Intuit hopes to enable clients to pay tax preparers electronically by tax season. The software company also plans to offer ACH transactions, according to Jorge Olavarrieta, an Intuit Group Product manager. He notes the company already has a simple invoicing feature.

Intuit is giving its QuickBooks ProAdvisors free accounts with Bill.com. ProAdvisors receive  a complementary account for up to three users. And the plan outlined at this week's QuickBooks Connect conference presages relationships with other software vendors.

It has gotten to the point that talking about business software without addressing the issues of the cloud and mobile access is like discussing peanut butter without jelly. And that applies to the time-and-billing software market, where the spread of portals and remote time entry has been important, if not for use today, for use of those moving to these tools in the near future.