At Intuit, our mission is to power prosperity around the world, so it’s no secret that we’re always looking for ways to help our app developers grow their business and find success with the 4.5 million small businesses around the world that run on the QuickBooks platform. Our most recent developer-focused initiative, the Developer Growth Program, connects app developers with an exclusive network of accountants, UX experts, solution architects, and go-to-market managers who help them maximize their marketing impact, connect with more customers, and increase their app revenue.
The Developer Growth Program began as a nine-month pilot that kicked off with five companies that have apps listed in the QuickBooks App Store, including Asset Accountant, Genius Sheets, Helm, Re-Leased, and Syft Analytics. In early 2023, the pilot was expanded to add three new application developers who embarked on a six-month journey to optimize their products and increase their visibility within the QuickBooks and developer communities.
One of the new participants is Uncat, an app that syncs with QuickBooks, and helps accountants and bookkeepers clean up uncategorized transactions with their clients. Though only a few months into the expanded pilot, Brandon Bruce, co-founder and CEO of Uncat, has already discovered how serious we are about helping our app developers succeed.
“It’s exciting for us to have access to a rapid response team that wants us to succeed both at the technology level and at a business level,” he says.
Here’s Uncat’s story and a look at their experience with the Developer Growth Program so far.
Uncat: How it came to be
Uncat was built with the intent of saving accountants and bookkeepers time while also making their lives easier. The founders were tired of exporting spreadsheets of uncategorized transactions and expenses. And they were really tired of trying to get clients to respond to their requests for information. “Uncat solves the problem of chasing clients for important information," says Bruce. "We call it herding cats.”
After the Uncat team developed their app, garnered feedback from early users, and used the feedback to add dozens of features, they launched on the QuickBooks App Store in 2020. As of today, “thousands of accountants and bookkeepers clean up uncategorized transactions with their clients for month-end close.”
Bruce says Uncat also enables accountants to request more information, such as clients’ bank statements and W-9 forms. Uncat syncs with QuickBooks Online as well as QuickBooks Desktop—all for just $5 per client, per month. Between its ease of use and affordability, Uncat customers such as QuickBooks' reviewer Candie are very happy.
She notes in her five-star review, “Uncat has been a huge time saver for me, my co-workers, and my clients. We have had nothing but positive feedback and our clients love that they can respond to their unclassified transactions on their own time and at their own pace instead of having to spend time on the phone with their accountant. The weekly reminders are also amazing and we are able to complete our month-end close process much faster since we’ve started using Uncat.”
Candie is joined by over 140 other five-star reviewers saying much the same thing—which is good news for Bruce, who sees the company’s biggest challenge as growing their app. “We have the twin challenges of building a quality application that scales as thousands of accounting professionals and their clients join the platform, and marketing the application to reach accountants and bookkeepers who are busy serving their clients and growing their practices.”
The team markets Uncat via the QuickBooks App Store, conferences such as QuickBooks Connect, live webinars, and with the help of industry experts who are some of Uncat's best advocates. “Uncat benefits from word of mouth as accounting professionals join the Uncat platform and tell others about it," says Bruce.
Uncat is clearly on the path to success, and its decision to participate in the Developer Growth Program is another step in the right direction to make the Uncat experience even better.
Uncat: Benefits of partnering with Intuit and the Developer Growth Program
According to Bruce, he and his team learned about the Developer Growth Program from the Intuit Developer Blog. “By that time, we had received more than 100 customer reviews on the QuickBooks App Store so we thought we might have a chance. We reached out to the app developers in the first cohort and to the partner team at Intuit to start the conversation.”
Fast forward to today, and Uncat is working closely with the Developer Growth Program’s accountant panel of industry experts. Bruce says, “They’ve spent hours looking at every detail of Uncat in order to provide highly specific feedback on what features they liked best and what we could improve. Their diverse perspectives from both the United States and Canada have been instrumental in helping us elevate the Uncat experience for all our customers.”
In addition to getting valuable feedback from accounting experts, partnering with Intuit has supplied Uncat with the added benefit of engineering “guidance on how to best leverage the API from Intuit platform experts in order to support tax in Uncat.”
And Bruce says the recommendations for improving and simplifying the user experience—for both accountants and clients—are exactly what they needed and wanted. “A lot of our positive customer reviews talk about how easy it is to use Uncat, so we want to continue to focus on making our user experience the cat’s meow.”
Uncat: The Developer Growth Program is key to growth
Ultimately, Bruce and his team believe the Developer Growth Program is an effective and valuable initiative for any app company in the QuickBooks community. It certainly has been for them.
Says Bruce, “Partnership in the Developer Growth Program is key for Uncat because it gives us a direct line of communication with technical experts who are knowledgeable about the QuickBooks Online API and the QuickBooks Web Connector. The program has also given us access to accounting experts who have provided insightful feedback about how to improve Uncat, and UX experts who have shared ideas for how to best reach accounting professionals.”
As with our other participating app companies such as Katana, we appreciate Uncat’s feedback about the Developer Growth Program, and we’re excited to watch as the company leverages the new insights they’ve gained to help grow their business.
To inquire about program details and how to participate, visit our developer forums. We’re always looking for innovative apps that can help the QuickBooks community, and our step-by-step guide makes it easy to list your app on the QuickBooks App Store.
