Intuit Goes Worldwide with QuickBooks Online Global

The old line about “location, location, location” being the most important factor doesn’t apply when it comes to the newest features in the web-based small business management system from Intuit.

The company has officially released QuickBooks Online Global, which supports businesses in any country around the world, “from Austria to Zimbabwe.” The system is designed to let small businesses easily create invoices localized to their country and region, pay bills and track expenses.

Previously, the system had only been available for the U.S., Canadian and U.K. markets. Intuit, also known for the traditionally-installed QuickBooks system, TurboTax and many other small business and individual accounting and payroll systems, has an overall customer base of more than 60 million users internationally.

“The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well around the world, and a critical part of the global workforce and GDP,” said Alex Lintner, president of Intuit’s Global Business division. “With QuickBooks Online becoming available globally, we can now help the 29 million small businesses in the U.S., as well as the more than 500 million small businesses worldwide effectively manage their operations and achieve financial success.”

The introduction of QuickBooks Online Global is aligned with Intuit’s announced strategy of providing innovative and ground-breaking platform services. The goal of QuickBooks Online is to offer an affordable and powerful cloud solution that is optimized for around-the-world use.

According to the company’s most recent financial reporting, more than 360,000 small businesses are already using QuickBooks Online. Since beta testing of the Global version started in July 2012, small businesses in 130 countries have started using the product.

“QuickBooks Online has been on a roll lately, and with the growing competitive landscape for online accounting applications, we’re excited that Intuit is renewing the focus on cloud accounting and going global with the product” said Doug Sleeter, an expert, speaker and author on small business management and accounting software. 

“Although Web-based accounting solutions have been around for more than decade, we’re finally seeing a sea change of adoption by small businesses. This rapidly increasing demand for cloud solutions makes this area of the market one of the most interesting growth areas for technology vendors and accounting professionals.” Sleeter is also the founder of The Sleeter Group, the nation’s largest network of accounting technology consultants who serve small and medium sized businesses.

Focusing on Local Needs

Intuit states that “participation-driven innovation is at the heart of the QuickBooks Online platform,” which is built to be flexible so that customers can tailor it fit the needs of their businesses and their country. This gives business owners world-wide the opportunity to tailor the system with their home country’s currency, date and numbering formats, as well as the recognized accounting standards.

Additionally, the new QuickBooks Online Global can handle sales taxes and value added taxes (VAT) for any country and includes a translation tool so customers can use the solution in their home language, making QuickBooks Online truly specific to each country’s culture and way of doing business.

“The QuickBooks Online platform allows for customer configuration, user-defined tax rates and country-specific interactions that make a small business in the Philippines, for example, feel like QuickBooks Online has been developed explicitly for their country,” said Dan Wernikoff, senior vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Financial Management Solutions division. “Highly customizable content makes QuickBooks Online local everywhere, helping the world’s small businesses and accountants quickly get set-up and running their business anywhere in the world.”

Highlighted Features in QuickBooks Online that are designed to help small businesses:

• Save time on common finance tasks, such as invoice creation, managing sales tax and organizing sales receipts.
• Get set up to be paid faster with tools to help centralize income forms (estimates, invoices, sales receipts, etc), summarize totals for due or past due transaction items as well as tips to help take immediate action.
• Easily track customers, orders, income and expenses so a small business can always see where it stands.
• Gather all tax-relevant information in one place to avoid tax time headaches.
• Leverage the power of the cloud via a mobile device to stay on top of finances while on the road.
• Get in-depth business insights with reporting tools that analyze their business and industry trends to help them move their business forward.

“I very much depend on intuitive and easy-to-use software to help keep my costs low. Often, I find that cost and ease-of-use are correlated and I typically have to sacrifice one for the other,” said Fong Min Hun, owner of Craft Writing Consultants of Selangor, Malaysia. Not so with QuickBooks Online, which has proved itself to be an affordable and intuitive product. The fact that everything is available via the Cloud also helps me coordinate with my accountant and other business partners without having to worry about minor details such as the availability of software and file servers.”

The QuickBooks Online suite offers three different versions of the program based on a small business’ needs: QuickBooks Simple Start, QuickBooks Essentials and QuickBooks Plus. Pricing starts at about $15.00/month.