Jan Haugo & Associates
Jan Haugo & Associates

Firm of the Future Profile: Jan Haugo & Associates

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Welcome back to our Firm of the Future profile series about thriving firms who are benefitting from the cloud and QuickBooks® Online Accountant (QBOA) to better serve clients and find new revenue opportunities. In this new article, we spotlight Jan Haugo of Jan Haugo & Associates.

Mindy King: Tell us about your accounting practice.

Jan Haugo: Jan Haugo & Associates specializes in personalized bookkeeping and accounting services. We’ve been helping small businesses in and around Phoenix to grow and succeed since 2000. Our team has been involved in supporting bookkeeping professionals and small businesses through initiatives such as ICBUSA, Bookkeepers Revolution and their own Facebook community, USA Bookkeepers.

MK: How long have you been using QBOA? 

JH: I have been using QBOA since it was introduced. I love the idea of accountants having their “own” version of our daily software. So, when it was introduced, I couldn’t wait to use it. #geekmoment

MK: What convinced you to make the move to QBOA? 

JH: The ability to have tools that would speed up my daily routine. Seriously, when I am able to get a team member access to their clients with two clicks and assign the work to the workflow, it’s amazing! It provides great insight into due dates.

MK: You also use Intuit® ProConnect™ Tax Online in your practice, right? How has the integration with QBOA made you more efficient?

JH: The integration is seamless, and the ability to bring live information into a working tax return is priceless. This requires only a one-time setup to map the accounts, followed by going into QBOA to see the results.

When you have that transparency between tax software and accounting software, you take out all the friction in your returns. Less friction means more money. I can prepare returns faster, have more directive conversations with clients and guide my staff in a more nimble environment.

Why wouldn’t I use this type of efficiency? The ability to serve my clients with real-time information on books and taxes give me the ultimate advantage over competitors that rely on past information to guide their conversations. The combination of ProConnect Tax Online and QBOA is a must do, even if you don’t prepare taxes. It sets you up to be a professional with tax preparers and the clients, two of the most important people in your working ecosystem.

MK: What are your goals for your practice this year?

JH: We are already on the way! Working to double our sales and gain some key team members that will position us for more growth as we head into the fourth quarter. The ability to find key members anywhere is so motivating to create a diverse company to support our incredible clients!

MK: What’s your favorite away-from-the-office place to get work done?

JH: I really like our library! I know it sounds funny, but the Scottsdale Civic Center Library is a great place to relax, get a quiet space and meet people. The library is such a community hub and inspirational work environment! Plus, who doesn’t love a good book?

MK: Where’s the craziest place you’ve done work for a client?

JH: Really not craziest but most interesting – a couple of times on vacation, I’ve had to help clients. The two most interesting places were a mountain lake in Montana out in the middle of nowhere and on a golf course in Hawaii.

MK: What’s your number one timesaving tip?

JH: I love the apps tab in QBOA. The ability to add apps and get an oversight into which clients are on what product is very helpful. Being able to search quickly and add an app to my file, or to a client file, in less than five minutes is invaluable.

MK: When you’re not working, what’s your favorite way to spend your time?

JH: Spending time with my family, going to see the Diamondbacks Baseball team and golfing with my husband!

MK: What advice do you have for peers who are still on the desktop?

JH: I know change is scary, but to service yourself and your clients better, we need to adopt technology and learn. The clients will search out software on their own, so it is better for you to be the leader and not the follower. Start with your most accepting client and work as a team to learn the power of QuickBooks Online. You won’t be sorry, and your clients will love you even more!

Find out more about QBOA and ProConnect Tax Online.

Editor’s note: The article was originally published on the Firm of the Future blog.

Mindy King
Mindy King

Written by Mindy King

Mindy King, a marketer with Intuit®, focuses on social media because it combines two of her favorite things: people and technology. She's a mom, Zumba enthusiast, bookworm and writer. Follow Mindy on Twitter @mindy4Intuit. More from Mindy King

2 responses to “Firm of the Future Profile: Jan Haugo & Associates”

  1. Mindy with Intuit here. Thank you, Donald, for sharing your perspective. For many mature practices, succession planning is a priority. Accountants who are new to the field want to join firms that are using and leveraging newer, online technologies because they better support their work-life balance expectations: the ability to work anytime/anywhere, greater collaboration with others in the firm and with clients, and more automation and the elimination of data entry, which frees up time to focus on providing business advice. If interested, here’s an article that summarizes this: https://www.firmofthefuture.com/content/firm-of-the-future-meeting-the-demands-and-desires-of-the-next-generation-of-accountants/

    For you, it sounds like QuickBooks desktop is your product of choice; and we will continue to support our desktop products because of you and millions of others like you. QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online Accountant were not created to replace our desktop products, but instead provide a new and different way for accountants to work – being able to access a file, send an invoice or categorize a transaction while in a grocery store line, at the park or sitting on a beach. And our customers seem to like our online products. We recently announced that we now have 3.2 million QuickBooks Online customers worldwide. You may not be aware, but there actually are many similarities between our QuickBooks accountant desktop and online products, too: the short-cut keys are the same, you can have multiple windows and files open at the same time, and our online payroll and payments solutions integrate directly within the products. (Just to the name a few.)

    Congratulations on having a long-term, successful firm. We hope the last 5 years are some of your best!

  2. what if you are a mature practice of 20 years with 5 years to retirement, Why would you need to grow? why would you need to learn QBOA? Since Accounting hasn’t changed in xx years why do we need to reinvent QB into QBOA? not a fan of it for sure. Obviously i’m not a techie but why can’t QB have migrated to QBOA and still be the same? or is QBOA not able to support the desktop features.