New AI, reporting, and project tools in QuickBooks Online Advanced

The August 2026 release adds capabilities that go directly toward the work firms want to spend more time on — advisory — and less time on: reconciling, formatting reports, and chasing down project numbers. Highlights include a more capable Finance AI (monthly performance summaries, KPI anomaly alerts, and a conversational "ask anything" interface), board-ready management report templates, deeper project or job-based and construction financials, and workforce data now surfacing directly in financial reporting through QuickBooks Workforce Elite.¹ Bill Pay Elite² is also now included in QuickBooks Online Advanced, with free standard ACH for all customers.

Every firm hits a version of the same wall with growing clients. The books are accurate, but close takes too long. The client wants a board deck, a lender package, or an investor update, and someone on your team spends most of a day reformatting numbers that were already correct. A client asks a question about margin or cash flow mid-meeting, and the honest answer is "let me pull that and get back to you."

The August updates to QuickBooks Online Advanced are aimed at that gap. Here's what's new, and what it means for how you serve your Advanced clients.

Finance AI does more of the advisory prep for you

Finance AI in QuickBooks Online Advanced now does more than surface numbers—it drafts the narrative around them.

Each month, it generates a summary of performance highlights — revenue trends, expense patterns, notable variances — formatted for client or stakeholder review. You can edit and send these rather than rebuilding a performance narrative from scratch every period, which is useful whether you're preparing a monthly client check-in or a board-facing summary.

Finance AI also monitors KPIs continuously and flags anomalies as they emerge, paired with a suggested next step. When cash flow dips below a threshold, or expenses in a category move unexpectedly, you (or your client) find out when it happens rather than when someone eventually notices it in a report.

For faster answers during a client call, the "ask anything" conversational interface³ lets you type a question in plain language and get an answer grounded in the client's live data like"what's driving the increase in operating expenses this quarter," or "which customers have the longest payment cycles" without exporting anything or building a one-off report first.

A close that needs less review time

Reconciliation has always been one of the more tedious parts of month-end — not complex, just detailed and unforgiving of small mismatches. Accounting AI now takes on more of that directly.

Transaction categorization improves over time: Accounting AI learns from how your team resolves flagged items and applies that pattern going forward, which reduces the number of items landing in review each month. Inconsistencies get flagged before they compound, so the list you're working through at close gets shorter rather than longer.

For firms handling this across multiple clients, it is helpful to understand Books Upkeep. Through this ongoing service, Intuit Intelligence automatically processes high-confidence transactions based on user-defined policies, ensuring that only exceptions requiring direct input are brought to your attention. Judgment-based transactions are clearly labeled, so there's full visibility into what's posted, and issues get flagged before month-end rather than at close.

Because this touches work you may already do for your clients, it's off by default for any client working with a bookkeeper or accountant.

For firm-billed clients, the firm controls when Expert Books Upkeep is turned on; direct-billed clients are prompted to check with their accountant first. If you have clients who'd benefit from AI-driven weekly categorization backed by an Intuit Expert review, it's worth understanding how that service fits next to the work you already do for them. Find more information on Intuit Expert services here. 

Management reports that go out the door faster

Turning accurate financials into something a board, a bank, or an investor actually wants to read has historically taken hours of manual reformatting, even when the underlying numbers were never in question.

QuickBooks Online Advanced now includes management report templates that pull live KPIs, dashboards, and financial summaries into a structured, branded document. Visual formatting, calculated fields, and global settings get configured once and applied automatically each cycle, producing a PDF-ready report that reflects current data—no export, no rebuild, no risk that the version you send is already out of date by the time it lands in an inbox.

For firms preparing recurring board packages, lender reports, or investor updates across multiple clients, this is the difference between a few hours of formatting per client, per cycle, and a report that's largely ready when the numbers are.

For the work that still needs to happen in a spreadsheet, two-way spreadsheet sync pulls live reports into Excel or Google Sheets with structure and formulas intact, and lets you push edits—transactions, journal entries, budgets—back to QuickBooks Online Advanced in one step. It's the difference between starting from a static export and working from data that refreshes against the source, so the version you're analyzing is never out of date.

Project profitability you can see before the invoice goes out

For clients who run projector job-based businesses, the gap between what happens at the project level and when the financial impact shows up is a common source of margin erosion—and a recurring source of after-the-fact conversations with you.

Construction financial capabilities are now included in QuickBooks Online Advanced at no additional cost (previously a paid add-on). It brings structured budgets by phase, AIA-style progress billing, change order management, and WIP over/underbilling reporting directly into the client's books—so job costs, billing, and profitability sit in one place instead of being reconciled after the fact between a job-tracking tool and the ledger.

Going beyond construction, any job-based business—consulting, architecture, agency, and other firms—will also receive additional project accounting capabilities. These include budgets by phase or team member tied directly to the estimate, real-time cost tracking against budget, and milestone-based invoicing generated straight from the project record.

Project Management AI now also monitors budgets against actuals in real time and flags when a project is trending toward an overrun—early enough to have a scope, staffing, or client conversation before the margin is already gone—and can generate estimates from project parameters and historical data, which helps standardize proposals across a client's engagements.

For firms advising project-based clients, this shifts the conversation from "here's what happened last quarter" to "here's what's happening right now, while there's still time to act on it."

Inventory that stays accurate through the order cycle

For clients running product-based businesses, the gap between what's on the shelf and what's in the books is a recurring source of margin surprises—stock tracked in one tool, costs reconciled in another, COGS only true at month-end.

QuickBooks Online Advanced now brings more of that workflow into the books. Sales orders reserve stock and trigger purchase orders automatically at the reorder threshold, item receipts update costs the moment goods arrive, and moving average cost valuation recalculates in real time across the full order-to-invoice cycle. For the client, stock and margins stay accurate at every step; for you, there's less reconciling across separate systems before the numbers are trustworthy.

Workforce data shows up next to the financials

For most growing clients, labor is the largest line on the P&L—but payroll and financial data have typically lived in separate systems, so headcount cost, benefits, and workforce trends rarely sit next to the revenue and margin numbers that give them context.

The integration between QuickBooks Online Advanced and QuickBooks Workforce now surfaces workforce data directly in financial reporting, so you can build custom reports and dashboards that combine workforce metrics with standard financials—useful when a client wants to model the financial impact of a headcount decision or understand total compensation cost alongside revenue per employee, without manually reconciling two systems yourself.

The HR Manager role also now has expanded access to cross-platform data and can delegate HR-related tasks without pulling in IT, with hiring, onboarding, benefits, time tracking, and payroll accessible from a single dashboard.

Streamline AP workflows with built-in Bill Pay Elite

QuickBooks Online Advanced now includes Bill Pay Elite at no added cost, with free standard ACH for all customers, custom approval workflows, an audit trail, and unlimited 1099 e-filing. Bills don't move without the client's sign-off, and payments reconcile automatically, so both you and your client have an accurate, auditable view of cash going out without a separate AP tool to manage, sync, or reconcile against the books.

For firms that have historically had to have a separate conversation about AP automation—whether to recommend it, which tool, and how to bill for it—this removes a layer. It's part of the Advanced subscription your client is already on, with reduced manual entry and a workflow, controls, and reconciliation story that's easier to walk a client through than a standalone AP product. New split billing also gives firms more flexibility, letting transaction fees be billed directly to the client while the firm manages the base subscription.

Getting started

These updates are live for QuickBooks Online Advanced subscribers beginning August. If you have clients on a QuickBooks Online tier who are starting to feel friction points like a close that takes too long, reporting that eats a day per cycle, project financials tracked outside the books, this release is a reasonable prompt to have that upgrade conversation.

Explore QuickBooks Online Advanced for your clients. 

Disclaimers

August feature release dates and availability will vary by product. Not all features will be available on August 1.

This information is intended to outline our general product direction, but represents no obligation and should not be relied on when making a purchasing decision. Additional terms, conditions, and fees may apply with certain features and functionality. Eligibility criteria may apply. Product offers, features, and functionality are subject to change without notice.

Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc. pursuant to IPI's licenses (NMLS #1098819, https://www.intuit.com/legal/licenses/payment-licenses).

¹ QuickBooks Workforce subscription sold separately. QuickBooks Workforce features and functionality vary by plan, which are subject to change. Certain features are available only with Workforce Premium or Elite, or may require additional fees. For details, see quickbooks.com/workforce.

² QuickBooks Bill Pay: Subject to eligibility, credit, and approval prior to first payment. Subscription to QuickBooks Online required. Bill Pay is included with QuickBooks Online when purchased directly from QuickBooks.com or QuickBooks Sales. Not available in US territories or outside the US. Limits may apply on total number and amount of payments. Transaction-based fees apply based on usage. Bill Pay Elite is expected to be included in QuickBooks Advanced on August 1, 2026. Actual availability dates may vary and are not guaranteed. Bill Pay Elite pricing and feature availability may vary based on your specific subscription plan and date of renewal. Please check your account settings for the most accurate details regarding your subscription tier. QuickBooks Online Advanced subscription fees are not subject to modification based on user eligibility for QuickBooks Bill Pay.

³ "Intuit Intelligence / Conversational BI Skills" are currently available as beta releases. Features, availability, and capacity are subject to change. Intuit Intelligence chat is available to admin users only at this time, with limited capacity each month (beta).