The suspense is finally over. From the Accountant Mainstage at the fourth annual QuickBooks Connect, Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) today crowned AIS Solutions the winner of the 2017 Global Firm of the Future contest, awarding the Canadian firm a $25,000 USD cash prize as the global firm that best embraces the future and emulates the Firm of the Future pillars to get online, be clients’ trusted advisors and grow their firm. The remaining finalists AllThatCounts of Australia, Business Works UK Ltd of the United Kingdom and Business Cents of the United States were also announced as finalists and respective country winners, with each firm receiving a cash prize of $5,000 USD.
“We were inspired by the four finalists in this year’s competition and impressed with the number of candidates who have embraced the future with the latest innovations to expand their roles as trusted advisors and evolve their practices,” said Rich Preece, global leader of Intuit’s Accountant Segment. “Being their clients’ trusted advisors while mentoring other accounting firms to better serve their local community is commendable, and we hope that by crowning AIS Solutions a global winner, we inspire other firms to follow their example.”
Just as it had done in the past two years, Intuit set off on a journey to find the most future-ready firms across the globe in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and United States, receiving entries from solo practitioners to large firms around the globe. Rich Preece and a panel of qualified judges from Intuit’s global sites selected the top four finalists whose written submissions best embodied the attributes of Firms of the Future.
- AIS Solutions of Burlington, Canada: Education is at the core of everything AIS Solutions does. Their service offerings for their small business clients range from Full-Cycle Bookkeeping, Small Business Advisory Services, Accounting Software Conversions to Intuit Products all the way through to QuickBooks Training and Support. In addition to using cloud-based technologies to serve their firm’s clients, they have also launched the Kninja Knetwork Division, an exclusive online education and support community to help bookkeepers move their practices to the cloud. So in addition to small business clients, they also have small business bookkeeper clients.
- AllThatCounts of Sydney, Australia: Founded by Lielette Calleja 12 years ago, AllThatCounts strives to provide higher-level bookkeeping and accounting services to keep their small business clients financially fit from anywhere and anytime. Their philosophy is that being a Firm of the Future positions their clients to be emerging businesses of the future.
- Business Cents of Spokane, Wash., United States: Leveraging their robust automated system of apps and processes, Business Cents assists clients across the United States and in South Africa. The firm has employed training about the benefits and safety of working in the cloud to help clients overcome their fear and ultimately switch to cloud-based tools.
- Business Works UK Ltd of Garforth, United Kingdom: The firm focuses on working with clients to support decision making and problem solving and help clients to understand their numbers using a suite of time-saving apps together with QuickBooks Online. Business Works UK Ltd has the motto “it’s all about you,” which can be seen in the way it supports and educates business owners and clients on a variety of accounting topics, through regular seminars and social media posts.