Patent ID: 8799124

Claim:
A system for matching financial management system users with relevantly qualified accounting professionals comprising: one or more computing processors; and one or more memories, the one or more memories coupled to the one or more computing processors and having collectively stored therein instructions which when executed by the one or more computing processors, perform a process comprising: implementing a financial management system; obtaining accounting professional profile data associated with one or more accounting professionals, the accounting professionals being certified, or otherwise trained, in association with the financial management system; identifying a user of the financial management system as a user potentially needing the services of an accounting professional certified, or otherwise trained, in association with the financial management system; obtaining user need data associated with the identified user of the financial management system, the user need data indicating one or more accounting professional services needed by the identified user of the financial management system; determining matching criteria for the identified user of the financial management system based, at least in part, on the user need data associated with the identified user of the financial management system; analyzing the accounting professional profile data using the matching criteria for the identified user of the financial management system to identify accounting professionals whose accounting professional profile data matches, or most closely matches, the matching criteria for the identified user of the financial management system; generating a potential accounting professional listing for the user including a listing of one or more identified accounting professionals whose accounting professional profile data matches, or most closely matches, the matching criteria for the identified user of the financial management system; selecting one or more of the identified accounting professionals in the potential accounting professional listing; notifying the selected accounting professionals of their selection and provide the selected accounting professionals at least part of the user need data indicating one or more accounting professional services needed by the identified user of the financial management system; receiving, from a selected accounting professional, information indicating a desire to provide accounting services to the user of the financial management system; facilitating communication between the selected accounting professional indicating a desire to provide accounting services to the user of the financial management system and the user of the financial management system; and changing data indicating a status of the user of the financial management system to data indicating status of a business lead provided to the selected accounting professional indicating a desire to provide accounting services to the user of the financial management system.