Tag: connected services

Posted on

Intuit Ended QuickBooks Remote Access Service: The Time to Host is Now

Intuit Ended QuickBooks Remote Access Service: The Time to Host is Now

accountingCloudAccountants, bookkeepers and small business consultants have recognized the benefits of accessing client information remotely, where all parties can work on the same data in real-time, creating the opportunity to maintain more timely and accurate financial data for the business client.  The Internet has become the network, facilitating a variety of different working models which allow users, regardless of location, to access business information and data to get their work done.

For accountants and their business clients, it is essential that there is some type of virtualized working model, else the client is relegated to accepting after-the-fact reporting and outdated information.  Especially in smaller businesses where many of the accounting and finance processes are handled by an outsourced professional, time and distance is the enemy.

Just about anything that helps remove those barriers to real-time efficiency is worth looking at – which made it particularly unfortunate when Intuit, the  makers of QuickBooks, discontinued the QuickBooks Remote Access Service which was a tool that had addressed the remote access requirement for many businesses and their accounting and bookkeeping providers.

There are a wide variety of options for accountants to work closer with their small business clients, and jumping into a SaaS or web-based application is just one of them; other proven options include secure remote PC access or hosted application services.  Hosting in particular is beneficial as it allow businesses to continue the use of the software and processes they have already invested in while enabling a remote access and mobile capability.

If the problem is access, the solution isn’t necessarily a complete change in software – the solution is to create access. With Intuit’s end of QuickBooks Remote Access services in sight, the time to explore QuickBooks hosting is now.

Make sense?

J

Posted on

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

 

Posted on

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

Posted on

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

Posted on

Better QuickBooks Access, Management and Security – QuickBooks Licensing and Hosting Models

Whether hosted in-house or offsite, licensing models for hosting QuickBooks can be very confusing.

driving1-ANIMATIONThe demand for solutions to address user mobility, better collaboration and improved information security is increasing as connectivity improves and cloud services and threats evolve. Server-based computing models and application hosting are increasingly popular as businesses seek to embrace teleworking and telecommuting models for their entrenched applications and systems, creating a foundation for improved productivity and work/life balancing (or integration).  On the technical side, the benefits of centralizing applications and data include improved efficiency in managing, maintaining and securing systems. For many small businesses, this means centralizing the installation and maintenance of core business applications like Intuit QuickBooks Pro, Premier or Enterprise.

Whether it be offsite with a commercial hosting provider or on a co-located server somewhere, or an onsite installation on the in-house server, hosting Intuit QuickBooks licenses can be straightforward or complicated depending on what you are trying to do with them. Because QuickBooks was designed as a standalone single-user application, there are a number of challenges when it comes to preparing it for server-based use.  The primary issue is often simply understanding the QuickBooks licensing model, which is not particularly INTUITive (sorry).

Licensing hosted QuickBooks applications comes with two different sets of implementation issues: the technical implementation (the installation and setup) and the logical allocation of licenses to users (the licensing rules).

When it comes to the technical implementation, many an experienced engineer has beaten their head against the wall trying to get QuickBooks to work properly in a workspace or session-based system (e.g., terminal server), all because they expect the product to implement like a “normal” client/server application. While QuickBooks may use the Sybase database manager guts to handle multi-user access to QuickBooks data files (I think it is still Sybase), the architecture required to properly service a networked QuickBooks installation does not necessarily mimic what would be used with, for example, a .NET desktop client application with an MS SQL back-end.   First, the QuickBooks data files cannot be remote to the application, meaning that both the client and the database manager (which is actually working as an adjunct to the client) must exist on the local network; it will not work over a WAN connection, which is why so many folks get frustrated when they put their server “in the cloud” and attempt to connect from a local client using a VPN.  It just won’t work that way with QuickBooks; it all has to be on the local network – client, server, data… all of it.

It is notable that many businesses use Dropbox and other file sync solutions because they want to be able to get to their data from multiple locations, but the data they’re getting must be “local” to the apps that use it.  It doesn’t allow for simultaneous multi-user access, but it can be an effective way to share a file.  The caveat is that the file (at least in the case of a QuickBooks file, or Outlook PST file, etc.) should not actually be used from the sync folder.  Sync folder should contain copies of data files that users wish to sync or share with other devices.  But I digress…

With a server-based implementation of QuickBooks, technicians will install the QuickBooks desktop software on the server, and will determine whether or not that same machine will also handle the company data files.  The QuickBooks DB manager is part of the installation of QuickBooks, and the file system and drive where the QB files are to be managed must be recognized as a local drive on the server running the QBDB manager.  The overhead used by the database manager isn’t huge, but it can impact the performance of users on the server.  For this reason, some techs will decide to implement a separate file server to manage the QB data files, taking that load off the app server.

  • The QuickBooks software uses the database manager to “host” access to company files.  This simply means that a single server with the data on it is providing managed access to remote-desktop-sessionsQuickBooks application users.
  • When QuickBooks application software and data is installed and centrally managed on a server (instead of QuickBooks being installed on individual PCs), that means QuickBooks application is being “hosted” on that server.
  • When a 3rd party provider supplies the server, the QuickBooks installation, data storage, and your way of connecting to it all,  that provider is a “host” providing hosting services for your QuickBooks.

In a dedicated hosting environment, the data is often stored on the same server as the applications, whereas in a shared hosting environment, the data is often stored on central file servers which serve multiple customers. This is why, in some shared hosting situations, one bad data file can take down the database manager services for all the customers using that same file server.

Users open the QuickBooks application on the server instead of having the application installed on individual PCs.  The single server-based installation of the software is able to be used concurrently by all users logging in to that computer. With the database manager running, the file is essentially “hosted” on that machine, and the file may then be opened in multi-user mode.  OK so far.  The problem generally comes about when a second user on the same computer/server wants to open the same QB data file as the first user.

Because the QB database manager is looking at the license of the client application accessing the data file, it will recognize when two different users/sessions with the same license key attempt to open the company data file.  If that license key is a single-user key, then the database manager knows it should allow only 1 concurrent user in the file.  QuickBooks doesn’t get installed for each user on a computer or server; it is installed one time on the machine and each user on that machine runs from that single shared installation. Any particular version of the QuickBooks application may be installed only once on a single computer, but it is possible to install multiple editions, year versions, and “flavors” of QuickBooks on a single machine (cannot be more than one installation of each unique product). There will be more than a few annoyances when running a variety of QBs on the same computer, but it is technically possible.

In order to allow multiple users to simultaneously access the same data file from a central installation of QuickBooks, the license key installed on the computer must be a multi-user key.  QuickBooks Pro, for example, can be keyed to 3 concurrent users, meaning that the license will allow up to 3 users with that same license key to simultaneously access the same company file.  Technically (but not lawfully) this installation of QuickBooks on the machine could allow a virtually unlimited number of users to launch the QuickBooks application simultaneously, limited only by machine resources.  This is where the logical allocation of licensing comes in.. the rule of licensing QuickBooks.

The logical allocation of unique licenses for each QuickBooks user is a little easier to understand than the technical implementation.  The rule is simply that each user of QuickBooks is required to have a valid registered/activated license. That valid license is a license purchased and activated for that business.

total-businessMaking QuickBooks desktop editions more useful by adding secure remote access and centralized management makes a lot of sense.  For companies who rely on the functionality and features of the desktop products (QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise), a hosted approach is the only way to really address mobility and multi-location requirements.  Remember that hosting doesn’t necessarily mean offsite, although that could make sense for the business, too.

Centrally-managing QuickBooks applications and data creates greater efficiency and improves overall IT management capability for the business.  At the same time, a centralized model introduces a better strategy for mobilizing the workforce and connecting remote users and offices. The struggles of understanding and implementing proper QuickBooks licensing begin to seem very small when compared to the benefits of deploying a centralized system that’s easier to access, manage and secure.

Make sense?

J

Posted on

Intuit QuickBooks 2014: Another Move Towards Unification of Features and Software as Service

Intuit QuickBooks 2014: Another Move Towards Unification of Features and Software as Service

qb2014Intuit QuickBooks is the recognized standard for small business accounting, and the introduction of the QuickBooks Online Edition was a testament to Intuit’s understanding that users are looking for SaaS solutions as well as traditional desktop products.  While it may seem that the entire market is moving to online applications and everything-as-a-service, the Intuit desktop products remain the leading business computerized accounting tools.  Intuit does seem to recognize that many things can be done better with a “software-as-service” model , and that the number of businesses seeking purely web-based solutions is growing, and this is evidenced by the fact that many features and presentation elements in the Online edition are making it into the desktop editions.  Creating consistency throughout the product line makes sense for users, and leveraging the benefits of shared service makes sense for Intuit.

In a previous blog article entitled Changing How We See Software: QuickBooks 2013 interface frustrates power users, I had suggested that many of the interface changes introduced with the 2013 QuickBooks desktop editions were a step towards unification of interfaces (to the degree possible) between desktop and Online editions.  Additionally, integrations with various connected services, Intuit payroll and payment solutions, and other online service elements clearly demonstrate that certain functionality and service offerings will be provided consistently through either solution set.  Another new “unified” feature announced for QuickBooks desktop is the Income Tracker, a feature that originated with the QB Online edition.

The Income Tracker provides you with a fast way to see the status of your unbilled and unpaid transactions, and provides you with features to improve billing/collections as well as perform a number of batch procedures… This feature was first developed in QuickBooks Online, and this year Intuit has brought it into QuickBooks Desktop

http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2013/09/quickbooks-2014-income-tracker/

The introduction of a purely subscription licensing model for the desktop products is yet another move towards enabling the pay-as-you-go subscription model for purchasing software.  Businesses are able to purchase “plus” subscriptions, which provide not only perpetual most current version software but also deliver support for the life of the subscription.  This is another change from the more traditional boxed software approach, where the product was a one-time purchase and came with short-term or limited support.

It seems that many of the changes introduced with 2014 indicate that online service and subscription pricing models will continue to introduce themselves into the QuickBooks desktop products, and users who change from one solution to another in the product family will find more familiarity and consistency in the attached Intuit services they also use.

Many independent software vendors and developers of business applications are recognizing the value of subscription service models and the benefits of leveraging web-based applications and shared services within their solutions.  For software companies, turning a one-time sale into a recurring revenue stream is highly desirable.  From a development perspective, one project could service the entire product line, rather than efforts being divided among multiple products.  From an operational perspective, infrastructure and personnel are able to centrally service the functional requirement, providing the same benefits of shared service that users of SaaS solutions experience (it may simply be internal rather than external customers being served).

The point of the discussion is that, while QuickBooks desktop editions may not be going away any time soon, there is wisdom (and business necessity) which is likely to drive even more subscription model SaaS inclusions in those products that were once purely and firmly planted on the desktop.  Even good old QuickBooks must change, and for the most part, users are seeing benefit in those changes.

Make Sense?

J