Business Saturday d

    We have launched a new series on Racket that offers short, bite sized podcasts that go over tips and tricks to help people new to the small business world become even more successful.   We hope you check it out and let us know if there are any topics that you would like us to focus on.     Small Business Basics Episode 1 - Top 2 things to do before you start a small business   

7:25A PST  Good morning and welcome to Day 2 of QuickBooks Connect!  I'll be live blogging again today, starting with the Accountant Keynote in just over 35 minutes.   If you missed any of the sessions yesterday, now is a great time to go back and start watching some of the recordings - almost all panels are available until November 11th.     You can also check out the My Dashboard section and take a picture in our Virtual Photobooth, and make sure to share your picture on social media using the hashtag #QBConnect.  8:04A PST Accountant Keynote with Ted Callahan and Ariege MisherghiAriege reiterates the idea that "you need to constantly be in a mode of learning so that the world doesn't leave you behind."   8:08A PST More from Ted Callahan "You have been living a nonstop cycle of eat, zoom, sleep and you are unstoppable"     8:11A PST More from Ted Some exciting new programs coming for Accountants.  We will be offering P

7:04A PST Well folks, I'm doing it again!  I'll be liveblogging various sessions from QuickBooks Connect again this year.  If you haven't signed up, there is still time, the keynote opening session doesn't start for another hour.  Register here - it's free and  being held online this year.     Also for you early risers, there are a few pre-opening meetups to get in some networking before the big show, you can check out the full agenda of sessions here: https://quickbooksconnect.com/agenda/   I'm excited to see what the day brings, but first, I need my coffee.  If you are watching along, let me know what sessions you are most excited about and share your thoughts in comments below.  I'll be updating this post all day long and would love to talk with you!     7:24A PST I've got my coffee and I'm ready to go!  If this is your first time attending a virtual conference, no worries, when you log in you will be greeted wit

Growing up in the desert, we don't really have the changing colors of the leaves or most of the traditional signs that Fall has arrived - the foliage here goes from olive green to a slightly duller olive green and the mornings and evenings drop below 70 degrees and that's about it.  But, one of the things I always love is seeing how my friends around the world decorate to align with the changing seasons.      This brings us to this month's Show and Tell... all about fall decorating.  I asked the team to share some pics and here are their responses.    The Harvest by Sasha Growing up in the islands, Fall or Thanksgiving is something that is not very common. I have learned to appreciate the American style of Fall, though, especially seeing how my neighbors decorate their homes and the unlimited pumpkin spice commercials.   However, in the Fall months, my Caribbean culture celebrates something called Harvest. This is a time where everyone comes toge

This month's blog is all about the audio side of community.   I know, I know, bear with me a minute and I promise it will make sense.     Podcasts are essentially radio programs on demand, and what better way to build a community than to share stories in audio form?  Now there are all kinds of podcasts out there, and it seems like there are new ones popping up every day.  But, a few weeks ago a friend (Hey Jenny!) wrote a blog post about this fun new place on the internet called Racket.  On their About page, Racket says "We thought it should be easier to get your voice on the web, to share your thoughts and discuss ideas out loud with friends as easily as you can Tweet and text. And we thought it should be easier to listen to what others have to say... it’s hard to fit hour-long episodes into busy schedules, and that maybe we could all get our points across in less time."  And to that end, they allow users to create 9 minute "mini" podcasts

This month's Show & Tell came about because there was a #LiveCreativeDay recently that got me thinking about all the creative things people do but never really share with others.   I am famous for taking pics in the beginning stages of projects but then never sharing out the final finished item.   So I thought this month would be a great time to have people share the things they make with the world :)    Creating with Clay from Morgan I recently developed a love for polymer clay jewelry, earrings specifically. They kept popping up on social media and I wanted to order some but could never decide on a pair. One day I said “I’m going to make them myself!” I ordered the supplies and here we are now. These pumpkins are some of my most recent ones that I’m proud to say I made.   Festive Crafting by Kiala I consider myself a creative person but never with crafts. That's until my friend showed me how to make a wreath for my door! You choose your flower c

Aug 26th is National Dog day, and since we kicked off our Show & Tell series in the community last year with National Cat Day, we want to give our doggos some love as well!  So just like last year, I asked around for people who wanted to share some pics of their beloved pooches and the story of how they came into their lives.   This is Bento From Sherissa:   He is a 4.5 year old Min Pin/Shih Tzu mix, who enjoys laying on any pillow, even if it is already occupied. He came home to us for Christmas in 2016, and stole our hearts in an instant.  He goes by many names in our house, but the easiest way to get his attention is to eat food in front of him & not share!He is quite the cuddle bug and knows when it’s time to go to bed, even after sleeping most of the day away.He also enjoys going kayaking, paddle boarding and riding around in his “Bento Basket” on the front of Mom’s Bike!   Sunny and Gracie (are best friends) From Shelby: 

  It's been a hot minute since I posted a community update, so I wanted to take some time today to let you know about some of the changes that have taken place recently.  Ready? Lets jump right in!   New Community blog! "Getting the most out of QuickBooks" is our newest blog, and is focused on using QuickBooks.  We have articles on trending issues, educational pieces, and my personal favorite, "Top 5 question" round-ups that let us deep dive into some of the most common questions around a specific topic.  Just like this regular community blog, we use labels to help keep things organized, and you can subscribe to a label to make sure you don't miss any content.   Updates to our Events calendar:  We have added social share icons to all of our Events, so if you see something that you want to share on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or via email, you can simply click on the appropriate icon and with a few clicks you can share to whatever space you wan

While summer isn't the long break of no school and no responsibilities of childhood, every year I can't help but look forward to the changing of the season.  Not to mention the sense of adventure and enjoyment of the plentiful sun and good times that it brings.   Here are some of the ways that the team likes to celebrate summer.         Beach time From Sasha How I celebrate summer is usually at the beach. By now, you should know that the way to my heart is a day at the beach! In Antigua there are 365 beaches, one for each day of the year.  A fun activity my best friend and I do is going beach hopping and finding new restaurants. We even created an Instagram blog/page visiting these beautiful beaches and restaurants and capturing the moments. So far, we were able to see 14 beaches and cant wait to visit the rest! Here is one of my all-time favorite pictures in which we were able to enjoy some fine dining and fantastic food with this as our v

I know I am not the only one who misses traveling, and it's inevitable that as the temperatures start to rise and summer starts to kick in, our minds turn to vacations.   While we are all working our way back to something resembling normal, we thought it would be fun to revisit some of our favorite vacations and share the pictures that keep their memory alive.       An Added Joy From Morgan: This is my favorite vacation picture from my most favorite vacation so far. The photo was taken in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. This particular trip is so special to me. While a bit challenging, my husband and I braved taking our two year old to the beach for our first family vacation. The picture was taken with a camera on a tripod, it really was just the four of us. Yep, I said four! We had just found out we were expecting our second baby and nobody knew but us. I’ll always look fondly on this picture and remember the great time we had!   Family Camping

  Most people are aware of #SmallBizSaturday during the holidays, but this is a reminder that these businesses need your help all year round.  No need to go all out, but we put together a few ways that you can support your favorite small businesses all from the comfort of home.     #1 - Shop Online Ok, so no surprise here, but the best way to support a small business is to shop there.  And what is better than shopping from the comfort of your couch in your pajamas??   Tip: If you don't know their website address simply do a search for "(Store name), your city".     #2 - Post a picture and tag them on the social media channel of your choice Posting a pic of something you bought from a small business on social media and tagging them in it is a great way to show support.     Make sure to tag the business in the post (you can usually just type the @ symbol followed by the business name to see if they have an account),