Tag: microsoft azure

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The Last of the One-Time-Purchase QuickBooks Licenses… 2019 is End of Life

Tax time isn’t the only annual event businesses have to pay attention to. Each year, just like clockwork, Intuit sunsets another version of QuickBooks desktop software to move the market forward and focus on the newer versions. Technology advancements, feature additions and functional improvements are constantly being introduced so license holders are regularly asked to update and (annually) upgrade their software. When a new version of the software is released, Intuit ends support for the older versions. In this case, as QuickBooks 2022 becomes mainstream, QuickBooks 2019 goes out of support.

Intuit always notifies license holders in advance as services for older versions of QuickBooks Desktop are put on the schedule to be discontinued. For some, this notification comes via email or phone, but for many it is a notification provided right in the software. A popup or other message is displayed that notifies the user that their software needs to be upgraded to the newer version.

Service discontinuation will happen on the schedule provided by Intuit. The key date is May 31, 2022. After that date, access to any add-on services will end for those using QuickBooks Desktop 2019, for Windows platform. The discontinuation of services applies to all 2019 desktop editions of QuickBooks, including QuickBooks Pro, QuickBooks Premier, QuickBooks Accountant, and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.

For users of QuickBooks Point of Sale, the key date is August 10, 2022. After this date, QB POS v18 will no longer have access to add-on services

If you don’t use any add-on services in QuickBooks desktop 2019, then your product will likely still work for you. There won’t be any live support available, and none of the other Intuit services that work with QuickBooks desktop will work with your 2019 version, and you won’t receive any updates or patches for security or other fixes.

Losing security updates should be reason enough to upgrade your software, even if you don’t need the add-on services. It’s your financial data, so you should consider the value of having better security than your out-of-date software can provide.

When Intuit decides to discontinue services for QuickBooks Desktop 2019, what that means is that the software will no longer connect to services it once worked with. Services no longer available with QuickBooks desktop 2019 (after May 31, 2022) include

  • QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Services
  • QuickBooks Live Support
  • QuickBooks Online Backup
  • QuickBooks Online Banking
  • Other services QB 2019 connects to…

You also won’t receive critical security updates starting June 1, 2022. If you receive any security updates before this date, install them.

To upgrade your QuickBooks software, you will need to purchase a subscription to the new version.

Yes, that’s right…. A subscription. There is no longer any option to do an outright purchase of your QuickBooks software license. Rather, you will be purchasing an annual subscription to the software, which must be maintained in order to keep using the software. Under the 2019 license, you can still use the software even if the support lapses because the application will still run, just without any connected services or updates. But with the subscription license, the subscription must be active for the software to run. In short, keeping the license subscription current and the software updated becomes mandatory, not optional.

This is the full list of QuickBooks products affected by service discontinuation after May 31, 2022.

  • QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2019
  • QuickBooks Desktop Premier 2019 (General Business, Contractor, Manufacturing & Wholesale, Nonprofit, Professional Services, and Retail)
  • QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 19
  • QuickBooks Premier Accountant Edition 2019
  • QuickBooks Enterprise Accountant 19
  • QuickBooks Desktop for Mac 2019

These are the products/services affected by service discontinuation after August 10, 2022

  • QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale 18.0 payments services:
    • Intuit Payments integration
    • Intuit Service Store Exchange
    • Mobile Sync feature

While Intuit sunsets the older versions of QuickBooks every year after a new version is released, these days they’re being a little more aggressive in trying to convert folks to QuickBooks Online. QBO does offer some neat features such as automatic bank account updates, but it isn’t quite what QuickBooks desktop users have come to expect from their beloved QB. The functionality of QBO is quite different from QB desktop, as is the data format. QuickBooks desktop “power users” will likely as not disapprove of how QBO handles things and will find that the functionality is limited in comparison.

QuickBooks Online may be a good alternative for Pro version users who don’t need much detailed functionality from their software… paying bills and invoicing customers is easily handled in QBO, but more advanced requirements still need desktop to get it done. Another sticky issue with QBO is where multiple company files are involved. With Online, each company is a separate “subscription”, where QuickBooks desktop sees it as just another company file. With QBO, you pay per-company, but not with QB desktop. For some businesses with many files or business entities to manage, this is a deal-breaker for using QBO.

For businesses that need the features and functionality of the desktop editions but also want the benefits of anytime/anywhere access, consider running your QuickBooks on the Microsoft cloud with NOOBEH. For single-user needs, a Microsoft CloudPC for small business may be just the ticket. It’s affordable (same price or less than with shared hosting) and you can run ALL your business software on it for no additional fees. When multi-user access is needed, NOOBEH delivers completely private cloud servers where all your users can access your business applications and data securely, from anywhere you need them to.

No, Intuit is not ending support for QuickBooks desktop software

Intuit is not doing away with the desktop versions of QuickBooks, no matter what a QuickBooks sales agent may tell you. While the QuickBooks tele-sales group may be focusing on getting people subscribed to QuickBooks Online, there remain millions of users of the desktop editions and the company is more than happy to continue selling them software. The features and functionality of QuickBooks desktop editions, particularly Premier and Enterprise, continue to be in high demand by growing businesses around the world. There are also many 3rd party solutions which integrate only with the desktop editions of QuickBooks, due largely to the advanced functionality available.

QuickBooks Online is an easy first introduction to finance software for a new small business owner, and the solution may work for the business for some time. As the business grows and as needs change and become more complex, it will be necessary to implement software solutions that can adapt and address the new requirements. If that’s QBO, great. If QuickBooks desktop editions can handle things better, that’s also great.  Either way, Mendelson Consulting and NOOBEH have the right solution for you, along with the best way to keep it running and working for your business.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Intuit Reduces Migration and Support Options For Moving From QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop

Mendelson Consulting Offers Cloud and Migration Options

Need to convert data in QuickBooks Desktop to QuickBooks Online? You can get help from Intuit with this. Need to go the other way and convert from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop? Not so much… So please read on.

In a surprise (and very quiet) announcement to QuickBooks Solution Providers, Intuit recently announced that it no longer freely provides data export functionality that allows businesses to convert their data from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop. As of 12/18/2020, if you want to move your data from QuickBooks Online to QuickBooks Desktop, you have different options for how to do it and will get less support from Intuit in the process.

It is no great surprise that Intuit made this move. Even prior to ending the service, exports from QuickBooks Online to 2021 versions of QuickBooks Desktop had become quite difficult anyway. Requiring users to login to their Intuit account to create a new company file interrupts the QuickBooks Online attempt to create a new file in QuickBooks Desktop during the conversion, so the entire process became broken. (Note: Our solution is to create the new QuickBooks Desktop file in an earlier version of QuickBooks that does not force the Intuit account login, for example 2019, and subsequently upgrade to the latest version 2021).

The QuickBooks Online web-based service locks you into a subscription, delivering recurring revenue to Intuit. Logic follows that now it has become more difficult to get the data back out of QuickBooks Online in a useful way.

Intuit is still allowing businesses to migrate list data out of QuickBooks Online (think Customers, Vendors, Items lists only), but this is not a very clean process for migrating an entire company data set. Particularly since it involves exporting lists to Excel, manipulating or massaging the data and then importing into QuickBooks Desktop. You can see how this introduces a variety of ways to mess it up. And still this does not get the historical transaction data.

Another consideration is that QBO allows businesses to alter the screens and data stored in the product, and to use that data in ways that QuickBooks Desktop doesn’t necessarily understand. For example, simply adding a field called “job” to invoices in QBO does not mean that QuickBooks desktop would see that data and recognize it as a Customer:Job. That field in QBO doesn’t actually mean anything other than to the user so it isn’t something that could be automatically understood in a conversion. For any conversion of data to be done properly, there needs to be a clear understanding of what data is stored in QB Online, how it is used, and how that data needs to be translated to QB desktop.

Mendelson Consulting has a team of experts available to help with converting your QuickBooks Online information into useful QuickBooks desktop data, offering a thorough review of QBO is being used and mapping that information to how QuickBooks desktop should be set up and the data migrated. Better than a blindly automated process, this option for converting your QBO data to QBD provides a much greater assurance that the financial and other business data is migrated correctly and properly.

What about cloud? There is actually a better option than QBO for businesses that want to benefit from managed infrastructure and anytime/anywhere cloud models, and it does not require that the business lock itself and its future in a web-based application like QuickBooks Online. The better option is to have QuickBooks Desktop and other applications in a private cloud, as with NOOBEH’s QuickBooks on Azure service.

Our options for QuickBooks Desktop in the cloud offer far more than just QuickBooks. NOOBEH does not lock you in to any specific software application, version or working model. Rather, we provide businesses with the ability to run all their applications and manage their data in a familiar Windows environment, but not be tied to any hardware or physical location.

Running applications and data on private Microsoft Azure cloud servers lets even the smallest of businesses benefit from enterprise-class technology and IT platforms and get them affordably. The best part is that there is no vendor lock-in and no limitations on moving to other applications or services. If business needs change, NOOBEH can help the environment adjust to what the business needs, and not the other way around.

When the business needs more functionality, more application support, more process support and more flexibility to meet changing needs and conditions, then the business needs Mendelson Consulting and Noobeh.

jm bunny feetMake Sense?

J

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Where in The World is Your Data?

Where in the World is Your Data? Even better.. where would you like it to be? In a datacenter near you? In a datacenter far away from you? Maybe you’d like your production system nearby, but backups stored on the other side of the country. Or perhaps you want redundant systems on each coast as well as something somewhere in the middle.
With Microsoft Azure as your platform, you have all the choices in the world, literally.

Microsoft Azure is the platform of choice for businesses of all sizes, offering virtualized infrastructure and services that can be tailored and tuned to meet the unique needs of any organization. No longer tied to on-premises infrastructure, companies find that they can implement better and more comprehensive solutions because they have the agility to adapt systems to immediate needs while retaining the ability to adjust as conditions change.

With Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365 Services, NOOBEH enables businesses to focus on transformation and improving efficiency, not the IT that supports it.

NOOBEH cloud services, part of the Mendelson Consulting team, sets up Azure infrastructure and manages it for their clients. Business users focus on getting their work done, not on the IT supporting it. NOOBEH QuickBooks on Azure services give small and medium size businesses the most flexible and resilient infrastructure available to run all their desktop and network applications.

Because QuickBooks is rarely a standalone solution, NOOBEH QuickBooks on Azure services have no limitations on what add-ons, extensions, integrations or other applications the business may need to use. All the software a business needs can be deployed on the platform, allowing the company to keep its information systems and assets secure, fully-managed and available when and where they are needed.

While NOOBEH uses Azure platform and Microsoft 365 services to continue to deliver new capability for private sector users, Microsoft is advancing innovation in the delivery of connected services and computing power for private and government sector users wherever it is needed. Azure Modular Datacenters represent a partnership that delivers computing and communications capacity anywhere in the world… and beyond.

Microsoft Azure Modular Datacenters and SpaceX

The Azure modular datacenter is basically a “data center in a box”. It comes with everything needed to deliver computing capacity anywhere in the world.

“We designed the Azure Modular Datacenter (MDC) for customers who need cloud computing capabilities in hybrid or challenging environments, including remote areas. This announcement is complemented by our Azure Space offerings and partnerships that can extend satellite connectivity anywhere in the world. Scenarios range from mobile command centers, humanitarian assistance, military mission needs, mineral exploration, and other use cases requiring high intensity, secure computing on Azure.”

https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/introducing-the-microsoft-azure-modular-datacenter/

It has power and everything else it needs, and now it also has the connectivity needed, even when there is no (zip, zero) infrastructure. Microsoft has partnered with SpaceX, using SES satellites to bring Internet connectivity to remote areas.

“We can connect via satellite links any element on the Earth to another point on the Earth..”

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/microsofts-new-data-center-in-a-box-will-use-spacex-starlink-broadband/

They’re calling it part of “a multi-orbit, multi-band, multi-vendor” approach to connectivity. That’s pretty cool, if you ask me.

It takes the whole bookkeeping in bunny slippers philosophy of “work when and where it works for you” to an entirely new level.

Make Sense?

jm bunny feet

J

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Cloud for Small Business: Gain Hardware Independence

Small businesses tend to approach their business IT in terms of the tangibles.. the hardware and software they can see and touch.

The desktop PCs where the programs are installed, the server in the back room where the files are stored, and the backup that goes offsite (tapes? discs? usb drives?) is the stuff most small business owners think of when asked about the computing technology they use. This view isn’t very comprehensive when it comes to considering the costs of purchasing and maintaining IT in the business, yet it identifies a major problem with the typical small business IT approach.

The problem is the dependency on the hardware and the reliance of the small business on the operation of individual computers.

The solution to this reliance on on-premises hardware? The cloud.

The solution to the problem isn’t centered on using web-based applications. The real solution to this small business IT problem is cloud platform, like Microsoft Azure. When businesses deploy a private cloud server they get solution that allows them to run all their desktop and network applications and store their data on a virtual platform that isn’t tied to any particular piece of hardware in the office.

Microsoft Azure offers virtual computing resources, managed and secured on Microsoft’s hardware in Microsoft datacenters. Rather than purchasing and maintaining hardware on-premises, business can deploy virtual networks and servers on the Azure platform. This makes the systems far more versatile and resilient than would be affordable to do otherwise. Surprise server hardware failures become a thing of the past, and buying ahead for possible future needs is no longer required because the systems can be upgraded on demand.

Businesses still need desktops where users access their programs and data, but the “desktop” can be a cloud desktop rather than the local PC desktop.

Remote desktops on the cloud server keeps software licensing and business information securely stored on the cloud server rather than being resident on user computers where it is more easily compromised. Users may still browse the internet and do other things with the local PC desktop, but using the cloud desktop for business applications and data means that just about any PC could safely be used for work.

When applications and data are managed on-premises, it makes changing servers or workstations a big deal. 

Changing desktops or servers means that software must be uninstalled and reinstalled, data must be migrated and user profiles and permissions may need to be recreated. When the cloud server is where users get their desktops, computer workstations become interchangeable because nothing is really installed on them other than the connection to the cloud desktop. This is also why traveling laptops and home computers become more secure for business use, because the applications and data are really running on the cloud server and not on the local device.

The cloud platform provides what the business needs without the lock-in to on-premises hardware or SaaS/Web-based software.

Rebuilding servers due to hardware failures, upgrading systems to handle future growth or replacing aging hardware all contribute to the unpredictable cost of managing and maintaining on-premises computer systems. SaaS and web-based software solutions lock-in data and lock-out many future options, yet they don’t address user desktops and the rest of the applications and data the business needs.

Rather than risking outages and lost productivity, businesses are finding that running their systems on a managed cloud platform provides more stability and consistent performance for a reasonable and more predictable cost. Desktop and server software licensing is able to service multiple locations when installed on a cloud server, and workers at home can access the tools to be just as productive as they are in the office (maybe more).

Make Sense?

J

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Contrary to What You Learned in Grade School… Sharing is Bad, Okay?

There is a place and time for sharing. Share your color crayons, share your toys… share your feelings with those you love. But when it comes to business technology and infrastructure, sharing isn’t always the best approach. Some things you should just keep for yourself… like the servers you use for hosting business desktops, desktop applications and business data.

When we first began the journey of bringing small business desktops and applications like QuickBooks to the Internet, the “cloud” was not yet a thing. Hosting providers put up servers in racks in data centers, installed software and stored data on behalf of customers, and did their best to find ways of making the service affordable. Elastic resources, massive scalability and built-in redundancy (which are benefits of a real cloud fabric) were not generally available nor were they even remotely affordable. Because the hardware, networking and other resources that make up the hosting infrastructure is costly, it is important for the hosting service provider to be able to spread those costs across the entire customer base.

In most cases, this meant creating shared servers where many customers run their applications and store their data. Even when a provider suggests that a customer has a “private” server, there is still a good chance the server is using shared storage and/or networking resources made accessible in the environment.

Sharing can be a good thing or a bad thing, and it often depends on the behavior of those involved. In shared application hosting environments, particularly desktop hosting environments, there is a lot of potential for intentionally and unintentionally causing problems that can and will impact other users and customers on the platform.

A simple provisioning error might allow a user to see data belonging to another company or have access to applications or services they should not.

With shared resources, bad actors and intruders can often escape permission boundaries, attaching to network shares and other computers on the platform.

Malware accidentally introduced by an innocent user from one company could easily penetrate the entire system, following paths to data storage locations and other servers, spreading the problem to many customers and systems and even data centers.

If you are operating on the compromised system you are at risk, even if the compromise wasn’t initiated by one of  your users or from within one of your applications.

In the realm of QuickBooks hosting providers, the issues around sharing infrastructure and resources have created some very difficult situations for hosts and for their customers alike – especially when it comes to dealing with computer viruses, malware and ransomware. A few high-profile events, as well as numerous incidents which have flown under the radar, have revealed just how damaging the shared approach can be.

With the IRS, AICPA and other agencies issuing increasingly strong guidance for tax and accounting professionals to protect client information, finance professionals should strongly consider the risk introduced through shared hosting service arrangements and evaluate if it is greater than the costs of having a more private system.

Cloud platforms available today are fully matured, delivering scalability and agility at price levels that are affordable even for very small businesses.  No longer solely for enterprise enjoyment, real cloud solutions and delivery models can be used by small businesses for desktop and application hosting without compromise. Every business deserves their own cloud, and we know how to make that affordable.

Cooper Mann works with teams deploying on the Microsoft Azure platform, offering an agility in design not previously available with legacy computing approaches. Because every delivery is absolutely private to each customer, the solution can be scaled up (or down!) on demand to suit the specific needs of the individual business. More important is the fact that each customer operates separately, so any bad behavior the system may suffer from is their own.

jmbunnyfeetMake Sense?

J