Dive Brief:

• Intuit announced the release of Intuit Workforce, a product targeted at startups that make use of freelance workers.

• Non-traditional employment arrangements can be challenging for HR departments and bookkeepers, according to Intuit.

• The free product will help companies communicate with freelance workers, schedule them, review necessary documents and conduct background investigation-type tasks.

Dive Insight:

A shortage of IT talent is causing a growing number of companies to engage freelance workers. In fact, a recent report by Appirio found 84% of C-suite respondents see the economy shifting more toward freelance-based work by 2050.

"This massive growth brings new complexity in worker management, payments and tax distribution," said Alex Chriss, vice president and general manager of Self-Employed Solutions at Intuit. "QuickBooks Self-Employed and our new Intuit Workforce work together to make it easier for both workers and companies to collaborate, share data and efficiently meet their respective compliance requirements."

Intuit hopes to bring organization to companies that use freelancers and independent contractors and ensure any potential management difficulties such relationships can create are thwarted early.

Intuit cited research that suggests the number of Americans who regularly take on freelance jobs to increase from 3.2 million in 2015 to 7.6 million in 2020.