With the Tax Advisor program, which goes live Dec. 15, Quicken TurboTax users can access live tax advice from Intuit's current financial professional customers, including ProAdvisors, Lacerte and ProSeries professionals.

How it works: users in need of live tax advice click the "TurboTax Live Tax Advice" button in the TurboTax software programs and the newly released Quicken TurboTax for the Web. The button links consumers to a Web site, hosted by Intuit and infrastructure provider EXP.com, that hosts accountants seeking to offer advice through the Tax Advisor program.

Participating professionals can set their own hours, the preferred method of communication (telephone, email or instant messaging), and the price per minute they want to charge for their services.

Financial professionals who are already Intuit ProAdvisors, Lacerte or ProSeries customers can fill out an application at www.intuittaxadvisor.com. At that site, professionals can also complete an online profile with their qualifications.

In other news, Intuit released an online database creation and management service for small businesses and workgroups called QuickBase. The service, which is available at www.quickbase.com, can help users manage virtually any kind of information ranging from inventory and customer lists to calendar and vendor contact information, said Intuit.

And because the service lives on the Web and is hosted by Intuit, small businesses don't have to worry about purchasing, configuring or maintaining servers, the company added.

Customers can create up to three QuickBase databases for free. For $14.95 a month, users can create up to 15 databases using 20 MB of online storage space. For $49.95 a month, customers can create up to 50 databases using up to 100 MB of online storage.

-- SmartPros News Staff

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