QuickBooks: Automating Identity Verification

The problem

01 Only 5% of eligible experts were completing onboarding

The QuickBooks ProAdvisor Directory enables thousands of financial professionals to market their services to over 2.6 million small businesses nationwide. However, the identity verification and onboarding process was highly manual: multiple phone calls, duplicate data-entry across systems, long wait times and heavy operational overhead.

At scale, this was unsustainable. Delays in publishing experts meant slower growth of the network and frustrated users who were abandoning the onboarding process out of frustration.

Research & discovery

02 Auditing and asking questions

I reviewed archived user study sessions and watched customers try to onboard to the QuickBooks ProAdvisor Program and publish their profile. It was painful to watch, and the following insights emerged:

• Experts have to complete required certifications in order to be considered ready to be part of the ProAdvisor program.
• The onboarding process introduced significant friction before an expert could publish their profile. Experts had to speak with an agent and complete a manual identity check before they could participate in the program.
• Long verification wait times caused many experts to disengage or abandon the onboarding process entirely.

I also uncovered that even after completing trainings, experts hit a second barrier: a manual document-review and identity-verification process spread across multiple disconnected systems. This multi-system workflow created delays.

Solution & design impact

03 How might we enable identity verification in seconds, not days?

To address the fragmented, manual onboarding system, I worked with my product manager and QuickBooks leaders to embed a third-party identity verification service directly into the onboarding experience. I led the end-to-end design effort: defining the experience from early concepts through high-fidelity UI, aligning with engineering on validation logic, driving E2E QA, and mapping happy/unhappy paths. This work enabled:

• "Submit once, never re-enter" data flow Verified identity and business information was securely passed into QuickBooks Online Accountant and used to automatically populate the expert's profile, eliminating redundant data entry and reducing onboarding friction.
• Dynamic, entity-aware verification The experience intelligently adapted to business structure (sole proprietor, LLC, corporation), collecting both KYC and KYB information within a single, cohesive flow.
• A reusable design system foundation I built a dedicated component library for verification patterns, enabling future teams to scale and repurpose the identity verification flow across multiple Intuit experiences and products.

My role & contributions

04 Things I led and owned

• Served as Platform/Identity SME for the ProAdvisor team, bridging business, UX and tech to deliver a cohesive experience.
• Drove full-lifecycle design ideology, sketches/wireframes, high-fidelity UI, prototype, developer collaboration, launch.
• Built and maintained the component library to ensure scalable, consistent experiences across identity and onboarding flows.
• Defined and managed verification triggers and flows (onboarding vs re-verification) and aligned these with backend logic and policy requirements.
• Participated in post-launch E2E testing working cross-functionally to ensure smooth rollout and operational readiness.

How it works

05 Automated verification that works better for users

In the new ProAdvisor onboarding flow, service expertise is captured upfront to reflect professional focus, enabling those inputs to automatically pre-fill key areas of the QuickBooks profile and significantly reduce manual setup time. By introducing this structured service-selection model, we not only improved onboarding efficiency but also enhanced the quality of ecosystem product recommendations.

The onboarding experience includes contextual UI logic that dynamically surfaces the required fields based on the customer's selected business entity type. Because identity verification applies at both the business (KYB) and individual (KYC) levels, the flow needed to support both personal and business-level data collection. In our research, the majority of users were sole proprietors, which made personal identity verification especially critical.

When the user submits their information, the frontend talks to Intuit's Identity Platform. That backend service packages the user's personal and business details and sends them to a trusted third-party verification provider (think: Equifax, LexisNexis, or similar KYC/KYB vendors). Once verification is successful, the verified identity and business information is automatically synced into the user's QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) profile.

A critical part of the redesign was defining clear, supportive unhappy paths that guide users when they cannot proceed. The previous flow stopped users abruptly with little explanation, leading to frustration, support calls, and unnecessary drop-off. I designed a set of structured alternative paths that maintain clarity, reduce confusion, and direct users toward the right next step.

The results

06 Proving the power of shared customer data

This was the first Intuit Platform use case proving how shared customer data could streamline onboarding and accelerate first-time use across the ecosystem. The impact extended beyond QuickBooks: the TurboTax team also recognized that onboarding didn't need to live within each product, but could be powered at the Intuit Account level.

• Post-launch operational insight many failed verifications correlated with bad-actor sign-ups, pointing to additional opportunities for platform security and risk management.
• An unexpected revenue channel some users, being ineligible for the ProAdvisor network, converted into paying QuickBooks Online customers after being routed through the upgraded onboarding path.

Key outcomes

07 The results at a glance

• Customer support cases fell by 20%
• Experts onboarded faster, accelerating network growth
• Greater operational efficiency and improved conversion through better product matching
• First Intuit Platform use case for shared customer data across the ecosystem