Intuit ProConnect Trains its Lacerte Customers on Multiple Fronts!

We heard from you that you really value being trained by experts on our best-in-class tax products – Lacerte®, ProSeries® and Intuit® Tax Online – as well as topics such as the Affordable Care Act, tax law changes, and security and identity theft. You especially like the training when it’s live, free and when it provides Continuing Education credit.

We have answered the calling and covered all the bases! Here is a recap of our numerous training efforts this year, the fantastic reach and results we received, and what you might expect to be offered in 2016-17:

Getting the Band Back Together! Lacerte In-Person Training

After pausing for several years, the Professional Tax Group (PTG) brought back the Lacerte pre-tax season, multi-city live training tour. A band of two brave PTG travelers delivered many sessions on a variety of topics. The tour consisted of six major cities (Dallas, New York, Chicago, Mountain View, Los Angeles and Atlanta) over nine days, and gave us a great opportunity to meet in person and train our valued and loyal customers.

Enthusiasm for these events was very apparent and overwhelming! At each event, we had a handful of eager tax professionals at the registration desk ready to check in at 7 am, even though actual check in started at 8 a.m. More than 1,100 customers attended the six-city tour, and we received a ton of gratitude for bringing back these live events. Attendees thought the presenters were well prepared, and the training was engaging and fun. We couldn’t be more delighted about the warm reception we received.

A special thanks to our speaker team, who received an overall rating of 8.28 out of 10:

• Kevin Reinard: Lacerte Tips and What’s New for 2015
• Richard Beaver: Complete Lacerte Training for New Users

Training Reimagined! – Live Webinar Series

Our goal was to provide valuable and educational content that motivates and helps you get ready for the upcoming tax season. We tried to reimagine the Lacerte and ProSeries webinar series based on vital tax pro feedback, as well as insight from our marketing, product development and training teams.

Consequently, we brought product demonstrations to the forefront. This year, we included important productivity tips and tricks to provide you with insight about our in-product tools and help you save time. We also included new services offerings, and explanations about how you can grow your business and make a difference in your clients’ lives. Moreover, we brought in product managers to moderate the chat aspect, providing them with real-time product feedback. This is a partnership, and we could not have done it without your feedback. Hopefully, this commitment was apparent, and we look forward to next year’s live webinars series.

Here is a recap of our training classes and results:

Tax Law and ACA Updates

• Speakers: Mike D’Avolio and Laura Grether; moderators: Alicia Robinson and Don Malooly
• 15 sessions, 4,018 attendees
• Average rating: 4.18 out of 5 stars
• Your feedback: Good updates! I found it helpful to prepare for 2015 tax returns.

Security and Identity Theft

• Speaker: Jim Buffington; moderators: Amy Clark and Melanie Milton
• 7 sessions, 2,580 attendees
• Average rating: 4.25 out of 5 stars
• Your feedback: I thought the information was very timely. Mr. Buffington presented the information in a well-organized and thoughtful manner.

What’s New in Lacerte

• Speakers and moderators: Rachael Davis and Ryan Duhon; moderators: Ram Shamanna and Uday Nandam
• 17 sessions, 3,226 attendees
• Average rating: 4 out of 5 stars
• Your feedback: This was a great webinar even for me – been using Lacerte for 22 years now!

Self-Paced Training via the Training Portal

We have begun investing in the online training experience this year and launched a new innovative portal in November 2015. To date, approximately 5,000 unique customers have interacted with the portal more than 12,000 times. The portals offer a personalized and interactive experience by offering training modules that allow you to actually work in a simulated environment of our products. The experience is personalized through automated tracking of completion so that you know exactly what modules you have taken and which you have not. We intend to continue to expand the library of content in these portals, making it increasingly valuable for you.

Come to the Lacerte self-paced portal and learn from our team of gurus that pulled it all together. There’s even a quick video featuring each person involved so that you can associate a face with the voice as you learn about our products.

Looking Forward to Tax Year 2016

While it’s still early, we are already talking about our investment in this important work to provide you more great training in tax year 2016. Anything could change at this point, but we are looking to bring the live tour back each year, providing webinar training on important topics, and continuing to offer more and more content in our self-paced training portals. We are also planning to offer training beyond just the fall and are considering some topics to offer in the summer. Stay tuned – there’s more to com