Adding 30-40 clients to his cloud accounting firm per month but not being able to grow was a conundrum for Guy Pearson. He searched for a solution, but none existed. So, he decided to create his own. As the next developer in the Intuit Developer Spotlight series, he shares about creating his app, Practice Ignition, and the difference it has made in small businesses around the world.

“Our mission has always been to streamline the relationship between accountants and small business owners so that accountants, in turn, provide more value back to their clients because they are not bogged down in admin work,” Guy says.

Designed for Simplicity

Guy was running his own cloud accounting firm in Sydney, Australia, and to outsiders, the business probably appeared to be growing and thriving. But Guy says the constant need to create engagement letters and collect client’s billing information was almost impossible.

“This process was very manual and required multiple signatures. A lot of print, sign, scan and sending over email and vice versa,” he explains. “It leaves a lot of room for error.”

With Practice Ignition, users can go from “proposal to paid” in one transaction. Any business with recurring clients—from accounting/bookkeeping, business consulting, and digital agencies to IT solutions, tech/software, and PR/communication firms—can use the digital proposal and payment processing platform.

Examples of how Practice Ignition streamlines and automates previously time-consuming tasks include:

• Sending professional proposals faster with a shared service library, automatic compliance, and fewer documents
• Receiving billing details and a digital signature upfront from clients
• Collecting payments automatically via credit card or direct debit or ACH
• Forecasting cash flow, payments, and sales
• Integrating apps for improved workflow and productivity

The result? More sales, better cash flow, smart contracts, and boosted efficiency.

Additionally, integrating with QuickBooks Online and utilizing the Intuit Developer platform was an important decision, one that Guy and his team made at the beginning. “We recognized really early on that QuickBooks is the largest platform for small businesses and accountants in the world.”

Practice Ignition works with QuickBooks by automatically creating invoices inside QuickBooks Online based on the payment schedule listed in a proposal. The app then raises, reconciles, and sends the invoice to clients automatically. Their pricing plan is designed to grow with your business and offers the options of Starter, Professional, and Scale.

Powering Prosperity with the Intuit Developer Team

Having the support and guidance from the Intuit Developer team has made Guy’s job easier, especially from a development, marketing, and sales strategy standpoint. He’s also found his participation in developer feedback programs to be invaluable.

“Working with the Intuit developer team is great,” Guy says. “I’ve had great experiences working with the team in all global markets, and it’s encouraging to see that their powering prosperity message translates not just to ProAdvisors and small business but to the developer community as well. The developer team has been able to open up great marketing opportunities for us that would not have been possible if we had not been on this journey with Intuit.”

The marketing opportunities he references include the QuickBooks App Store, where Practice Ignition’s app has garnered some impressive kudos, such as from this five-star review: “As a solo business owner, Practice Ignition is a fantastic tool to help me quickly and easily onboard new clients and streamline my invoicing. One of my new clients was so impressed that they made a point to ask which proposal software I used. In addition to syncing with QuickBooks Online, I also love that it integrates with my other online tools like Asana and Slack through the use of Zapier.”

Practice Ignition’s Next Steps

For Guy, the ability to “bounce ideas off the developer team to test our assumptions about our customers and what we want to build next”, has helped fuel their success. He also says knowing in advance where the QuickBooks platform is heading helps them identify value-adding opportunities and influences their roadmap.

As to what that roadmap is, Guy says, “We’ve just launched Direct Debit payment processing in the UK. This is something we’d love to offer in all our core markets (already available in Australia and America). We’d love to be able to deliver this in countries like Canada, South Africa, and New Zealand, where we have a lot of users.”

Advice for Fellow Developers

Moving forward, Guy and his team are watching the trend of apps integrating for extended functionality and for sharing data across multiple systems effectively. They believe developers should be thinking about the need for integration when developing their apps.

He also offers this advice: “Keep engaging with the developer team, go to QuickBooks Connect if you ever get the chance, ask for help when you need it, and keep networking with the rest of the community!”

Don’t forget to regularly check the Intuit Developer Blog for more Intuit Developer Spotlight posts, to meet some Rock Stars of the Intuit Dev Community, and to learn more about what’s happening in the QBO community, including updated info on the required OAuth migration and enhanced custom fields for QBO Advanced.