Has Intuit entered the bookkeeping space?

This week, the Twitter world was set, well, a-twitter with rumors that Intuit is entering the bookkeeping space. Some had noticed that on the pricing page for QuickBooks products, a new offering had appeared called “Live Bookkeeping.” But Intuit has denied availability of the new product, saying the appearance of this offering was a test only available to certain website visitors, designed to measure interest in such a service.

According to the new feature, which I was able to view, potential clients would be able to access a live bookkeeper — think Lyft for cabs or TaskRabbit for chores — for prices ranging between $205 to $350 per month, depending on their needs. The placement of the offering and the price ranges visible have changed over the past few days, which is most likely a part of the test Intuit says it is running.

“Only a percentage of potential customers see the page; and if they see the page and click on Buy Now, they get a message that thanks them for their interest and then they have the opportunity to provide us with contact information as well as comments,” a spokesperson from Intuit told Accounting Today. “They also have the opportunity to go back to the standard pricing page without the 'Live' service. It’s all part of the test to understand small business interest and behavior around seeing this as an option on our website when they consider purchasing QuickBooks Online.”

Jennifer Johnson of Ledger Light proclaimed in a blog post, “I guess Intuit has finally admitted that QuickBooks isn’t easy for non-bookkeepers to use.” She wrote, "My observation is that small business owners purchase [QuickBooks], figure out that it is not easy to use, call people like me to clean up the mess, then hire me to do the bookkeeping going forward." This was a good thing for accountants who provided bookkeeping services, like Johnson. But if Intuit enters the bookkeeping space, too, that will undercut bookkeepers who have, as Johnson suggested, made their bread and butter from QuickBooks overflow -- and force bookkeepers to contract their services out through the software giant instead.

Blake Oliver, accounting technologist for FloQast and formerly a Xero Ambassador, on a podcast with David Leary, principal technology evangelist at AutoEntry, suggested that the pricing structure visible in this test indicates that Intuit would not pay their live bookkeepers fairly, noting that, “The big news here is that Intuit is going to be offering bookkeeping services bundled with QuickBooks, and the prices are kinda scary, if you're a independent accountant or bookkeeper who does this for a living.”

Fair treatment and payment of contract employees has often come up as an issue in the new gig economy, with companies like Uber coming under the gun for unfair practices.

Another potential issue is that live bookkeepers available through QuickBooks would be in direct competition with Intuit's own QuickBooks ProAdvisors, all available through a directory Intuit hosts.

Despite Intuit’s assertion that Live Bookkeeping was only a test, they seem to be hiring “seasonal” bookkeepers in Eagle, Idaho (which also happens to be headquarters for TSheets, which Intuit now owns); and a manager for an on-demand bookkeeping service.

"At the end of the day, our vision is to connect every small business with an accounting professional that meets their individual needs," Intuit's spokesperson said. "We’ve delivered innovations like Find-A-ProAdvisor and are proud to say that today 60 percent of QuickBooks Online customers are connected to an accountant. This test is focused on small businesses who don’t currently have a QuickBooks Online subscription and therefore are not yet connected to an accounting pro or potentially would not even initiate a search on their own to work with one."

Editor's note: In an earlier version of this story, the quote “I guess Intuit has finally admitted that QuickBooks isn’t easy for non-bookkeepers to use” was missatributed to Blake Oliver. In fact, Jennifer Johnson said this in a blog post.