"We are out of the gate strong in the first half of fiscal 2016," CEO Brad Smith said during this week's earnings webcast. 

Intuit reported net income of $24 million for the most recently ended period, compared to a loss of $66 million a year earlier.

Revenue of $923 million in the most recently completed period was 23 percent higher than the $749 million a year ago.

The company also said it had learned its lesson from last year's attempt to force desktop users to TurboTax Online and using pricing to try pushing QuickBooks users to QBO. Last year, Intuit removed schedules C, D, E, and F from Deluxe and made them available only in the Premier edition at a higher price.

Smith last year apologized for the change and the company offered Premier buyers the $25 difference between the products. This week, Smith said Intuit had won most of the customers it lost from the move. He also said the price increase on desktop QuickBooks failed to spur migrations. "We will keep people who want to stay on desktop at least active," he said.

The addition of those 100,000 QBO subscribers during the quarter raised the total for the quarter to 49 percent higher than in last year's corresponding with 1,257,000 QBO subscribers reported at year's end. Intuit's also saw strong growth for its QuickBooks Self-employed Edition with about 50,000 subscribers there, up from 35,000 the prior quarter.

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