Next week, Insightful Accountant will premier our new QBTalks-Apps Show on January 7, 2026 at 2:00 PM Eastern.
In this first-ever edition of Insightful Accountant’s New QBTalks-Apps series, I will be discussing QuickBooks Realms in a show titled, "A Realm By Any Other Name."
My aim is to ensure that you understand what a ‘Realm’ is in QuickBooks Online, as well as understand the links that exist within the QuickBooks Online environment and ecosystem based on realms. But beyond that theory, we will examine the practical aspects of ‘realm consolidation’ which will be required by most Accounting firms using QuickBooks Online-Accountant when they are ready to migrate to Intuit Accountant Suite.
These three concepts are illustrated in the graphic image below. Now if you understand all of this already, and you are certain that you are not going to have any issues plugging all the QBOA realms shown in blue boxes into the Current 'Firm' QBOA realm after it's transitioned to an IAS account, then you obviously don't need to read the rest of this article, or attend this webinar.
Furthermore, I want to congratulate you because it took me about three tries just to figure out how to implement the steps to migrate Clients from one realm to another, migrate Apps from one realm to another, and migrate team members from one realm to another.
(Illustration of a multi-realm QBO-Accountant based firm with numerous team members, attached services, and clients attached to more than a single realm.)
Intuit says the steps to realm consolidation related to migration of QBO-Accountant to Intuit Accountant Suite are as simple as (1) planning for realm consolidation, (2) preparing the target realm that will become the seat (primary realm) of your IAS, (3) migrating client (source) realms to the primary (target) realm of your IAS seat, (4) performing post-migration clean-up, and (5) beginning work under the new IAS platform.
Perhaps that's true, but I also know that I haven't seen a single person from Intuit actually undertake those steps in a live environment. They are always using a PowerPoint, with perhaps one or two pre-recorded video clips of a step, and then summarize the next step or skip it all together.
I plan to go through an actual demonstration of the process for transitioning from QBO-Accountant to Intuit Accountant Suite. Oh sure there will be some PowerPoint talking points with enumerated steps to help keep me on track, but my primary purpose in teaching this webinar is to show you it is possible to transform your QBO-Accountant based firm into an Intuit Accountant Suite firm.
If you are already registered for QBTalks, then you are already registered for this new QBTalks-Apps series. If you are not already registered you can:
Register Here for QBTalks (and QBTalks-Apps)
Disclosures:
Some content within this article, and in the corresponding webinar, is based on Intuit source materials including in-product 'Help' and actual QuickBooks Online Accountant and Intuit Accountant Suite, technical support release notes. Intuit content adapted by Insightful Accountant from Intuit sources is furnished for educational purposes only.
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