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Intuit's Q4 gets QuickBooks Online boost, names new CFO

Intuit said it improved QuickBooks Online and landed more subscribers. In addition, Michelle Clatterbuck will replace Neil Williams as CFO.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor
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Intuit reported a better-than-expected fourth quarter, strong QuickBooks Online growth and named a new chief financial officer.

The company said current CFO Neil Williams will leave Intuit in January and be replaced by Michelle Clatterbuck, who is currently senior vice president of finance for the consumer tax group.

Intuit reported fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings of $78 million, or 20 cents a share, on revenue of $842 million, up 12 percent from a year ago. Net earnings for the fourth quarter were 9 cents a share, said Intuit.

Wall Street was expecting non-GAAP earnings of 17 cents a share on revenue of $809 million for the fourth quarter.

CEO Brad Smith said the company had a strong finish to the fiscal year and saw momentum in QuickBooks Online as well as Consumer Tax and ProConnect. In addition, Intuit ended the fourth quarter with 390,000 self-employed subscribers. On a conference call, Smith said:

We improved the end-to-end experience for QuickBooks Online customers, which resulted in a 22-point increase in our Net Promoter Scores. We solved important pain points for self-employed business operators, such as the ability to separate personal and business expenses, send invoices and sealed payments and track their mileage. This led to a quadrupling of our QuickBooks Self-Employed customer base.

For fiscal 2017, Intuit reported operating income of $1.7 billion, or $4.41 a share, on revenue of $5.2 billion, up 10 percent from a year ago. Fiscal 2017, earnings excluding adjustments were $3.72 a share. Intuit ended the year with 2,383,000 QuickBooks Online subscribers.

As for the outlook, Intuit projected first quarter revenue of $840 million to $860 million, up 8 percent to 11 percent, with non-GAAP earnings of 3 cents a share to 5 cents a share.

For fiscal 2018, Intuit projected revenue of $5.64 billion to $5.74 billion, up 9 percent to 11 percent. Non-GAAP earnings will be $4.90 a share to $5 a share. QuickBook Online subscribers are expected to be between 3.27 million and 3.37 million.

By unit for the fiscal year, Intuit said its small business unit will have growth of 12 percent to 14 percent with consumer tax gains of 7 percent to 9 percent. ProConnect will see flat to 2 percent growth.

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