The Costco Connection - December 2016

BY STEVE FISHER

COSTCO SERVICES have offered Intuit’s QuickBooks Online and Payroll Services for 15 years, with tens of thousands of Costco members saving time and money by using them.

QuickBooks Online is an easy way to track expenses, manage and pay bills and send invoices. Payroll Services gives business owners an intuitive tool to pay employees, file payroll taxes and much more.

The Connection recently spoke with Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit’s executive vice president and general manager of the company’s Small Business Group, about the services, how he’s looking to up their game and how the company is aiming to help small businesses.

The Costco Connection: Please tell us about your experience at Intuit.

Sasan Goodarzi: I’ve been with Intuit for about 12 years. I have led a number of different businesses at Intuit, from our accountant business to [being] the [chief information officer] of the company for a couple of years, and [I] led our Turbo Tax business for the last three years, prior to my current role.

There are about 800 million self-em-
ployed and small businesses worldwide.
Almost 70 percent of the jobs that are created
in developed countries are from small busi-
nesses. These are folks who get into business
because they love what they do.

But 50 percent of them go out of business within the first five years. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they’re passionate about what they’re doing, or the product that they have, or the service that they provide, but they don’t know how to run their business. That’s because they didn’t get into business because they love business; they got into it because of the product that they’re passionate about. Our mission is to fuel the success of small businesses and the self-employed.

CC: What needs did you see in QuickBooks Online and Payroll Services for the Costco member?

SG: One of the things that we’re trying to help Costco members with is actually understanding the basics of: How many invoices do I have outstanding? What did I get paid this week? How much cash do I have to be able to

CONNECTING

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online and Payroll Services are available to try, risk-free, for 30 days. Go to quickbooks.com/costcobiz.

Intuit’s QuickBooks Online and Payroll Services: Helping businesses

Intuit = Intuition

Sasan Goodarzi

make payroll this week? Where am I going to fall short? We believe that we can build on our platform and innovate to help them understand their cash flow immediately.

CC: Can you explain what innovations you will be instituting?

SG: One is what we call “understanding where you stand in less than five minutes,” through QuickBooks Online, to have an instant view of your [profit and loss]. And one of the big innovations that we’re going to be coming out with in the months to come is to help you see that the invoice you sent was viewed, the invoice was paid. Or, if it didn’t get paid, why?

What’s the action I need to take?

CC: How is Intuit helping small-business owners, aside from the service o;erings?

SG: One thing we’re trying to do is built around the notion of educating students in high school and in college to more broadly build their business acumen. A second initiative is what we call “Small Business, Big Game” to provide visibility to the power of small businesses, where small businesses will share their story. We will have a committee that looks at all the stories and narrows them down to a few finalists to be voted on by the public. The one that gets the most votes gets a Super Bowl commercial, paid for by Intuit.

CC: What do Costco members get from QuickBooks Online and Payroll Services that they can’t get from other similar products?

SG: With two payroll services completely integrated into QuickBooks Online, members can run their entire business from one place. Our Enhanced Payroll enables users to easily run payroll themselves in minutes. Just by entering a few basic details about the employee and hours worked, a check or direct deposit is automatically generated. When taxes are due, all necessary forms are auto-filled so you can e-file them right from QuickBooks. Our Full

Service Payroll is just what it sounds like: a payroll expert taking care of payroll and payroll taxes for you, with a guarantee that they’ll be done on time and accurately. C