At Accountex London 2025, Accountancy Age sat down with Nick Williams, International Product Director at QuickBooks, to discuss their latest innovations, real-world challenges, and how AI is reshaping accountancy workflows.
The QuickBooks stand at Accountex London 2025 was one of the busiest of the event, unsurprisingly, given the scale of transformation currently facing UK accountants and bookkeepers.
Speaking on the sidelines of the show, Nick Williams, who leads product across QuickBooks’ international markets, shared how the team is doubling down on MTD for Income Tax, AI integrations, and platform unification to help firms meet the moment.
“MTD for Income Tax is front and centre,” Williams said. “Some firms feel confident, some are somewhat ready, but many simply aren’t. We’ve built our platform to take that burden off them.”
QuickBooks’ response? A four-layer product stack designed to support accountants across onboarding, compliance, automation, and advanced analytics.
It begins with a foundational product layer, built to serve everyone from sole traders to larger businesses with complex workflows. On top of this, automation and AI capabilities reduce manual tasks and streamline transaction categorisation.
But the real leap is coming from what Williams calls agentic AI.
“These are autonomous agents that don’t just assist—they act,” he explained. “They’ll process receipts, categorise invoices, and come back to the accountant or bookkeeper only when needed. It’s about confidence and control without the heavy lifting.”
As firms grapple with growing workloads and talent shortages, Williams sees technology as a route not just to efficiency—but to attractiveness.
“Fresh graduates don’t want to push paper,” he said. “They want to work in firms using modern tools. Practices that adopt AI aren’t risking their relevance—they’re ensuring it.”
QuickBooks is also testing Intuit Assist, an AI-powered capability offering real-time insights and business prompts. “It’s not just about doing the task—it’s about explaining how and why it was done. That builds trust,” Williams said.
Perhaps the biggest transformation lies in how QuickBooks is integrating its wider ecosystem. The convergence of QuickBooks with Mailchimp aims to turn the platform into an end-to-end engine—from lead generation and payments to financial reporting and AI-assisted decision-making.
“Most small businesses run on multiple disconnected tools,” said Williams. “We’re bringing it all together. You’ll be able to find customers, bill them, get paid, file taxes, and manage your business—on one platform.”
For accountants and bookkeepers, this means less friction and more insight across the client journey.
Williams was tight-lipped on dates but confirmed new AI-led features will be launched in 2025. “We’ve got UK accountants testing now. We’re close.”
For now, the message from QuickBooks is clear: adopt tech, attract talent, and get MTD-ready—before your competitors do.
