QuickBooks IPP – Cooper Mann Consulting

January 12, 2016November 13, 2017

Mobilizing QuickBooks Desktops

Hosted QuickBooks for Remote and Mobile Access

There was a time not too long ago when the “thought leaders” in information technology said that the desktop is dead, and all software will be accessed via the web. (Note: I put “thought leaders” in quotes because industry thought leaders are often those with the greatest media influence. After all, you can’t lead them if you can’t reach them, right?). The whole no software thing is a dramatic oversimplification of what is happening with computer software, but one thing is kind of coming true: nobody wants to be tied to their desktop. It’s not that the desktop is dead… it’s just not all there is. For users of the desktop editions of Intuit QuickBooks software, the question really isn’t whether they intend to give up their familiar and trusted software to use a different, online solution. The question is how to use the QuickBooks desktop software they want in the cloud so they can use it on desktops that aren’t the primary desktop computer, or on mobile devices.

Computing technology has finally reached a level of accessibility that was previously only imagined in science fiction stories. Communicating instantaneously with anyone anywhere around the world; accessing extensive (limitless?) libraries of information, art and music with a simple handheld device – these are the things that people do every day without a second thought. Business users may even be able to access their business documents, email, contacts and appointments etc. from mobile devices, enabling a productive and functional mobile workforce.
Yet the desktop remains as the primary workhorse for most business users. This is where the productivity applications live, where large spreadsheets and full-screen applications are run, and where keyboarders and production data entry users operate. Tablets, touchscreens and mobile devices just don’t provide the same capabilities unless you tether them to full size monitors and keyboards. Even then they may not because they might not run the same OS as the desktop. The point is that the desktop hasn’t gone away and isn’t likely to any time soon. Users may use more mobile apps and devices, but this isn’t diminishing use on the desktop as much as it augmenting it. This is what fuels the interest in application hosting and virtual desktop computing models – the desire to mobilize desktop and network applications and working environments.

Hosting applications and data gives businesses the flexibility of working in desktop applications and accessing data just as if they were in the office, yet users may be located anywhere there is Internet connectivity. When the applications and the associated data are managed in the datacenter, businesses are able to centralize their information assets and manage them more effectively than if the data were distributed among multiple computers. While most sync and share solutions require files to be downloaded to local computers in order to open and edit, a hosted application service with virtual desktops and file sharing provides a security model which keeps business data secure yet available for user access without compromising security by downloading information to the user device.

A hosted solution approach can make license utilization more efficient and compliance easier to maintain, too. By enabling access to applications on a centralized platform and eliminating the installation and maintenance of software on individual computers, businesses reduce the reliance on local IT personnel to install and update applications and user accounts, and improve their ability to control application assignments and usage.

Hosting helps businesses take advantage of technology that would otherwise be unaffordable, and delivers the mobility and centralized management required to boost productivity and contain costs. There is a high cost to managing a business network, and creating secure mobile access to that network can represent an exponential increase in IT spending (just to initially set up, not to mention ongoing costs for security management, monitoring and support). Rather than taking on the entire burden of service management and delivery directly, businesses electing to work with hosting providers find that they are able to focus more on business operation, strategy and growth – and spend less time worrying about the IT supporting them. Costs are reduced, workers are empowered, and capabilities are increased while knowledge and process investments are preserved. When it comes to mobilizing business applications like QuickBooks desktop editions, it all starts with a hosted approach.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

July 1, 2014February 3, 2017

Where do we go from here? The SMB SaaS Migration

Forests are a great renewable resource. You may cut them down, but you can replant and grow new ones to cut down again later. I suppose it’s sort of like that for software vendors who provide small business solutions. While many small businesses fail and close every year, lots and lots of them start up and continue operating each year. Since there’s a steady stream of new prospective customers coming up each year, maybe it is OK when some of them outgrow the product and leave (leaf?).

On the other hand, maybe it makes sense to understand where those customers who do grow up and flourish will go… to which products or solutions they will migrate, and how the company might actually retain a relationship with them through that process and beyond. Some businesses will mature successfully, and will outgrow their small business solutions and leave their vendors, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way for all. For some key software vendors, a fair question to ask themselves is where their customers will go from here… where “here” is the solution the customer is using now.

When this question is applied to the small business accounting market, it ends up centering on the QuickBooks product line. Intuit is currently encouraging all QuickBooks customers to look at the QuickBooks Online solution, the fully SaaS-based offering which is different from the desktop editions. The QuickBooks desktop editions, on the other hand, service small businesses very well. The functionality improves and increases as users move up the product line from the Pro version through Premier and to Enterprise edition. This line of solutions has done a great job of serving the needs of both small and larger businesses – all within the same product set. But now Intuit wants users to experience the benefits of subscription-based service and an online working model. Those are great benefits, but there’s a question that is left open for the asking. Where are QuickBooks customers supposed to go from there, assuming that at least some of them might grow beyond the capability of the online product? It’s a fair question, and here’s why I think so.

Once a business has adopted a certain working model and the mentality that goes along with it, it is difficult to come in and tell them they have to change to a new model and find a way to adjust. Change doesn’t come that easily for many individuals much less an entire organization, so this is a big deal and potentially very impactful to all aspects of the operation. Yet this is exactly what is currently suggested with Intuit’s desire to have customers use the online edition.

It may be a great solution for now, but what’s the next step up from there? Is it QuickBooks Enterprise on the desktop? Kind of a weird message, don’t you think? Let’s have customers adopt an anytime, anywhere subscription solution model, and then migrate them back to the desktop where the management and maintenance of the solution is higher due to number of users, and where there is no mobility, multi-location or remote access capability as there was with online.

The thought is that QuickBooks Online will eventually compete with the Netsuite and Intacct class of SaaS solutions, but right now it doesn’t and there are customers who must leave that product for something that handles their larger and deeper business needs (like the QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise solutions do). There is a big gap between the entry level accounting products and those which are designed for the larger or midsize “small business”, and the QuickBooks desktop editions represent the only viable options in that very large space. In fact, many businesses utilize line of business products that allow them to retain use of QuickBooks even as the enterprise scales far beyond the expectation that QuickBooks could handle the need. But it often can, and it makes sense for businesses to leverage this ability if they are able.

The answer for these growing businesses – the place they should go when they’ve outgrown the small business SaaS solution like QuickBooks Online (or Xero or Freshbooks or whatever) is to a hosted or remote-enabled QuickBooks model. With the QuickBooks desktop editions hosted and managed by a cloud provider, businesses are able to retain the benefits of managed service, subscription pricing, and anytime/anywhere access while utilizing the products that are recognized as the industry standards for finance and accounting for growing businesses.

The hosted approach gives the businesses a clear path for the advancement of their systems in line with the growing needs of the business, and removes the need to shift working models from online to on-prem. As needs increase and the complexity of systems grow through integration and scale, the service provider manages the platform and systems, enabling the business to not simply continue operating, but to grow and expand with the confidence that there is a plan to grow and expand the systems which support it. The place to go is the cloud, and whether it is an entry-level SaaS solution or a hosted desktop and server approach, the service is there to handle the business.

jmbunnyfeet Make Sense?

August 6, 2013April 25, 2019

The Most Popular Models for Working with QuickBooks Desktop Editions and the Cloud

cloud-computing When Intuit created the Authorized Commercial Host for QuickBooks program, a variety of providers were enabled to offer not only managed application hosting services for QuickBooks desktop products, they were also permitted to provide QuickBooks desktop product licenses for rent. By allowing these hosting providers to also license the QuickBooks products on a subscription basis, the entire solution – the hosting of the QuickBooks, the management of the company data files, and the licensing of the software – was able to be packaged together and offered as an equivalent of the SaaS solution. The benefits of running tried-and-true business applications on the business network had already been proven, and creating the ability to access this resource at any time and from anywhere (mobility!) became the feature which encouraged a wide variety of large and small business to move to “cloud” and online working models.

While the complete hosted application model – where the business desktop applications and associated data are installed and managed on the service provider servers – addresses a broad requirement for many companies, there remains a large community of users who have needs which do not extend to “cloud server” or remotely hosted desktops and complete managed application services. For these users, having access to the data file from anywhere is the primary goal (maybe even multi-user access for just a couple of users), and management of the software and license across multiple computers is not their first consideration.

Here are the most popular models for working with QuickBooks desktop editions in/with the cloud. Each of these approaches solves a different business problem, so it is important to understand which problems need to be solved before shopping for the solution.

1. Storing the QuickBooks file in a file sync solution

Solves: gives access to the data file from various locations (not at the same time)

Doesn’t solve: no multi-user access in real time, still have to purchase QuickBooks licenses, install and manage applications, and secure and backup data

The popularity of Dropbox and similar file sync solutions clearly demonstrates the value of giving users the ability to store, sync and share files securely via the Web. Further, these services allow people at different locations to access files in a relatively collaborative manner, giving otherwise disconnected users the ability to sort of work like they’re on the same network and using the files in near-realtime. While this approach works awesomely well for Word documents, PDFs and other files, it doesn’t work as well for QuickBooks company data files. It’s pretty much an automated approach to using a file storage solution (like any web drive, file share service or such). To clarify, users can store copies of QuickBooks company files in a Dropbox or sync folder to have that file sync’d to the host and to other permitted computers, but a “live” QuickBooks data file doesn’t like living in this type of folder. The sync or file sharing method of applying a cloud solution to QuickBooks allows for only one person to be in the “real” file at a time, and each user still has to purchase, install and manage the QuickBooks software on their PC. Oh, and bandwidth will become an issue when files must be sync’d frequently and when the files are fairly large (which QB files tend to be).

2. Using secure remote access to QuickBooks, remote desktop or remote app solution (like hosting, but the host just happens to be an on-premises computer already in place)

Solves: gives access to the file and applications from various locations, allows for multi-user access to company file, allows access to just QuickBooks or any combination of applications on the host computer; low-cost solution providing mobility and device independence just like commercial hosting but at a fraction of the cost

Doesn’t solve: have to purchase QuickBooks licenses, install and manage applications on the host, and backup data

Secure remote access solutions like MyQuickCloud allow users to connect to applications that are installed on existing workstations or servers. This approach provides users with access to QuickBooks and other software installed on the in-house computer. The problem with this model is that the bandwidth and the in-house computer need to be sufficient to support remote users, and the activities of the user sitting at the in-house computer will take priority over the remote user requests.

3. Using a hosting provider and/or platforms for QuickBooks, remote desktop or remote app type of solution

Solves: gives access to the file and applications from various locations, allows for multi-user access to company file, may allow for rental licensing of QuickBooks software, files are backed up by service provider

Doesn’t solve: commercial hosting is not a very low-cost solution for those who only need file sharing

Application hosting models allow users to connect to servers where the applications are installed and managed by the service provider and delivered to customers as subscription service. This approach provides customers with flexible options for accessing QuickBooks software installed and maintained on the host’s servers, and to have the multi-user capabilities of the product just as it would function on a local network. Application hosting models are generally offered as standardized service or as custom service, with variable pricing and features associated with each.

Because these hosting models require that all components of the delivery be combined to deliver the service – from networks to servers to desktop virtualization to application virtualization, application licensing, data management… it’s a big list of things – the cost of service may seem a bit high for a single user or very small business to bear. This is among the reasons for continued popularity of do-it-yourself remote access solutions that deliver mobility but fail to address any sort of system management benefit.

When business users ask about using their QuickBooks desktop editions in the cloud, it makes sense to drill down into the details of what they’re really looking for. In many cases, the QB user simply doesn’t know how to ask for what they want, using popular terms without real understanding of what they mean. This is something which frequently happens when a prospective customer contacts a QuickBooks hosting provider, and the sales department of the hosting provider isn’t generally in a position to offer consultation – they are there to sell their solution to the prospect. The result is that the customer doesn’t really get what they want, and the provider gets a bad review.

The problem isn’t necessarily with the provider or service (I wish more sales teams were able to offer more consultative approaches, but that’s an entirely different conversation); the problem occurs largely due to the variety of services being offered around “cloud QuickBooks” and the ambiguity which exists in much of the marketing language around them. Maybe this information will help businesses as they look to find solutions to the variety of problems with “enabling” their desktop QuickBooks to work with the cloud.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

July 29, 2013November 22, 2017

Hosted QuickBooks Need Drives Hosted QuickBooks Approach: QuickBooks Desktop Editions in the Cloud

Intuit QuickBooks essentially “owns” the accounting/bookkeeping software market in the US, having an enormous share of distribution and millions of users. Even with the emergence of new web-based and SaaS solutions designed to address the needs of small business bookkeeping, the visibility and momentum of the QuickBooks brand has kept it in the lead position and users continue to adopt the QuickBooks desktop and online editions in record numbers. What may be a surprise to folks who believe “the desktop is dead” is the reality that quite a lot of the adoption and usage continues to be centered on the QuickBooks desktop edition products rather than the purely Online, SaaS product, and this is at least in some part supported by the hosted QuickBooks service model.

The desktop is dead. Long live the desktop!

Software-as-a-Service and “the cloud” have become the focus of the entire information technology industry, and this new paradigm of computing continues to evolve and reveal potential at every level. What’s interesting is that the paradigm – which involves mobility, anytime/anywhere access, managed service delivered as a utility subscription, and more – is bringing new life to what many have come to refer to as “legacy” applications (like QuickBooks desktop editions). While many technologists would have us believe that the traditional desktop is dead, the reality is that the traditional part of it is all that may be dying… the desktop and what it offers and represents isn’t dead at all. In fact, it’s very much alive and well and continuing to do what it was intended to do, perhaps a bit better, due largely to advancements in desktop and application virtualization and other discoveries.

Several years ago the Application Service Provider model established itself, positioned to provide hosting of business applications as a subscription service (“several” is somewhat of an understatement; the first real ASPs emerged around 2000-ish). Using Windows Terminal Services and other tools, these early providers recognized the benefits of hosted and managed desktops, and further recognized that the value of the service existed largely with the applications and not simply the outsourced desktop. Back then, there was an awful lot of talk about how the “desktop is dead”, because delivered applications would become the norm. Then the dotcoms busted and a lot of ASPs went out of business, leaving a rather poor taste in the mouths of consumers and independent software vendors (ISVs) alike.

As web-based, SaaS and “cloud” solutions began to emerge and prove their viability, business users returned to the web in search of solutions to mobility and secure remote access to business applications and data. While a great deal of success has been realized by many of these SaaS solution providers, there has remained a significant need and desire for desktop applications, desktop presentation, and desktop functionality. The adoption by the market of SaaS and cloud services eased the adoption of hosted application services, as well, and now there are a wide variety of providers offering an equally wide variety of hosted and virtualized desktop and application services (application services like hosted QuickBooks, for example).

The popularity of the QuickBooks desktop products, coupled with new capability offered through advancements in hosting and application delivery solutions, directly address the desire of the market to eliminate complexity and reduce cost of IT operations. Hosting is somewhat of an “equalizer” between QuickBooks desktop and QuickBooks Online, allowing the QuickBooks desktop users to have the same managed subscription service as Online Edition users, but with the rich features and full functionality present in the desktop editions. Businesses wanting to run QuickBooks in the Cloud are not forced to transition to the product which may not fully meet their needs, or which is simply unfamiliar to them – they can continue to utilize their trusted QuickBooks desktop editions, only in a hosted/delivered environment.

Here’s the catch: It’s a good idea to only work with an Intuit-authorized Commercial Host for QuickBooks, because there is no other lawful way to obtain QuickBooks hosting services from a service or solution provider. No, it is not lawful to provide QuickBooks hosting services unless the hosting provider/service is actually authorized by Intuit to do so, and anybody using QuickBooks software has already agreed that they will not utilize the software with a hosting provider or similar entity without specific authorization. The hosting provider risks being targeted for unauthorized software distribution, and the customer risks losing their right to the software and services by violating the EULA terms. Even if the software doesn’t cost a lot, businesses will recognize that their business data has value, and keeping their software in a usable and properly licensed state is necessary to preserve the value of that data.

The End User License Agreement for QuickBooks products – an agreement between Intuit and the consumer – spells it out in plain language and describes specifically how the QuickBooks product is NOT eligible to be hosted, or provided by a hosting service. Note that this includes situations where the hosting company is providing the actual QuickBooks software, and in situations where a business already has their QuickBooks software and provides it to a commercial hosting company to have it installed and managed and provided to users. In short – QuickBooks is not supposed to be installed and managed by a 3rd party hosting provider who is not authorized by Intuit as a commercial host for QuickBooks regardless of whether or not the customer provided the license.

Further, by accepting the EULA in order to use the QuickBooks product, users accept the fact that Intuit has the full right to terminate that license in the event that terms of use are violated. Remember that these license agreements provide USE RIGHTS, not ownership, of the product. You have to use the solution under the terms and conditions of the license, or you lose your rights to the product, support, or any other benefits included. http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/INF20630

Why Businesses Use QuickBooks Hosting Services

The reasons why businesses elect to have their QuickBooks solutions hosted come in many forms, which explains why there are a variety of options for getting hosted QuickBooks service.

For users of the QuickBooks Enterprise products, managed IT service may be the primary goal in adopting a cloud hosting model. Hosted and managed IT services, including hosted desktops and managed applications, allows the business to benefit from predictability in IT cost and to transition from a regularly scheduled capital-intensive upgrade cycle to a consistent and budgetable operational expense.

Users of QuickBooks Pro and Premier, on the other hand, are more likely to see mobility, remote access, and real time collaboration as the primary benefits of a hosted model. While the small business owner will frequently argue about the true cost of IT management (which is pretty arguable when the totality of their infrastructure consists of a standalone PC), it is the access to the application and data at any time and from anywhere that gets this single user online – generally with a smart phone or tablet computer or some such mobile device accompanying the requirement.

In many cases, there are other drivers in the business moving the organization along the path towards “cloud enablement” of their solutions, and QuickBooks is simply one of the products to contend with. Hosted QuickBooks may not be THE REASON for going to an online working model, but it is one of the core components which can cause the project to either see success or fail miserably.

I have seen situations where an entire organization’s computing infrastructure was re-deployed as SaaS service, but the one critical thing they forgot was the controller’s requirement for QuickBooks Pro. Months of time and many dollars were invested in moving the rest of the company to online application service, only to find that they all returned to local application use because of the requirement to work collaboratively with the controller and with reports and data produced through QuickBooks. On the other hand, I’ve also seen where the accounting department was the only group moved to the hosted environment (in this case, the provider was focusing on QB and not on the rest of the business requirement), and this group also returned quickly to local operation in order to continue collaboration with internal team members and to benefit from the integration of applications (e.g., QuickBooks working with MS Office, etc.). One size certainly does not fit all, and any purchaser of a hosted QuickBooks solution should keep in mind the entire business requirement in case QuickBooks is only a piece of the puzzle (albeit an essential piece).

Hosted QuickBooks may come as a published or managed application, as a desktop application on a remote or virtual desktop delivery, or as an application“delivered” to the user’s PC. In any case, whether QuickBooks is viewed as a point solution – delivered alone as a single application – or whether it is part of a larger virtualized desktop or application deployment, it remains one of those products that satisfies a fundamental need in small businesses, and now it’s available in the cloud.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?

July 22, 2013December 7, 2017

QuickBooks And The Cloud

There is a lot of buzz about Cloud Computing. I think we all understand that the “Cloud” is that little picture you always see representing the Internet, and that’s what the term refers to: the computing platform isn’t in your office, it’s “out there”, across the Internet. Just think of the Internet as a really long cable that connects your keyboard and monitor to the system that is really running the software.

When companies like Intuit talk about Cloud Computing and QuickBooks, it’s a little bit confusing, given that a large part of their QuickBooks market is still based on locally-installed desktop software. And, with the volume of 3rd party developers with widgets, gadgets, plugins, extensions, and integrations with desktop QuickBooks, the momentum of the desktop solution seems unstoppable. But there has been a catch to the old model of plugging into QuickBooks, and it’s catching on really well.

The creation of the IPP (Intuit Partner Platform) and changes to software integration platforms for QuickBooks introduced an entirely new range of capabilities for QuickBooks developers. Finally, persistent connections to Web-based and other applications may be crafted for QuickBooks desktop, allowing the locally-installed QuickBooks to “speak” over the network to other applications or platform services. This development opens up an entirely new model for extending QuickBooks functionality – extending to a Web application framework.

Businesses are able to take broad advantage of Web-based application services and the features they can deliver without compromise to their choice of accounting and financial management system. Extending access to operational, sales, service, and other users within the enterprise has become a simple and seamless operation. For example, a business that needs to extend QuickBooks Enterprise system to accommodate multiple inventory or warehouse locations can do so easily by simply plugging in a web-based warehouse management solution that has an integration with the QB desktop product. This solution could be a SaaS (software as a service) application which not only provides functionality for multiple warehouse management, but is designed as an anytime, anywhere application to allow those multiple locations to access the system when they need to.

By creating the means for businesses to use the Web to extend their QuickBooks software, Intuit has extended the useful life of the QuickBooks product. Functionality is no longer limited to what can be built and installed on the PC – the application is now able to be extended in numerous ways and on numerous platforms. Businesses are able to take advantage of the best software fit for their organizational operations – including leveraging the anytime, anywhere benefits of a Web-based application service – and still are able to utilize their QuickBooks.

Consider how beneficial it would be to businesses who elect to take advantage of the Web for them to be able to run their QuickBooks (feature-rich desktop QuickBooks) in an anytime, anywhere sort of environment, as well. From a QuickBooks hosting provider, businesses can get services for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and Enterprise – allowing organizations to have their QuickBooks financial applications managed, protected, secured, and made available to users all the time and from any location. The hosting service can also support integrations and extensions for QuickBooks – for both desktop and Web-based applications and services. And, with the commercial provider’s ability to provide authorized subscription licensing for both QuickBooks and Microsoft Office, a business can have a complete, outsourced IT solution and pay only monthly service fees to get it. No upfront expense of purchasing software. No installation or system management to worry about. The QuickBooks financials, as well as the solutions it connects to, are connected in the cloud.

Make Sense?

November 20, 2012January 26, 2016

QuickBooks SDK Integrations, Cloud Hosting, and the Customer Relationship

Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions are the most popular small business accounting software products on the market, boasting somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5M users. In contrast to the QuickBooks Online Edition, which has approximately 300,000, desktop QuickBooks still reigns supreme with small business.

While QuickBooks satisfies most of the general business functionality required from a general accounting product, it doesn’t address much else. For this reason, numerous software developers have created the software products – the extensions, integrations, widgets, and tools – that make QuickBooks more useful to the business.

The sheer popularity of the QuickBooks product line has supported the creation of a very large and diverse community of developers who make things that work with QuickBooks. However, as with any attempt to bring like-minded people together, the QuickBooks developer “community” is not all-inclusive, and there are lots of ISVs (independent software developers) out there who aren’t communicating with Intuit frequently, and who aren’t necessarily exposing their solutions through the Intuit marketplace and other Intuit-branded venues. In many cases, these are developers who have line-of-business solutions that represent the operational priority for their business clients, and where the integration to QuickBooks financial is somewhat of an after-thought. In many cases, these solutions rely on QuickBooks only for general back-office account functions, where the GL, AR and AP are all that really matter. The “tough stuff” is done in the line-of-business application.

Most of these types of solutions, as well as many with more complicated functionality or data integration requirements, utilize a method of communicating with QuickBooks developed using the QuickBooks SDK, or software development kit. This SDK was originally introduced as a means to replace the clumsy IIF import facility, an early way to get data into QuickBooks from other systems. The SDK is really a tool kit designed to facilitate desktop application integrations, which is why so many developers use this method. Particularly when an application is intended to be used on the desktop in conjunction with QuickBooks, it makes sense for developers to use an integration method that will allow them to produce the rich experience and seamless re-use of data that the desktop environment allows. The SDK requires that the QuickBooks program be present, and QuickBooks controls access to the data file rather than allowing the 3^rd party application to have direct data access.

The new method for integrating with a QuickBooks application is by using the IPP (Intuit Partner Platform) method, which is essentially an API (application programming interface) which simplifies the creation of data streams to and from the QuickBooks database. This method of integration is intended to be serviced by the Intuit Sync Manager (included with QuickBooks), where your data first syncs to Intuit servers, and then connected apps sync from that source. In this case, Intuit acts as the intermediary, hosting the synchronized data and controlling the sync with the QuickBooks database. While this may be much easier in terms of offering stricter standards for QuickBooks data integration, it is not a method which addresses the needs of those solutions requiring an integrated experience involving QuickBooks programs and data, or which have more complex data integration requirements than may be served through the IPP.

Because the QuickBooks SDK has been around for many years, it allowed for very stable QuickBooks-integrated solutions to be developed. In comparison, the IPP is pretty new and has taken Intuit a few tries to get working. For this reason, there is a limited catalogue of solutions available in the Intuit App Center, which is where IPP solutions are promoted. Moving forward, Intuit has stated that the focus will remain on the IPP, with the SDK no longer being a preferred (or supported) method.

The method of integrating with QuickBooks desktop editions matters, especially if you’re looking to bring your business applications to the cloud. Application hosting services is the way to “cloud-enable” desktop solutions, yet not all hosting providers recognize or understand the differences in how applications might integrate with QuickBooks, and what that means to the technical and user environments. Not all applications are created equal, and not all QuickBooks integrations are, either. Some integrations sound simple enough to implement, yet have hidden requirements that make deployment with a host or outsourced infrastructure provider an interesting endeavor to say the least.

Developers using SDK integrations with QuickBooks should make certain that they have thoroughly discussed their solution requirements prior to deploying their applications with any host, particularly with a client-selected provider. Companies experienced in hosting QuickBooks are not necessarily adept at understanding the nuances of SDK-developed integrations, and may minimize the technical requirement to the point of leaving your company and your customer with a bad feeling about hosting. In worst-case scenarios, the software developer loses their customer altogether due to a poor experience with the solution in a hosted environment.

Cooper Mann Consulting is working to help developers and commercial ISVs with QuickBooks-connected solutions get their products to the cloud, and in a way that they can influence and help control the all-important customer experience. Rather than being just one of a few hundred hosted products customers can select from the provider menu of offerings, we believe your solution should be delivered with your values, your message, and your unique service approach. Doing so allows you to keep your arms firmly wrapped around your customers and users, working closely with them as you develop your solutions towards a true SaaS or cloud application model, and easing the transition from desktop to web application delivery and subscription service.

Intuit believes they own the relationship to all QuickBooks customers, and they’re right to the extent that the user relies on QuickBooks for some business functionality. Hosting service providers think they own the customer relationship because they have significant influence over the products accessed from their servers.

Operational support solutions go deeper into the business than any high-level accounting product, and the method of deploying the solution (locally installed or hosted) is an IT issue and nothing more. As a developer or provider of essential solutions which address specific vertical industry or line-of-business needs, and as the company who understands the business of your customer and supplies those solutions that help them perform, don’t you really think you should own that customer relationship? We do.

Make Sense?

Want to know more about how Intuit is changing their approach to QuickBooks integration? Read Charlie Russell’s rant: Is Intuit Abandoning QuickBooks SDK Developers?

Read more about QuickBooks cloud hosting: Cloud Hold-Out No More: QuickBooks Desktop Editions in the Cloud

Read more about cloud development: Lessons Learned (or Not): Development and the Cloud