Deep Dive: Intuit

Intuit was founded by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in Palo Alto, California in 1983. Cook got the idea while working at Procter & Gamble, realizing that computers would soon replace paper-pencil-based accounting.

Today the company has 10,600 employees, 12 offices in the U.S. and Canada, and 18 offices globally.

Intuit’s customer demographic includes small and medium businesses, accountants, and individuals.

Globally, the company has about 50 million customers. 

In February 2020, the company acquired Credit Karma, a consumer technology platform that calculates credit scores and provides credit reports. CreditKarma has 110 million members in the U.S., Canada and the UK. 

In November 2009, Intuit acquired Mint, a popular personal finance app. The app has 25 million users. 

Products -- Overview

QuickBooks

Intuit is well-known for its small business accounting program, QuickBooks. The program can be used either through its downloadable software or through its cloud-based offering QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks’ accounting services include access to live bookkeeping, where users get matched with virtual bookkeepers who help them manage their finances, and advanced accounting, which provides statistics and reports.

The plan for QuickBooks, though, is to turn it into more than just an accounting platform.

QuickBooks recently launched several integrations with DocuSign, HubSpot, Bill.com and LeanLaw, targeting mid-market customers, placing QuickBooks at the center of an all-in-one financial and business hub.

QuickBooks’ services now run across payments, invoicing, inventory, clock-ins and clock-outs, tax management, and bookkeeping.

Payments

There’s QuickBooks Payments, for instance, which lets users accept different forms of payments, including ACH payments and digital payments, like Apple Pay, PayPal and Amazon Pay.

Capital

In 2017, Intuit launched QuickBooks Capital, a lending service for QuickBooks Online users. The service helps users determine if they’re eligible for a loan and speeds up the application process through an ‘affordability calculator’ and by eliminating most of the application process. It also offers installment loans with 6, 9, or 12 month terms.

Capital especially appeals to customers who may have otherwise not have access to loans. Nearly 60% of the customers using QuickBooks Capital would not qualify for a loan elsewhere, according to Luke Voiles, vp and business leader of QuickBooks Capital and head of banking and money movement platform at Intuit.

Through the CARES Act in 2020, QuickBooks Capital helped 30,000 businesses access more than $1.2 billion in SBA-approved and Paycheck Protection Programs loans last year.

Cash

QuickBooks Cash, which was launched in July 2020, functions as a business bank account. It uses machine learning to provide a 90-day financial planner to help small businesses predict future spending. The account includes a physical debit card. Cash is part of QuickBooks’ strategy to be ‘the source of truth’ for small business’ financial needs. 

Commerce

Launched September 2020, QuickBooks Commerce is an omnichannel sales management platform that is designed to allow small business owners to access and integrate different sales channels and manage inventory and orders. Commerce can be used inside QuickBooks online.

TurboTax and Mint

Intuit’s other core products include TurboTax, its tax preparation application, and Mint, its personal finance app.

Mint has had an interesting journey, going from one of the first PFMs in the world, to being acquired by Intuit in 2009, to fading into the background as more PFMs and challenger banks started getting the attention.

Now, though, Intuit is making a push to reestablish Mint’s importance in Intuit’s ecosystem.

“The big thing that we realized is that Mint is an incredibly powerful product. It was kind of the originator in the space,” said Varun Krishna, Intuit’s head of consumer finance. “But it also has a great brand, and it has a very loyal following of users that are incredibly engaged. We wanted to capitalize on that, and take the product to a different level.”

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According to Krishna, Intuit has refocused its energy on giving the strategy behind Mint a makeover, with new leadership and new talent acquisition. Plus, with Intuit’s recent acquisition of Credit Karma, Mint is no longer Intuit’s only consumer offering. This could help strengthen Mint’s appeal. 

In terms of product updates, Intuit has been working on improving the way Mint showcases spending habits month over month and overall. There’s also something called MintSights now, which is available for iOS users and basically provides data driven insights.

“This is really just a first step. I think you can expect that over the coming months, we’re going to continue to add more and more functionality and richer features to the experience and really build out that experience further,” said Krishna. “We’re putting the finishing touches on our Android platform as well, which is going to be launching soon.”

Recent earning stats 

For its Q2 2021 earnings, Intuit reported $1.6 billion in overall revenue, a decrease of 7% compared to Q1. 

Intuit’s Consumer Group revenue was $147 million, a 71% decrease compared to last quarter. According to Michelle Clatterbuck, executive vice president and financial officer of Intuit, this was due to the later IRS opening this year. 

Still, since closing its acquisition in December, Credit Karma generated $147 million for the company in its first quarter as part of Intuit.

Intuit’s QuickBooks’ online and desktop versions together brought in $564 million in revenue. QuickBooks Online was the more popular of the two, topping $404 million in sales.

Mergers and Acquisitions 

• OneSaas
• CreditKarma
• TradeGecko 
• Origami Logic

Competitors 

• Sage
• Xero
• FreshBooks
• Wave
• Kashoo
• Odoo
• ZOHO Creator
• H&R Block
• freeAgent
• Paychex

Diversity + ESG initiatives

By fiscal year 2023, Intuit’s goal is to have 35% of its technology roles filled by women. In 2020, this number was at 28%, only up 1% compared to 2019. 

Overall, 39% of the company’s employees are women.

In 2020, out of all the employees who disclosed their ethnicity, 11% identified as either Hispanic or Latino, or Black or African American. In tech roles, this same number was at 6%.

According to the company’s website, Intuit is committed to reducing its carbon footprint 50 times over, compared to 2018.

The company has managed to operate on 100% renewable energy.

The company offers its employees an extra $1,000 wellness benefit to use for sustainability related expenses.

Controversies 

In February 2021, Intuit filed a lawsuit against Mastercard and Visa for ‘unlawful’ price fixing. Among its allegations, the company accuses the corporations of deliberately circumventing Durbin interchange caps.

Tearsheet Coverage

• ‘We’re going to go where we need to go to solve the customer problem’: Inside Mint’s renewed push into personal finance (March 2021)
• Tearsheet names Intuit’s QuickBooks Cash Challenger Commercial Bank of the Year.
• WTF is embedded finance? (September 2020)
• Tracking $1.2 trillion of invoices, Intuit’s plans for small business banking are bigger than QuickBooks Cash. (September 2020)
• How Intuit’s core mission enabled it to deploy $1 billion in PPP loans to its customers. (August 2020)
• Intuit introduces QuickBooks Cash, a new business bank account. (July 2020)
• Intuit QuickBooks and Visa give small businesses real time access to funds. (October 2019)

Leadership