QuickBooks Desktop & Desktop Enterprise ProAdvisor Certifications will be sunset 10/23/26; Payroll certification becomes Workforce certification 10/1/26.
If you have not been over to the ProAdvisor Academy and and looked closely in the 'advisory space' just below the top banner, you likely are unaware of this news.
Changes to QuickBooks ProAdvisor Payroll Certification
Let's look the most date-approximate news first. As early as last spring, I became aware that QuickBooks Online Payroll was being transitioned to QuickBooks Workforce; in fact, Insightful Accountant reported that to you first. Next, I heard rumors that Intuit would be transitioning QuickBooks Payroll certification to Workforce certification and those rumors sounded like a November 2026 date of transition.
But as it turns out, the date is October, not November. In fact, this past week I asked Intuit officials to confirm if the new 'Workforce' certification would be available after November 1, 2026, and I was told that it would "go live" at the end of September. As the notice above reads, the "QuickBooks Payroll certification will be under maintenance starting September 28 (that's the date of this article) through September 30, 2026."
One must assume that when it goes live again, it will be 'Workforce' rather than 'Payroll' and will encompass a lot more than just payroll processing in the same way the Workforce Premium and Workforce Elite cover areas more than payroll like time tracking, HR onboarding, recruiting, and H.R. advisory.
I can't say I've seen Workforce certification as a multi-session training option at Intuit Connect in October, but I'm confident that it will be addressed during the conference, either from the stage, or at one of Intuit's exhibit hall kiosks. If I were a betting man, I would also wager we would see some Workforce certification training event from the ProPartner team sometime next spring, if not before (in addition to the self-paced training within the ProAdvisor Academy).
QuickBooks Desktop ProAdvisor & QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise ProAdvisor Certifications' Sunset
Insightful Accountant's readership is clearly aware that few significant changes have been made to QuickBooks Desktop Pro or Premier since the 2024 editions were released, the same can be said for QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise v24.0. While there have been some 'maintenance releases', 'fixes', and 'feature tweaks', little if anything else has changed. Similarly, the QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise ProAdvisor Certification (training and examinations) have essentially remained unchanged since they were last updated several years ago with the exception of migration from the old educational platform to the ProAdvisor Academy.
Most of us recognize the reality that Intuit is focusing their future on their cloud-based products. It should be no surprise Intuit would want to focus the training and certifications for their new, soon to be fully implemented, ProPartner Program also in the various cloud product offerings upon which Intuit is focusing.
And so it is, as with the ProAdvisor Program which sunsets in January 2027, the notice reads,"QuickBooks Desktop and Desktop Enterprise certifications are retiring October 23, 2026." After that date, neither the QuickBooks Desktop nor QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise certification programs will be available. However, all of the learning resources for those two certifications will remain available under the 'Learn' tab of the ProAdvisor Academy. The notice also reads,"Existing certifications will remain valid."
How This Impacts the 2027 Top Advisor Awards
In the simplest of language, "It doesn't" impact the 2027 Top Advisor Awards at all. Even now, as I am conducting my final review of the 2027 U.S. Top Advisor Awards Application Form, the QuickBooks Desktop ProAdvisor Certification will continue to be one of the three options Advisors have to qualify for the minimum certification requirements.
Applicants will also be able to use either (or both for that matter) QuickBooks Payroll and QuickBooks Workforce Certifications earned (or held) during 2026. So, if you earned a QuickBooks Payroll credential early in 2026, and you choose to take the training and get certified in the new 'Workforce' certification before December 31, 2026, you will earn points for both. "How about that?"
And, even if Intuit goes through a complete rebranding of certification credentialing and badging nomenclature changing existing ProAdvisor certifications to ProPartner certifications prior to the time the 2027 Awards process formal applications are due in March 2027, we've made provisions to just 'roll-right-along' as a "rose by any other name would 'earn exactly the same number of points" no matter what nomenclature appears on your certificate or badge for the same 'product and level'.
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Feature content adapted from Intuit source including the Intuit ProAdvisor Academy accessible via Intuit Accountant Suite, and other content furnished by Intuit. Insightful Accountant is not responsible for any original Intuit content.
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