2026 Top Advisor Awards Preparation - Part 5

I've written a half-dozen or more articles over the past couple of months on how you can prepare for the 2026 Top Advisor Awards, and hosted a webinar last Friday giving you additional key details. In this article I want to present some rarely discussed aspects of the Awards, including how many applicants are ranked within each of the Award Categories once all applications are scored.

Alright these are the four groups of awards for 2026: Top 100 U.S. ProAdvisors, Top 25 Up-n-coming ProAdvisors, Top 50 International ProAdvisors and Top 25 Tax Advisors. Obviously, the Groups other than the Top 100 U.S are fairly self-explanatory when it comes to scoring, standing and rankings.  In each of those cases, the total score derived from each individual application plus a relative score based upon their vote standing, determine their ranking within each of the Groups. The highest scoring individual within each of those three groups will be the Group recipient: International ProAdvisor of the Year, Up-n-coming ProAdvisor of the Year, and the Tax Advisor of the Year. 

But when it comes to the Top 100 U.S. ProAdvisors, there isn't one long list of scores, vote standings and ranking. Rather, there is a list for each of the recognized 'Categories' for which a Categorical Award will be presented. When the score within each category is blended with the relative vote standing, applicants are ranked within the respective categories. 

However, the number of rankings per category is not the same from one category to another. Each year, the Awards Committee sets the award ranked position allocations by Category based on a analysis of on the prior year's applicant statistics. The following ranking allocations have been set for the 2026 Categories:

• QuickBooks Online ProAdvisors– 35 ranked positions
• Mid-market ProAdvisors (QBO-Adv/Intuit Enterprise Services) – 10 ranked positions
• QBO App-ology ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions
• QuickBooks Desktop (all versions) ProAdvisors – 25 ranked positions
• QBD Integration ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions
• QuickBooks Educator ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions
• QuickBooks Social Media ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions
• Client Accounting Services/BPO ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions
• QuickBooks ‘Niche Practice’ ProAdvisors – 5 ranked positions

These ranked positions collectively make up the Top 100 U.S. ProAdvisors for 2026.  

The highest scoring applicant within each of the categories becomes the Categorical Award recipient. Once these Categorical Award recipients have been determined, the overall highest ranked ProAdvisor from among the Categorical Award recipients is recognized as the ProAdvisor of the Year. 

The 2026 Top Advisor Awards will open soon, please stay tuned to Insightful Accountant for the formal announcement of the opening of nominations (by third-parties) and applications by ProAdvisors. All four 'Groups' will run on the same schedule for 2026. 

Sponsor Acknowledgement

We want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the official sponsors for the 2026 Advisor Awards, without whom these awards would not be possible. You can find out more and support our 2026 Advisor Award sponsors by visiting the ProAdvisor Awards Sponsors webpage!