Intuit’s popular accounting program QuickBooks Online Self Employed will soon boast additional functionality. This follows the company’s recent move to acquire Playbook HR. The San Francisco-based startup focuses on providing contractor services to small businesses.
Financial terms of the deal were not provided.
Playbook HR will continue operating as normal and servicing its existing customer base. But it will eventually be incorporated into QuickBooks Online Self Employed, which has been getting lots of attention from Intuit.
QuickBooks launched a cloud-based version of the software in January.
Playbook HR helps small businesses collect data, automate communications such as emails, schedule interviews, and run background checks. It is positioned as a way to streamline the hiring process, saving both time and money.
With Playbook HR, Intuit can add contractor services to QuickBooks. The move allows Intuit to further bolster the cloud-based platform as a management tool for the small business owner.
In a statement regarding QuickBooks as well as the acquisition, vice president and general manager of Intuit Alex Chriss explains:
“[We] want to make it possible for [small businesses] to manage their growing rosters of independent contractors and help them stay within the compliance guidelines … And now we’re adding Playbook HR” to deliver a more robust solution.
He noted another recent development on the QuickBooks front. QuickBooks Online Self-Employed recently debuted integration of Stripe, allowing secure and seamless flow of data from the online payment service.
Intuit has been steadily building up its stable of financial tools for small business. In addition to Quickbooks, the company also offers tools such as Mint and Quicken, to help both individuals and small businesses track their finances. Check, a mobile app also allows for easy tracking and paying of bills.
Intuit also offers TurboTax, for tax preparation and filing, and Demandforce, a marketing and communications tool for small businesses.
Among Playbook HR’s features are Auto Triggers and set filters to help more quickly identify quality candidates. There are also several email templates, dashboard-enabled SMS communication, and an Availability Scheduler.
Other features include background screening facilitated by Checkr.io, the Multiple Markets feature to group applicants and workers by location, and cross-country managing from a single base.
There are also Google Apps integrated with Google Calendar, Gmail, and Data Visualization. The last feature provides for the viewing of applicant information in charts and graphs.
Image: Intuit
