Virtual Office will tie together Intuit Tax Online, Practice Management, Online Payroll for Accountants and the rebuilt QuickBooks Online Accountant, along with third-party applications. However, a single price has not been determined for those who might want to buy the entire package.

"We are playing with what that will need to be," Jill Ward, SVP and general manager of the Intuit Accountant and Advisor Group.

As the suite develops, Intuit will also harmonize the look and feel of the products. Ward says the company does not have a deadline by which it will have finished that work.

Homebase is being designed to provide access to the online applications. For example, practitioners could access client tax returns and QuickBooks files. Intuit will also adapt Fifo, an Australian workpapers product acquired durig the summer, for the American market and for the Virtual Office.

Fifo, which will be probably be renamed, has not yet been introduced in this country.

Bob Scott

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Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards.  Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He  has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that.  A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind