Latest news with #QuickBooks
Globe and Mail
4 hours ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Can Intuit Sustain Its Growth Momentum With Bold AI Push?
Intuit Inc. INTU, the financial software leader behind TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma and Mailchimp, is doubling down on artificial intelligence (AI) to transform how individuals and businesses manage money. At the core of this shift is GenOS, Intuit's proprietary AI operating system that powers intelligent workflows, automates tasks and delivers personalized insights. The company's latest leap includes the introduction of a virtual team of AI agents focused on helping businesses grow with less effort and greater precision. These AI agents, tailored for areas like payments, customer management and accounting, enable a 'done-for-you' model, reducing complexity and boosting efficiency. Nearly 25% of invoicing customers now use AI-generated invoice reminders, resulting in more than 10% higher payment conversion rates on overdue invoices. TurboTax, powered by AI, shortened average filing time by 12%, with more than half of users completing their returns in under an hour. Meanwhile, AI tools helped experts reduce return preparation time by 20%, fueling stronger conversion and productivity. The AI integration is also accelerating growth across QuickBooks and Mailchimp. QuickBooks Online revenues rose 21% in the third quarter of fiscal 2025, driven by pricing, mix shift and AI-powered innovations. For mid-market clients, Intuit's Enterprise Suite offers multi-entity insights, automated workflows and seamless app integration, all enhanced by AI. As AI reshapes how businesses manage operations, Intuit remains a solid innovator. Its data-rich ecosystem, spanning more than 100 million users, generates 60 billion machine learning predictions daily, supporting high-velocity development and real-time insights. With AI now deeply embedded into its strategy, Intuit is extending its lead in the financial software arena. AI Integration at Oracle and Paychex Oracle ORCL is embedding generative AI into its Fusion Cloud Applications across HR, finance and supply chain. Its AI assistants accelerate workflows, deliver contextual recommendations and streamline planning, enabling enterprises to make faster, smarter decisions. Recently, Oracle announced plans to invest $3 billion over the next five years to strengthen its AI and cloud infrastructure in Germany and the Netherlands. Paychex PAYX is advancing its AI integration by embedding intelligent technologies across its HR and payroll platforms. In recent times, the company launched a new AI-powered sales technology stack and market intelligence tool for its sales teams, enhancing productivity and targeting. INTU's Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates Shares of Intuit have rallied 20.2% year to date, outperforming both the broader industry as well as the S&P 500 Index. From a valuation standpoint, Intuit shares are expensive, as suggested by the Value Score of F. In terms of forward 12-month Price/Sales (P/S), Intuit is currently trading at 10.10X, which is at a premium to the industry average of 8.86X. Intuit's estimate revisions reflect a positive trend. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2025 and 2026 EPS has been revised upward over the past two months. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2025 EPS suggests 18.42% growth year over year, while the same for fiscal 2026 calls for 13.7% growth year over year. Currently, Intuit sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. 5 Stocks Set to Double Each was handpicked by a Zacks expert as the favorite stock to gain +100% or more in the months ahead. They include Stock #1: A Disruptive Force with Notable Growth and Resilience Stock #2: Bullish Signs Signaling to Buy the Dip Stock #3: One of the Most Compelling Investments in the Market Stock #4: Leader In a Red-Hot Industry Poised for Growth Stock #5: Modern Omni-Channel Platform Coiled to Spring Most of the stocks in this report are flying under Wall Street radar, which provides a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor. While not all picks can be winners, previous recommendations have soared +171%, +209% and +232%. Download Atomic Opportunity: Nuclear Energy's Comeback free today. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Intuit Inc. (INTU): Free Stock Analysis Report Paychex, Inc. (PAYX): Free Stock Analysis Report Oracle Corporation (ORCL): Free Stock Analysis Report
CNBC
6 days ago
- Business
- CNBC
A 38-year-old started his hummus business with a $450 blender. This year, it's set to bring in $50 million
After years spent in kitchens across the country, Chris Kirby was burnt out. The restaurant lifestyle was demanding and all encompassing, and the 26-year-old found himself not doing much else besides working and going to the bars after a long shift. "I kept waking up in the morning like, 'Man, life has to be about more than this,'" Kirby, now 38, tells CNBC Make It. Kirby decided that his life was in need of reinvention. He left his job, packed his bags and flew to from Austin to Maryland to move back in with his parents. He enrolled in a local community college with a plan. "I was gonna humble myself, move back home, do what I needed to do to get into a school where I could finish my bachelor's degree," he said. "I went from the 'Work hard, Play Harder' lifestyle to waking up at 5 a.m. to study and build my vision." After a year, he was accepted to the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. As part of his application, Kirby had highlighted his status as a non-traditional student — he would be enrolling as a mid-twenties undergrad — and explained that he hoped to use the school and his professors to help him fulfill his ambition of starting a business. More than 10 years later, Kirby's plan has paid off in spades. Ithaca Hummus is sold in more than 8,000 retailers in the US and has raked in more than $150 million in lifetime sales over the past decade. Here's how he turned Ithaca Hummus from a farmers market pitch to a household name. During his first visit to the Ithaca, New York university as an accepted student, Kirby scoped out the local farmers market and grocery stores to see if he could identify a "culinary gap" where he could plant his flag. "By the time I arrived on campus, I already knew that hummus was the product and the farmers market was the place where I was going to launch it," he said. Starting a business on a budget wasn't easy, but the relatively simple and affordable ingredients hummus called for made it achievable for someone with "no money" to spare. Kirby bought a massive stick blender for $450 and spent a few hundred more on the 40-quart pots he needed to cook the chickpeas. He opted to squeeze his lemons by hand because an industrial juicer would've cost him $1,000. All in all, he estimates that his startup costs were between $3,000 and $4,000 before he was able to make his first batch of hummus. From there, he began the difficult process of juggling his schoolwork with his work on Ithaca Hummus. Kirby did his best to schedule all his classes for early in the morning, which allowed him to leave school around 12 or 1 and spend the rest of the day making product. On the weekends, he'd lug his wares to the farmers market and work to get his hummus in front of as many customers as possible. "I would sit in class and type up invoices in QuickBooks, just waiting for the minute when class was over so that I could dart out the door and make deliveries as quickly as possible," he said. "I was maniacal about sales. 'Sell more, sell more, sell more.' It was all I thought about." Despite the fact that Kirby found himself working "way harder" than he ever did while he was in the restaurant world, there was one key difference that that kept him doing: he was working inside of his own vision instead of someone else's. "I got inspired thinking about how I could scale it up," he said. "How could I take this thing that's amazing when you have it at a farmer's market or in a restaurant, but always just can't quite clear the chasm into mass mainstream without losing its identity and becoming this fraction of a shell of what it actually was when it was started?" By the time graduation rolled around, Kirby knew that Ithaca Hummus was here to stay. He enlisted a co-packer to ramp up his production capabilities and slowly began expanding into grocery stores and restaurants in Upstate New York. Selling a product with such a short shelf life limited how quickly Ithaca Hummus could expand, something that Kirby says actually helped the business become stronger in the long run. Rather than increasing Ithaca's geographic footprint as much as possible, Kirby and his team focused on maximizing sales in their existing territory. "It made me take it slow and really go deep instead of wide, which resulted in higher velocities and better sales," he said. "I was able to have in-depth conversations and gain way more knowledge working with five Wegman's locations than I ever would have trying to deal with 80 of them right out of the gate." Indeed, the brand's reputation soon outpaced the company's ability to keep up with demand. "We've turned down customers, a lot of them over the years, because we knew we weren't ready for them," he said, listing Target, Walmart, Costco and Kroger as examples of retailers whose demand Ithaca Hummus wasn't able to meet early on. Kirby has resisted overtures from investors and venture capitalists who've wanted a piece of Ithaca Hummus, because the company is profitable and because he's focused on long term success rather than short term gains. "When you bring misaligned groups onto the cap table, that can threaten a lot of that," he said. "Investors want to make money. That's great. I want to make money, too. But I can do that. I have a business that will do that as long as I stay focused on the unit economics that drive profitability." Ithaca Hummus is on track to bring in more than $50 million in revenue this year, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. The hummus comes in 10 flavors, with each 10-ounce square tub retailing for around $7. Kirby isn't shy about the ambitions he has for his hummus company. "Our goal is to become the number one brand in our category," he says. "If we keep making the right decisions one day at a time and doing the right thing on behalf of our consumers, I see no reason why we can't get there with enough time."
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Smart Investors Are Paying Attention to Intuit Stock
Intuit solves multiple customer pain points. Intuit leverages AI to improve its products and operations. The company aims to become the trusted platform for business owners. These 10 stocks could mint the next wave of millionaires › Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) might seem like just another software company on the surface. But under the hood, it's quietly becoming a powerhouse of consumer and small business finance. With platforms like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp, Intuit is building a cohesive ecosystem that serves customers across taxes, accounting, personal finance, and marketing. And now, with AI integrated across its ecosystem and operations, it may be entering a new phase of growth. Smart investors are starting to take notice, and for good reasons. Intuit is what you get when a product solves problems -- and has been doing it for decades. TurboTax is the default for U.S. DIY filers. QuickBooks dominates small business accounting. Credit Karma opens the door to consumer finance. Mailchimp provides SMBs with a low-friction way to reach their customers. Each of these segments is sticky on its own. But together, they form a full-stack ecosystem that increasingly feeds into itself. For instance, a business that starts with QuickBooks might add TurboTax for filings and then Mailchimp to grow its customer base. By cross-selling additional products, Intuit solves a growing number of customer problems, making its platform indispensable to its customers. The strength of Intuit's business model is evident in its financials. For the full year 2024, revenue and operating income grew by 13% and 16%, respectively. A solid set of numbers, even in a choppy macro environment, thanks to ongoing growth in subscribers and online ecosystem revenue growth. That kind of resilience doesn't come from luck. It comes from a product suite that's becoming embedded in the financial lives of its users. As customers continue to rely on Intuit's ecosystem, the company is now laying the groundwork for its next growth lever: artificial intelligence (AI). AI is the most buzzworthy term in business today. While many tech companies discuss AI, Intuit has already integrated AI into many of its products and operations, with more to come in the future. Intuit Assist, the company's generative AI layer, is now live inside all major products. It helps users complete tax forms, suggests bookkeeping entries, personalizes financial recommendations, and even automates marketing outreach. But what makes this interesting is not the surface-level functionality -- it's the business model leverage behind it. By embedding AI into everyday workflows, Intuit enables customers to achieve more with fewer resources, resulting in higher revenue and lower costs. Doing that opens new avenues of growth while further increasing the switching cost for customers. For instance, with the help of AI-powered invoice reminders, customers receive payment 45% faster, resulting in improved cash flow and reduced bad debt. Beyond customer satisfaction, the benefits of using AI are also evident internally. According to the company, developer velocity improved eightfold over the last four years, and marketing content creation time decreased by 50% following the introduction of generative AI solutions. In short, AI is enhancing Intuit's products and making its operations more scalable. That's a rare double win -- and it's happening now, not in the future. Under the leadership of CEO Sasan Goodarzi, Intuit laid out a clear long-term vision: to become the connected end-to-end platform that small and mid-market businesses rely on every day to run and grow their business, a strategic shift that could reshape how people manage their financial lives. In other words, Intuit wants to be more than software. It aims to be the trusted platform that helps customers proactively address a wide range of problems, including reducing cash flow risks, automating tax savings, recommending financial products, and supporting business growth. That ambition is backed by real assets: trusted brands, a suite of products and tools, deep AI capabilities, and direct relationships with millions of businesses and households. Particularly, with AI embedded across its ecosystem, Intuit can personalize every user interaction and deepen its relevance over time. This vision, if executed well, could keep the company at the center of small owners' financial decision-making for years to come. Intuit is an example of a company quietly executing and compounding its capabilities (and growth) over the years. As a critical partner to millions of business owners, Intuit developed a highly sticky platform that's positioned to grow. Add to that its years of investments in AI, the tech company's prospects look extremely bright. Smart investors are already paying attention, and so should we. Ever feel like you missed the boat in buying the most successful stocks? Then you'll want to hear this. On rare occasions, our expert team of analysts issues a 'Double Down' stock recommendation for companies that they think are about to pop. If you're worried you've already missed your chance to invest, now is the best time to buy before it's too late. 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Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Three Strategic Moves Powering Intuit's Next Decade of Growth
Intuit is well-positioned to expand the reach of its core services. The next step is to upsell and grow the ecosystem over time. The company is expanding beyond its core markets. 10 stocks we like better than Intuit › Intuit (NASDAQ: INTU) has come a long way from being just a tax software provider. Today, it's a deeply embedded financial platform powering small businesses, self-employed workers, consumers, and marketers. With flagship products like TurboTax, QuickBooks, Credit Karma, and Mailchimp, the company has built a sticky, interconnected ecosystem. But what comes next? At its fiscal 2025 Investor Day, Intuit outlined three major growth levers: expanding its core services, increasing revenue per customer beyond its tax products, and expanding globally. Together, they form a durable growth playbook designed to sustain long-term performance. Intuit's first growth lever is obvious: to deepen its presence in its core verticals -- tax, accounting, personal finance, and marketing -- by increasing penetration across both existing and underserved customer segments. In the U.S., millions of small businesses, solopreneurs, and gig workers still don't use professional software to manage their accounting and finances. However, Intuit is providing a compelling reason for them to consider its suite of products, particularly as it integrates artificial intelligence (AI) into QuickBooks and TurboTax to simplify processes and minimize manual input. The goal is to make the first-time experience effortless -- whether that's auto-categorizing expenses or surfacing personalized tax deductions. Moreover, the company has recognized that midmarket businesses will be a key growth category in the coming years, marking a shift from its previous focus on individuals and small businesses. Here, it leverages its years of experience and investment in its platforms, including QBO Advanced and Intuit Enterprise Suite, to help mid-market customers run and grow their businesses. To put the opportunity size into perspective, the total addressable market (TAM) for its core services across its platform is $71 billion. Another way to look at it is that there is a TAM of 47 million small businesses and 242 million consumers who Intuit can target, leaving a long runway for converting non-digital or partially served users into full-paying customers. Besides recruiting new customers, Intuit can expand its presence within already penetrated segments by encouraging customers to utilize more tools that are already available to them. For example, the company can encourage customers who have started with the bookkeeping function to eventually adopt adjacent tools, such as invoicing, payments, and payroll. Needless to say, the opportunity is massive! Getting customers started with the company, whether in QuickBooks or Mailchimp, is just the beginning point. The next crucial step is to get them to embark on a journey of adopting additional services within the ecosystem. This effort could involve bundling TurboTax with QuickBooks for self-employed users, integrating Mailchimp into QuickBooks to streamline customer outreach, and utilizing Credit Karma insights to help businesses and consumers make more informed financial decisions. The idea is to provide an end-to-end solution to its customers, making it the sole trusted platform for customers to run their businesses. Here, an important enabler is the use of AI. For instance, the rollout of Intuit Assist -- its generative AI assistant -- across all its products is meant to help businesses do more with less. Whether it's automating cash flow forecasts, resolving support queries, or surfacing personalized tax tips, AI isn't just enhancing the product; it's also improving the overall user experience, making it more compelling for customers to adopt new products. Another key initiative is connecting customers to human experts. Through TurboTax Live and QuickBooks Live, Intuit is combining AI-powered tools with professional advice to support customers with their needs. These expert networks also create an upsell path for users who require more in-depth guidance while expanding Intuit's revenue streams beyond DIY software. Similarly, by combining TurboTax and Credit Karma, Intuit is targeting the tax and financial solution industry, which has a TAM of $135 billion. Particularly, by leveraging data to match users with products such as loans, credit cards, insurance, and other financial products, Intuit is building a financial marketplace that could become the next leg of its growth story. Intuit's third growth lever is international expansion. The logic is straightforward: Small businesses are prevalent everywhere, and most still lack access to modern financial software. The company is focused on replicating its U.S. playbook in markets such as Canada, the U.K., and Australia, starting with core accounting tools and layering on tax, payroll, and marketing as trust is built. What makes this compelling is the company's ability to leverage its ecosystem model. Once a customer adopts one product, they're far more likely to use another. The more tools they adopt, the stickier they become. For perspective, expanding globally adds more than $300 billion in TAM for the company. If successful, international could be the next long-term revenue engine, complementing Intuit's more mature U.S. operations. Intuit isn't just reinventing itself; it's scaling what already works. With its ecosystem strategy, growing use of AI, and expanding addressable market, the company is positioning itself to compound value for years to come. For long-term investors, this is a business worth keeping a close eye on. Before you buy stock in Intuit, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Intuit wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $694,758!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $998,376!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,058% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025 Lawrence Nga has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intuit. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Three Strategic Moves Powering Intuit's Next Decade of Growth was originally published by The Motley Fool
Yahoo
09-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
4 US Technology Stocks Perfect for a Growth Investor's Portfolio
Investing in growth stocks is one of the best ways for you to grow your nest egg for retirement. The good news is that the US stock market has a wide variety of promising growth stocks that you can own for long-term capital appreciation. In particular, the technology sector offers great choices as the world is awash with digitalisation and artificial intelligence. Cloud computing and the Internet of Things are also the buzzwords of today, making this sector an attractive one to invest for long-term growth. Here are four technology-related US stocks that should qualify to be in your buy watchlist. Intuit offers a financial technology platform with products such as QuickBooks, TurboTax and Credit Karma to help customers to file their taxes and do up their accounting. For the first nine months of fiscal 2025 (9M FY2025) ending 30 April 2025, Intuit reported a 14.5% year-on-year increase in revenue to US$15 billion. Operating profit jumped 21.2% year on year to US$4.6 billion while net profit climbed nearly 17% year on year to US$3.5 billion. The business also generated a positive free cash flow of US$5.7 billion, up 34.5% from a year ago. Management raised its guidance for FY2025 with revenue projected to come in between US$18.723 billion to US$18.76 billion, representing year-on-year growth of 15%. The previous guidance was for year-on-year revenue growth of between 12% to 13%. Last month, Intuit unveiled a new suite of tools and integrations for Mailchimp to help marketers and small businesses to better understand their customers' data. These new tools can help to drive higher conversions and encourage repeat business. Earlier this month, the company launched a set of AI agents that will help how businesses are run and grow. These agents will help to automate workflows to deliver real-time insights, thereby improving cash flow for businesses. Oracle is a software company that provides database software, cloud computing services (Oracle Cloud), and enterprise software products. For its fiscal 2025 (FY2025) ending 31 May 2025, total revenue rose 8% year on year to US$57.4 billion. Operating profit increased by 15% year on year to US$17.7 billion. Net profit stood at US$12.4 billion, up 19% year on year. However, Oracle reported a slight negative free cash flow of US$394 million for FY2025 as it spent a significant sum on capital expenditures compared to a year ago. Despite this, the cloud provider declared a US$0.50 per share quarterly dividend. Chairman Larry Ellison said that Oracle has 23 multi-cloud data centres live with 47 more being built over the next 12 months. FY2026 should see triple-digit multi-cloud revenue growth. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure consumption should also grow 'even faster' in FY2026 with customer demand skyrocketing. Arista Networks provides cloud networking for large AI, data centre, campus, and routing environments. Its platform provides agility, automation and analytics which are highly desired by their clients. For the first quarter of 2025 (1Q 2025), Arista Networks reported revenue of US$2 billion, up 27.6% year on year. Operating profit surged 30.1% year on year to US$858.8 million while net profit climbed 27.6% year on year to US$813.8 million. The company also churned out higher free cash flow of US$613.3 million for the quarter, up 21.6% year on year. In May, the board authorised an additional programme to purchase up to US$1.5 billion of shares. For 2Q 2025, Arista Networks expects revenue of around US$2.1 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 24.3%. Earlier this month, the company announced new AI-driven enterprise products to deliver an expanded set of switching, wi-fi 7 access point, and wide-area network capabilities. In line with this move, Arista also acquired the VeloCloud SD-WAN portfolio from Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO). These innovations will help to introduce proactive monitoring and automated troubleshooting across client-to-cloud networking domains. ServiceNow operates an AI platform that helps connect people, processes, data, and devices to help organisations increase productivity and improve business decision-making. For 1Q 2025, revenue rose 18.6% year on year to US$3.1 billion. Operating and net profit increased by 35.8% and 32.6%, respectively, to US$451 million and US$460 million. Free cash flow for the quarter climbed 22.1% year on year to US$1.47 billion. There could be more growth in store for ServiceNow. Current remaining performance obligations stood at US$10.3 billion for 1Q 2025, up 22% year on year. The company also crossed the 500-mark for customers with more than US$5 million in annual contract value (ACV). For 2025, ServiceNow expects subscription revenue to be in the range of US$12.66 billion, which would represent a year-on-year growth of 18.7%. Free cash flow margin is expected to be strong at 32%. Many investors think DeepSeek lowering AI costs means less revenue for tech companies. But that's not the full story, and believing it could cost you. In our latest free report, we unpack a surprising insight from a top tech CEO who explains why lower AI costs may actually drive more tech spending, not less — and he's got the numbers to prove it. If you've misunderstood this trend, you could miss out on some of the biggest investment opportunities. Click here now to access 'How GenAI is Reshaping the Stock Market' today to get the full breakdown. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram for the latest investing news and analyses! Disclosure: Royston Yang does not own shares in any of the companies mentioned. The post 4 US Technology Stocks Perfect for a Growth Investor's Portfolio appeared first on The Smart Investor. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
