At a recent conference, Alicia Katz Pollock asked a room of one hundred accounting professionals to raise their hands if they had explored QuickBooks' newest features. Three hands went up. One was hers. In this conversation, Alicia, founder of Royalwise and a longtime QuickBooks trainer, unpacks why that gap matters: the software now does far more than it did eighteen months ago, and the recent price increases landed before most practitioners even knew what was new.

She also reflects on the parts of her work she did not plan for, like the member community that became the most valued part of her training library, and the collaboration philosophy she and her husband Jamie describe as baking a bigger pie rather than fighting over slices. Along the way she talks candidly about work life harmony over balance, and the winding path from substitute ...