It’s no secret that Intuit puts our customers at the center of everything we do. Our philosophy here is simple: we look for new and better ways to improve their lives by solving their most important problems.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 50% of small businesses survive past their fifth year. That’s why we remain wholly committed to helping small business owners achieve their dreams and beat the odds.
Against the backdrop of unprecedented innovation across nearly every sector and geography, can advanced technologies such as AI and generative AI pave a path to greater resilience and prosperity for more small businesses in the future?
Absolutely.
But it’s not a matter of simply applying enterprise-grade AI strategies to small businesses on a smaller scale. It’s about seamlessly integrating the technology with deep domain expertise into easy-to-use products, on a platform that’s tailored to small businesses needs. All while inspiring the trust and confidence our customers count on from Intuit.
Accounting automation for SMBs = more money, less work, complete confidence
Here at Intuit, we’ve combined advanced AI and human expertise to democratize AI to deliver its benefits to more than 100 million consumer and small business customers on our AI-driven expert platform. For our 10 million small business customers, we’re simplifying business operations by automating accounting tasks on a platform that understands where they are on their financial journey, anticipates what’s coming based on all the data, and provides recommendations or advice.
From starting up to scaling up, our customers have the connected tools, expert services, and insights that are typically associated with an enterprise-size business. Whether for categorizing transactions, predicting cash flow, securing capital, or simplifying tax prep, we’re accelerating personalized AI for customers, at scale, with millions of machine learning models tailored to the unique requirements of small businesses at every stage of growth.
Here’s a peek into four examples of how we apply it:
1. Changing the game in transaction categorization: 2 million personalized models
Accurate, timely categorization of data is essential for showing small business owners a high-level view of where their money is going. It also has important tax implications.
Today, we’re delivering a level of personalization with QuickBooks Online that’s far above industry standards, with an AI-driven categorization system we’ve built for financial transactions. We’ve deployed 2 million personalized models, tailored to the preferences of small business customers for managing transactions. The models are built using historical data and “learn” over time, based on customer input, to further refine the categories most relevant to their business.
To accomplish this, we apply two phases of learning with the data: 1) general categorization patterns across our customer base for similar types of businesses and transactions, and 2) specific ways that our customers categorize and name their transactions. For example, an individual may prefer to categorize an expense as gas, fuel, petrol, or something else entirely.
Having proven the benefits of this breakthrough approach to personalization for transaction categorization, we’re working on extending this work to other use cases that can further automate accounting tasks for small business owners.
2. Predicting cash flow to help small businesses prepare for what’s ahead
Keeping income and expenses balanced from week to week is a classic small business challenge. To help owners avoid coming up short, QuickBooks Online Cash Flow Planner uses state-of-the-art forecasting techniques to make accurate, personalized cash flow predictions and identify key patterns. These predictions give small businesses the enhanced visibility they need to help guide financial decision-making. For example, whether this is the right month to invest in a new piece of equipment, ramp up production, or take preventive measures to avoid a payroll shortfall.
3. Funding small businesses when they need it
A third of small business owners cite a lack of capital or cash flow as their greatest challenge. Securing financing through a traditional bank can be a long and frustrating process that too often ends in a “no.” With QuickBooks Capital small business lending, we’ve simplified the process, using advanced machine learning techniques and rich data sets to take a holistic view of a small business to create funding options that are right for them.
4. Matching with the right expert to ease the pain of tax filing
Tax filers want their taxes done fast and done right the first time. When a small business requests help from a bookkeeper, our AI-driven expert matchmaking models in TurboTax Live connect them with the expert that’s right for them. Expert matchmaking helps select the most proficient expert for each customer, tailored to their specific needs and the experts’ profiles, capacity, and past performance. By melding the best of technology and humans to create awesome personalized experiences, we simplify and streamline the tax filing process for small business owners.
Democratizing AI to power prosperity for small businesses
Today, Intuit technology is improving the odds for small business success every day with advanced AI technologies on a financial platform that’s helping businesses to manage their finances end to end and take the guesswork out of complex business operations.
So back to the initial question: Can the relentless pace of technological innovation improve the odds for small business success?
For Intuit QuickBooks customers, we’re proud to report that the answer is yes: 69% survive beyond their fifth year. By building sophisticated AI technology into product experiences for financial experts and customers alike on our platform, we’re decreasing the failure rate for small businesses on our platform and beating the statistical average by a healthy margin.
And we’re moving quickly to apply more of the game-changing potential of innovations like generative AI to empower small businesses and create next-generation experiences that inspire the trust and confidence our customers count on from Intuit.