Friday, May 30, 2008

False Advertising by ProAdvisors

I was reading the local newspaper yesterday and came upon a 1/4-page ad by a person touting that she was a "Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor". I can count the number of local Certified ProAdvisors on my fingers and all are either CPA firms or bookkeepers which do not compete with my focus of setup, training & troubleshooting. This was a new name so I went to Intuit's Referral Database and found that indeed she was not listed. Since I try to assume the best, I will not mention her name here. Maybe she just didn't understand the rules. I think the rules are that you cannot advertise as 'certified' unless you have passed the certification exam and appear on the referral database (i.e. you had to have passed the exam in the last two years), but some people may think you can advertise as 'certified' if you simply pay the annual fee. This is the way it was before certification existed. Most QB users don't know enough to visit the referral database to check credentials so this is truly false advertising. Maybe Intuit needs to clarify this in the member packet. Maybe they already have and I just missed it?

3 comments:

Doingyourbooks LLC said...

From what I understand, any person who receives a certificate of any sort is 'certified'. I have receive certificates of completion for any QuickBooks seminar that I have completed, not exclusive to Proadvisors.... Admittedly, it's a broadly overused word. I believe the falsified information would be in claiming oneself a 'proadvisor' if not a proadvisor. If that person did pay the yearly fee, then they are a 'proadvisor'. I relate to your frustrations in that it seems that all one needs to establish viability is the ability to pay for it.

reality check said...

You are correct. I guess the distinguishing factor is if one appears on the Intuit Referral Database. A practitioner must have passed the certification test in the past 2 years to be listed. Unfortunately, many potential clients don't know to look there.

Calculon said...

You can request that your name not be placed in the referral database. I'm not there and I'm a proadvisor.

It's just a setting.