Tag: cloud

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Everything Old is New Again: Big Fat Phones and Desktop QuickBooks in the Cloud

anywhere-anydeviceEvery year that passes leaves some reminder of the time – some person or occurrence which touches us and creates a lasting memory.  2014 delivered its share of memorable people and moments and proved again that social platforms such as Twitter and Instagram have become increasingly significant as people across the world organize, march or call for change.  Yet even as change is demanded from us and often forced upon us, it is wise to remember that the pendulum eventually swings both ways.  We want to have our cake and eat it, too, which is the ultimate no-win situation and causes us to constantly and consistently seek out the alternative.  Like the puppy chasing his tail, we end up going round in circles.  Harem pants and jeans torn from knee to thigh have come back in fashion, and even though they didn’t really work the first time, here they are again. It is inevitable.

Information technology trends follow similar patterns, and what was once in high fashion may now be considered as “legacy”.  Perhaps the better word is “classic”, as these legacy solutions often represent the standards by which new solutions will be measured.  Eventually, the properties of the classic or legacy solution wind up in the new breed, because this is what the market has come to expect and/or demand.  Even when entirely new standards are believed to be adopted, the truth is that years of learning and experience will often find the path previously traveled by others to be the right path.

It seems like so long ago when some said “the desktop is dead” and that all applications would be used by every device via the web, but not run on the device.  Well, there are quite a number of web-based applications and services delivered in just that manner, but there are also lots and lots of computers out there with software still installed on them, happily working away for their users (there’s an app for that, right?).  The desktop isn’t dead at all, it seems, and what’s more – there are trends to extend the capability and reach of the desktop to the web rather than replacing the desktop with the web.  Application integration, process integration, interoperability, functionality and modality – all these factors and more have become the underlying drivers for extension of and hosting for desktop applications, and are the areas where SaaS and web-based application service has not delivered as expected.

The idea of having no software on the computing device is kind of silly, when you think about it.  Computers continue to get more powerful and have more capability than ever.  Heck, even phones are getting fatter and bigger again.  The best phones these days are the ones that rival tablets and laptops in size and have lots of apps to run.

Microsoft Office, too, hasn’t gone anywhere, really.  It’s still firmly attached to most workstations whether they’re iPads or Macs or Windows systems.  Web-based productivity tools are certainly gaining in use, but not nearly as widely as some would believe.  Office productivity continues to live on the desktop, and ties many users to desktop computing for that very reason.  Use CRM in the cloud?  I’ll bet you still export data to Excel or Word on the PC.  Use accounting in the cloud?  A lot of reporting still goes through Excel, trial balance systems and the like.  The universe of web-based and SaaS apps is getting larger, but it hasn’t yet become the center of the universe for most established businesses.  Net-new customers and smaller businesses are adopting SaaS due largely to cost and to the success of the marketing message, but use and direct experience with the product applied in the business setting often demonstrates that adoption of a more flexible (malleable) or functionally rich solution is indicated. The business likes the mobility, remote access and managed service, but not the actual SaaS application.  So, hosting becomes the better alternative and the business is able to use the software that works for the business, and use it in a manner that allows the business to take advantage of remote and mobile capability, subscription service, and more.

I really have no gripes with web-based and SaaS solutions.  In fact, some of my best friends use SaaS  🙂  The message I’m trying to convey is simply that, regardless of what the media and marketing may tell you, things don’t always change as quickly as it seems.  Yes, there is a movement towards cloud solutions and online working models.  Yes, there is change in how information technology is obtained and used.  And equally true is the reality that only a portion of the market has adopted these changes and new philosophies.  By the time there is “complete” adoption, there will be a new standard or approach being marketed and we will be in this place once again.  Is there wide recognition of the benefit for mobility and remote capability? Sure there is, but it is also accompanied by the understanding that tried and true solutions will continue to deliver the functionality and capability businesses rely upon, even as new models for delivering them come about.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

Here are some of the most popular articles from CooperMann.com in 2014.  Surprisingly enough, the most popular were articles about QuickBooks and the Cloud, a subject I’ve been writing about for many years.  In fact, some of the most popular of my QuickBooks/cloud articles are from 2013 and they remain among the most frequently viewed even today. Search and view metrics indicate that the topic’s popularity is not likely to diminish soon, so plan to hear more about how businesses are using QuickBooks (and other desktop and network applications) in the cloud, but aren’t using Online editions to make it work really well.

 The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. CooperMann.com blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

  1. The 2 Most Popular Models for Working with QuickBooks Desktop Editions and the Cloud
  2. Hosted QuickBooks and Office 365 a Complicated Technical and Licensing Model (until now)
  3. Intuit Introduces Changes to Authorized Commercial Host for QuickBooks Program, Introduces QuickBooks Enterprise Rental Licensing
  4. Managed Applications, Cloudpaging, and a New Flavor of Hosted QuickBooks
  5. QuickBooks and Dropbox? Yeah… no.
  6. Intuit Ends QuickBooks Remote Access Service: The Time to Host is Now

 

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Following the Rules: Users and Licensing for Hosted QuickBooks

Following the Rules: Users and Licensing for Hosted QuickBooks

I have said many times before that the licensing for QuickBooks desktop editions appears to be a bit complicated, and a lot of that may have to do with the fact that so many people use QuickBooks in so many different ways.  With a solution like QuickBooks (or Microsoft Office or other really popular and widely used software products) there is a tendency for folks to want the flexibility of accessing their software regardless of what computer they are using.  Also, especially in businesses, there is the habit of installing software on a computer and then allowing anyone sitting at the computer to use the software.  In some cases these approaches are okay with the software vendors, but in most cases they’re not.  Yet too often, the small business owner doesn’t find out what the actual rules of using the product are until they try to deploy the software with a hosting service provider (because nobody ever actually reads the EULA, do they?).  If the provider has any credibility at all, they will enforce the licensing rules of the software, but that doesn’t always sit well with the customer.

picture-hostedQBThis situation rears its ugly head quite frequently in the QuickBooks hosting world.  Perhaps it is because there are a lot of possible working models involving QuickBooks users, or maybe it’s simply a matter of people not seeing the value of paying for what they want to accomplish.  Either way, service providers find themselves being challenged every day in trying to explain to a customer why they need to have more than one license for QuickBooks and more than one service account if they want more than one person to access the hosted solution.

Different people at different times: The Concurrent User approach

One of the arguments people make for not having licenses for all of their users is that they don’t actually need everyone in the system at the same time.  The belief is that there should be licenses enough only for the number of concurrent, or simultaneous, users that will access the system, yet each individual human being/user should have a login to the system with the software available (for convenience, of course).  A QuickBooks 3-user license, they believe, should be able to be used by any number of business users as long as no more than 3 of them are in QuickBooks at any given time.

While the customer may be making a reasonable argument, it all falls down when you consider the license agreement for QuickBooks.  Each user of the product is supposed to have a specific license.  A business with a 3-user license (or 3 single-user licenses) for QuickBooks has the rights to allow 3 people (unique human beings) to use the software, not any combination of people as long as they number no more than 3 at a time.   There is to be no sharing of licenses, and there is no “concurrent” licensing model: each person/user/human being is supposed to have their own license for the product no matter how often they access it.

Look but don’t touch: The Read-Only User approach

Another of the arguments people make for not licensing all of their users is that there is somehow a belief that if you don’t actually enter information, then you aren’t really using the software.  This often comes up in situations where an accounting professional works with their client, or when business owners want to occasionally see what’s going on in the company.  The approach centers on the concept of what a “user” is and suggests that users are the people entering or changing the data, and people only viewing that information aren’t really “users” at all.  When the bookkeeper opens QuickBooks and enters an invoice, the bookkeeper is recognized to be a user.  But when the business owner opens QuickBooks to view the financial statement or see the bank account balance, isn’t the business owner also a user?  Yup, they sure are. Any person that actually opens the program on the computer is a user, regardless of what they do when the program is open.  Just looking around at the data still requires that the program be open, and opening the program requires a license.

Two Fer: But the other hosting company lets me…

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should.  So, just because a different hosting provider might let you get away with things that aren’t right (but perhaps are convenient or cost saving in the short-term) doesn’t mean you should expect a different host to allow the same thing.  If your current host says things like “as long as you don’t tell us…”, you should be concerned.  This often comes up in a hosting scenario where there is an outside accounting or outsourced back-office professional working with a hosted client business.  The outsourcer will want to access the client books, so they will want to have a login and access to QuickBooks software on the host system.

The trouble starts when the outsource professional doesn’t want to have to pay for their own service or licensing, yet they want to be able to login to the system and run QB just like the client does.  Falling sometimes under that attempt to leverage a concurrent user approach (see above), these outsourcers just aren’t realizing that the benefits of accessing their client information and working in real-time with that data is often valuable enough to support the cost of a hosted account and license.  Instead, they want their access to be free of charge and not be bound by silly rules of licensing, often because their client won’t want to pay for the accountant service in addition to their own.

This is when the “if you don’t tell us” stuff comes in – where the service provider may suggest to the accountant or outsourcer that they can simply login as the client and nobody would be the wiser.  I’ll fess up and say I have even entertained this idea with clients a few times but always shy away from discussing it in-depth.  While it is basically true that the service provider doesn’t generally know which exact human being is sitting at the other end of that remote desktop connection, that doesn’t mean that it is okay to leverage it into an abuse of services or licensing.

Two or more people sharing a single login just isn’t good ju ju, and it’s usually against a whole bunch of licensing rules and rights of use.  The funny thing is that many customers who initially leverage their service in this manner end up finding it was a really bad idea.  I saw a scenario a few years ago where a business allowed their outside auditors to share the logins of regular employees in the finance department.  When an employee tried to login to their remote desktop, they opened the session the auditor had open – exposing the employee to a lot of data that was not theirs to see but which the auditor user in QB had access to.  The company called it a security breach and it was on their part – and it was allowed to happen because they shared their remote desktops with the auditors rather than giving the auditors their own accounts with their own security profiles.  What seemed like a good, cheap approach on one day rapidly turned into a big issue the next, and the service provider had no power to prevent it from happening.

The moral of this story is simply that following the rules is the right thing to do and most reputable hosting service providers will try, even if they don’t end up doing it really well.  There are always going to be those who figure that the risks don’t measure up to the potential rewards, so they will do what they choose to do.  I’m always left wondering about those guys; if they have no problems breaking these rules, I wonder what other rules (or confidences) they are willing to break.  Hmmm.

Make sense?

J

 

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Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

Avoid the Aftertaste| QuickBooks Desktop Hosting Comes in Many Flavors

There is a lot of activity and interest around the hosting of desktop applications in the cloud, and it is no wonder that a great deal of the effort centers on the use of Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions.  QuickBooks is among the most popular software products used by small businesses, so it makes sense that service providers and hosting companies are taking advantage of that market share to reach prospective hosting customers.  After all, a hosting platform may be kind of neat, but it is not all that valuable unless there are applications and data living on it.

For the average small business, the applications of choice include Microsoft Office and QuickBooks.  Yes, there is an online edition of the QuickBooks product (called QuickBooks Online, of course).  However, the market share Intuit earned for QuickBooks wasn’t accomplished with an online application, it was done with the desktop applications which still own market share today.  Hosting service providers recognize this truth, and are taking steps to bring those QuickBooks desktop solutions into the cloud.  Now we have the ability to get QuickBooks Desktop editions online – which is not the name of a service but a description of what it offers – available from a variety of authorized hosting providers (and from many unauthorized ones).

I’ve said before that there is a fine art to hosting QuickBooks desktop for lots of users.  There are a great many different considerations and possible use cases, and not all providers will be able to meet every requirement.  There are also lots of different technology models and methodologies which may be applied to the hosting model, and each has some benefit or barrier depending on the specific need of the client.  Hosting companies may throw around terms like “cloud server” or “published application” or “remote desktop”, but at the end of the day, the systems are still Windows computers running QuickBooks software.  How those systems are wrapped up, how you connect to them, and how you operate with them often becomes the real difference in the service experience.

The specific technology a hosting provider applies to the service does not necessarily describe exactly how the service works.  Just because a provider may use Citrix doesn’t mean they have more capability to provide quality service than a provider using other technologies, or a host using VMWare is not necessarily creating better cloud servers than a host using Hyper-V or Parallels or some other virtualization strategy.  The technology may impact how the infrastructure is operated and can impress upon the customer experience, but the real differences in delivery often come down to the provider’s understanding of the software product, the customer need, and their ability to meet the need directly.

Does the experience of connecting to and using the service work for the users, and are people able to get their jobs done quickly using the service without a lot of support or frustration?  (**Please note that hosting services aren’t a solution for bad software and poor working processes.  If the software or processes aren’t workable now, they’re likely not going to become magically more workable if hosted).  Does the hosting service address issues like making the right data available to only the users who need it, and giving access to applications only when a user is permitted to use them?  What about “external” users like contractors or client businesses… does the host offer a way for them to also participate in the solution?

It’s important to consider all of the aspects of how the service will be used, and by whom and under what circumstances, to ensure that the delivery offered is the solution needed. The point of all this is to encourage users to concern themselves a little less with exactly what technology the host is using to deliver QuickBooks applications, and to evaluate the actual solution.  It won’t typically matter to an end-user what specific technology is being used to provide them with service as long as the service works well for them.

While some people do adopt a fondness for a particular “flavor” of technology or approach, the reality is that a quality user experience coupled with a useful and reliable system means much more to the business.  And knowing that there are future options for growing, expanding or simply changing the service is essential.  It’s not so much the flavor of technology users should be concerned with when shopping for QuickBooks hosting services, it’s avoiding that icky aftertaste that comes with selecting a QuickBooks hosting approach that just doesn’t meet the business need.

Make sense?

J

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Accounting for Point of Sale

Accounting for Point of Sale

There are a lot of solutions available to help retail businesses get business done.  From touch screen technology to mobile credit card and payment processing, retailers have many choices when it comes to selecting the right technology for the establishment.  But even the best point of sale system can lack the critical element that makes it truly valuable for the business.  This critical element is integration to a trusted accounting and finance solution.  While the POS system may include a level of basic accounting functionality, the reality is that a dedicated financial application will perform better in the long run.

Just as specialized line of business applications are used to handle operational functions, the financial application should be considered to be the “line of business” solution for the accounting and finance department (even if it is a department of one). This system not only services essential processes like receivables management, bill payments and bank account reconciliation, it serves as the basis for payroll, financial, tax, performance and other reporting. Further, the financial systems are often the first and primary source of analytical data, illuminating KPIs and cash flows and ultimately the business value.

The point of sale application generally handles the selling of and payment processing for goods and services sold by the business.  Whether it is composed of registers and terminals connected to a host system, PCs running POS software, or mobile phones and tablets running mobile payment processing apps like Square or GoPayment, point of sale addresses the retailers need to capture and record sales and payment information, sometimes customer information, and often inventory information.

The data from the POS solution must make it to accounting in some manner, yet point of sale applications are too-often approached as a standalone business requirement, somehow disconnected from other aspects of the business including the back-office.  Sales and items may be recorded in the POS system, yet only summary sales data ends up being re-keyed into the accounting system.  Centralized inventory management is all but nonexistent in these cases, and gross sales total are often recorded rather than individual transactions and receipts being transmitted to the accounting system.  The process of re-keying information from the POS to accounting systems is not only an efficiency-killer, it is also introduces a great potential for errors.  When the business elects to conserve on data entry and post only summary information to the accounting system, valuable detailed sales and transaction data may be lost.

The right approach to bringing point of sale together with accounting is to automate the process of integrating POS data with accounting on a regular basis – with AUTOMATION being the key.  Rather than establishing a process that requires manual entry of information from either system, a data integration solution is the best approach, with an import/export solution running second. The point is the elimination of manual re-entry of information.

There are numerous tools available that can take formatted POS data and import it into products like QuickBooks, for example, where it can be properly accounted for.  While QuickBooks Point of Sale integrates with QuickBooks desktop products, other POS solutions can also connect with QuickBooks if the right integration tool is selected, and there are quite a few available.  Check with the POS vendor and ask about a direct integration with QuickBooks desktop or whatever financial system you use. If there isn’t a packaged integration solution available, then check out products like Transaction Pro Importer, which can automate a variety of data import processes and ease the burdens moving external data into QuickBooks.pointofsale

The other factor in getting point of sale data to accounting is actually getting it there… transporting the data from the POS location to where the accounting system lives.  In many situations it is not desirable to keep the accounting system on the same computers as the point of sale systems, and in some cases it isn’t even possible.  But there is generally a way to get the information in a form that makes it possible to transmit it in some manner.  Among the most popular approaches to solving the “getting the POS data from here to there” problem is to use a data sync solution like Dropbox.

If the point of sale data can be exported or output to a file on a PC hard drive, then it may be able to be stored in a Dropbox folder on that PC.  At the home office where the accounting system resides, the operator would access the sync’d files from the local PC Dropbox folder and import the data to QuickBooks.   For QuickBooks Point of Sale there is an option to create a “mailbag” of sorts from the POS data of a remote store, which QuickBooks POS at the home office would pick up from the Dropbox folder and push to the QuickBooks financial application.

For businesses using POS systems like Micros or POSitouch and others, there is likely a service or application that will produce the POS data for import to QuickBooks or other financial system, pulling POS data files placed in the Dropbox folders by the POS app or performing the function as a web service or SaaS integration.

While I am a big fan of application hosting services and running QuickBooks desktop editions in the cloud, I’m also a realist and recognize that many POS solutions either can’t or shouldn’t be hosted.  There are situations where a hosted point-of-sale makes a lot of sense, and then there are cases where no bandwidth or proprietary hardware-based solutions make hosting not even an option. That doesn’t mean that the financial systems shouldn’t be hosted, though, and there are numerous ways to get the sync’d POS exports to the hosted QuickBooks environment, for example.

The key for retailers is to make sure there is a solid process for getting detailed and accurate POS information into the accounting system on a regular basis.  Manual entry is never the best answer.  With all of the technology and tools available, manually re-entering sales information is a waste of time and is likely to produce errors.  The better answer is to use an approach that automates the regular collection of point-of-sale data from all sources, delivering the data in a regular and consistent manner to accounting, and providing the basis for end-to-end automation supporting the integration of the point of sale system data with the rest of the business accounting.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J

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QuickBooks online, or QuickBooks Online? Use Software on the web without using Web-based software

cloud-computingThere is a trend among software makers these days to more fully leverage the “power of the web”, and why wouldn’t they?  The Internet has become the way businesses and users get and stay connected, and has become a foundation for how business gets done.   Remote and mobile access to information and applications has become an expectation of users, as social computing models have encouraged them to remain connected on all of their devices and from any location.  Online describes a working model that many businesses strive for, and software makers are seeking to capitalize on the trend.

The belief that software should no longer be installed and run from a local device has been adopted by some of the largest software vendors in the market, which would lead many users to expect that this is the important trend to follow.  Being encouraged to ditch their desktop software products and transition to using the web-based or SaaS alternative, users who have grown to trust their software products are now facing new buying decisions.  Any time a customer is forced to make a buying decision – like moving from a desktop product to a SaaS solution – there is a potential that the customer will go with a different vendor and leave the product line altogether.   Yet this is exactly what is happening with small business applications, and specifically with the tried-and true QuickBooks products – the solutions which had become the cornerstone of small business finance.

Where QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise desktop editions were the favored and trusted small business accounting solutions, Intuit is now on a wholesale push to get users transitioned to the QuickBooks Online edition.  In doing so, they’ve opened up the door for new competitors, because they’re forcing their QuickBooks users to make a new buying decision.   Assuming that customers will adopt the QuickBooks Online solution simply because it’s “QuickBooks” was perhaps a poor assumption on the part of Intuit.  Particularly by naming the product “QuickBooks”, Intuit invested the trust and long-standing recognition of the brand and product line into the online edition, and the user base and market has not been amused.  “It may be called QuickBooks, but it’s not the QuickBooks I want” says one customer.  Apparently, the QuickBooks Online edition is not what many experienced QuickBooks desktop users are looking for in a new version of the product.

Desktop QuickBooks users don’t have to move to the Online edition just to get the benefits of the cloud with their beloved QB.  The hosting and cloud service providers I work with help businesses run the QuickBooks desktop products as online service.  We deliver fully managed applications and data, allowing users to access their QuickBooks desktop products online and from a variety of devices just as if they were web-based.  Gaining the benefits of anytime/anywhere access with the added advantage of not changing software is a direction many users are electing to go.  While the price of a hosted solution may not be as low as a QuickBooks Online subscription, it is generally far less than a subscription to Salesforce.com, for example.  Isn’t the business financial data at least as valuable as CRM? The price isn’t unreasonable, and the benefits of online/remote access, managed IT, protected data, and an ability to take your ball and go home if you like are huge.  Grab your data file, install QuickBooks on your PC, and you’re back in action.  Can’t do that with most SaaS solutions, can you?  It’s only do-able with desktop software, which you can run in the cloud with a hosting provider or run on your own PC.

Assuming that all software will ultimately run online could be a big a mistake.  As technology advances and new capabilities introduce new complexities, the “heavy lifting” shifts from the center to the end points and back again.  While there may be a trend towards SaaS and leveraging the power of a remote system, the reality is that our devices – desktops and laptops, tablets and phablets and phones – are all getting more powerful.   Many SaaS applications and remote access technologies rely upon (and find ways to push more resource utilization to) the local device.  Video processes more quickly, input and output devices are more easily recognized, and the storage on the device is faster and easier to access.  A lot of work happens on the local device, and it will continue to be this way as the devices continue to get smarter and more powerful.  “There’s an app for that” for a reason: apps on the device work well and give users the functionality necessary to get things done efficiently.

SaaS is not all that’s out there – much of the software businesses know and love is still available the way they want it.  QuickBooks users need to know they can get their QuickBooks online without having to use QuickBooks Online.  The desktop is not dead, and it won’t be for a long time.  Desktop software isn’t dead either; it’s just being pushed to the background as software companies attempt to wrap their arms firmly, with subscription based business models, around their respective customer bases.

Make sense?

J

Read more: Cloud Hold Out No More: QuickBooks Desktop Editions in the Cloud

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QuickBooks and Dropbox? Yeah… no.

mobile cloud dataHaving your data available from anywhere is awesome.  Storing files in the cloud and being able to sync them with files on the computer is a great way to make sure the files are centrally available regardless of which machine you use to access them with.  Dropbox is among those favored solutions which provide users with the cloud drive storage and an ability to seamlessly sync those files to various computers.  It’s pretty cool, but let’s face it: not every type of file loves living in a Dropbox or sync folder.  Particularly for folks who want to be able to store and sync their QuickBooks and other business files to the cloud, there are a few things to be aware of when using these nifty sync solutions.

A file is not always just a file.  What do I mean by this?  Well, there are lots of different types of files an application might store and use, and not all of them work the same way.  For example, Word documents are files that only one person can actually work on at a time – there’s no actual “multi-user” functionality when it comes to a Word doc.  You either get the file in a state that allows you to make changes to it, or you get it in ready-only mode.  Document files like this – Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs and text files – work great with sync solutions. This is because the type of file being sync’d is designed to allow only one person at a time to have it open and editable.  You sync it to your computer, work on the file, and then sync it back.  It’s pretty straightforward.

The file that isn’t just a file is a database – a file or series of files that make up a complete data set, and which have some type of database manager or other framework keeping track of things.  It’s this type of solution that often has problems working in a sync folder or system.  An Outlook data file (a .PST file) is a type of file which fits into this category.  While the Outlook file isn’t generally viewed as a multi-user data file or a database file, it is being communicated with and written to by various processes while the application is running.  There is information being added to the file as emails are received, even while the user may be writing an email or entering a calendar appointment.  The point is that there are multiple types of data elements being updated all the time and by various processes.  This type of file is always in use and getting changes, so there really isn’t a point in time when it’s closed and available to make copies of, which is what has to happen for a proper sync.    And, because the sync solutions often try to sync incremental file changes, there is a big possibility of ending up with a damaged file because some changes were properly written where others might not be, ending up with file conflicts and corrupt data.

A QuickBooks company file is also a database file, so the same issues around syncing an Outlook data file exist with QuickBooks.  When the QuickBooks software is open and a company file is being worked on, the file may get incremental changes throughout the work session.  As each of these little changes happens, the sync program may attempt to copy those changes to the file in the cloud.  Because the QuickBooks file is constantly being updated, the attempt to incrementally sync updates to the file in the cloud can easily cause damage and corruption to the file.  Folks who have attempted to fake a sort of multi-user access to QuickBooks data files by using Dropbox or other sync services quickly find that the system isn’t going to work for them that way.  Further, they often find that the QuickBooks data files can get pretty screwed up trying to manage the live company file in this manner.

 

The only way to use QuickBooks, Outlook and similar types of data files with Dropbox is to recognize that the sync folders are only viable as a backup storage location for the files, not the place where the actual, working data files can be stored.  If using an application such as QuickBooks, businesses should store the “working copy” of the file in the documents area on the machine, and then backup or copy the data file to the sync folder periodically.  Placing the backup files or file copies in the sync folder allows them to sync to the cloud, storing them as offsite backups in case you need them, and allows the file to remain where it can be used by the application.

Businesses who need access to QuickBooks applications and data from different computers or locations may want to consider checking out hosting services as an alternative to a sync solution. Hosting solutions can help businesses get their software and data available anytime, anywhere either from their own PC or from a secure environment so they can access their QuickBooks applications and data from any Internet-connected device.

When a company wants to keep backup copies of their information in the cloud, a sync service might be an okay solution.  For folks who need to be able to access a live file and applications from a variety of locations, or if multi-user access is required (especially if those users are in different locations), then a full hosted solution might be the better answer.  Hosting the applications and data in the cloud is a great way to get the company connected, and it’s a far better alternative to pretending the system can be multi-user when it really can’t.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J