quickbooks pro – Cooper Mann Consulting

December 13, 2023

Intuit Makes Moves to Push Low-End QuickBooks Users to Online Edition

QuickBooks Pro and Premier Subscriptions No Longer Available After July, and It’s Bye Bye for QuickBooks for Mac

Final sale date for QuickBooks Pro and Premier

On November 30 of this year, Intuit notified its partners and customers that the final date for new sales of QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Desktop Premier, Mac, and Desktop Enhanced Payroll is July 31, 2024. Starting in August, QuickBooks Pro and Premier subscriptions, along with Mac versions and desktop payroll services, will no longer be available for purchase. QuickBooks Enterprise, which is a desktop edition, is the only QuickBooks version that will remain available for new subscriptions.

For several years, Intuit has been improving their online version of the product while migrating as many customers as possible to that platform. Now, businesses that have invested years of user training and business process development are forced to decide if the online version of QuickBooks will meet the needs that the desktop editions have for years, and they must look at the realities of potentially re-training users and re-developing workflows and processes.

QuickBooks Enterprise is a viable alternative

The alternative is that businesses adopt QuickBooks Enterprise edition and retain the value of user knowledge and process support by remaining in desktop QuickBooks. For businesses that manage multiple company files, QuickBooks Enterprise provides the same multi-company capabilities that Pro and Premier do, something the online edition does not currently support.

There is no change to QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise subscriptions. All QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise subscriptions (Silver, Gold, Platinum, and Diamond) will continue to be available for purchase for new customers. QuickBooks Enterprise Gold, Platinum, and Diamond subscriptions include integrated payroll.

Flexibility of Desktop Applications on the Cloud

With the announcement, many accounting professionals and their clients are not sure what the best path forward is. While there is momentum behind the online application, there are options for staying with QuickBooks Desktop and still take advantage of the cloud.

For businesses that want the flexibility of using the cloud but that need the features and functionality of desktop QuickBooks, Noobeh cloud offers QuickBooks on Azure services. This empowers businesses to use their QuickBooks Desktop software – Pro, Premier, or Enterprise – along with all their add-ons and integrations, and to run it all securely on the Microsoft cloud. Note that Noobeh’s hosting service also works with Mac devices, so even Mac and iOS users can work in hosted Windows versions of QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Desktop is Not Dead

The retirement of QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, Mac and Payroll products currently impacts only new customers looking for those solutions, or existing customers that do not have current subscription licenses. If a business has an existing QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, Mac Plus, or Enhanced Payroll subscription, they can continue to renew their subscription after July 31, 2024. Intuit will continue to provide security updates, product updates, and support for existing subscribers.

Intuit will also allow accountants to continue purchasing QuickBooks Accountant Desktop Solutions, including ProAdvisor bundles, directly through the QuickBooks Accountant Sales team.

What to Do

To avoid losing access to QuickBooks desktop, businesses should purchase a QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus, Premier Plus, or Mac Plus subscription through the QuickBooks Accountant Sales team before July 31, 2024. Businesses that need a desktop payroll solution should consider purchasing a QuickBooks Enhanced Payroll subscription before July 31, 2024, or upgrade to QuickBooks Enterprise Gold, Platinum, or Diamond, all of which include integrated payroll and can still be purchased after July 31, 2024.

Mendelson Consulting, Intuit’s first solution provider and the go-to experts on QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online, are perfectly positioned to provide businesses with the help they need to decide which path to take with their QuickBooks software. Recognized as specialists in working with larger businesses using QuickBooks Enterprise and as top performer with QuickBooks Online, Mendelson Consulting’s team has the depth and breadth of knowledge and expertise to make sure your business makes the best possible choice for its financial systems.

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October 9, 2017

QuickBooks 2018 Updates and Enhancements

QuickBooks 2018: Changes You See and Updates You Can’t See

QuickBooks 2018 has been released, and there are a number of beneficial enhancements and changes to the application that many will find very useful. Sometimes it is the little things – like a past-due stamp that can be printed on invoices when they are re-sent to a customer – that can make getting the work done just a bit easier. Being able to search the chart of accounts is another thing that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but becomes one when you just can’t remember the account number you’re looking for. Frequently having to scroll through the list of accounts is taking more of your time than you’d think it would.

For the most part, it looks like there are some nice and needed changes that come with QuickBooks 2018. These changes address some functionality and usability issues (like supporting multiple monitors) and are visible to the user. There are also other important changes that come with QB 2018 editions that aren’t quite as visible.

All editions (Pro, Premier and Enterprise) in the US, Canada and UK got some common updates, including:

Multiple monitor support
Search in the Chart of Accounts
Cash/Accrual toggle on reports
Past Due Stamp
Keyboard shortcuts for copy/paste lines in transactions
Secure Webmail option

For folks using payroll, there are now useful reminders for payroll tax liabilities, and for accountant edition users there is now the ability to merge multiple vendor records. An exciting feature for many users of QB Enterprise is improvement to the sales order fulfillment process, including support for mobile (un-tethered) barcode scanners.

The changes that remain less visible to the user are primarily component updates and security improvements. Additional encryption for certain PII (personally identifiable information) fields, version updates of framework and database components, and reliance on Internet Explorer v11 are among the items addressed. While these are not visible changes that impact the program functionality directly, they are necessary to keep the product up to date with Windows platform and to modernize the security in the product. In particular, users should pay attention to the requirement for Internet Explorer v11. While Microsoft continues to promote Edge as the power browser for Windows 10, it is Internet Explorer v11 that QuickBooks requires.

It is important to note that Intuit‘s support for 3^rd party applications is sometimes impacted with QuickBooks updates, particularly when it comes to security, encryption and unattended access to QuickBooks data. Changes made to how QuickBooks encrypts stored credentials (among other things) caused many 3^rd party solutions to lose their ability to connect to and sync data with QuickBooks while unattended (like a middle of the night sync, when nobody else is working). Many applications had to return to a user-attended sync process, where a user in QuickBooks had to manually initiate the sync which allows the application to connect to QuickBooks and run. With the release of QuickBooks 2018 this issue remains, which means that you should check with your 3^rd party software provider regarding any possible automation changes or additional configuration that might be required due to the update.

For those running QuickBooks in a server-based or hosted environment, there are a few additional considerations regarding some of the changes in QuickBooks 2018. Some of these items represent known technical limitations of working in a terminal server/RDS/hosted environment, and sometimes they’re limitations or restrictions based on the technology being used and how it is applied. It is in this area where the suggestion that hosted QuickBooks will work EXACTLY as the program does when locally installed is not entirely true.

Multiple monitor support, for example, may or may not be easily handled by your hosting provider or remote access solution. In particular, if you access your hosted service as a Remote Desktop or Virtual Desktop, you may have only one actual Window (the remote desktop window) to work with. Even if your hosted QuickBooks were to attempt to open multiple popup windows so you could move them to different monitors, you’ll still be limited to the dimensions of your remote desktop. If the remote desktop doesn’t span over multiple monitors, then the QuickBooks windows that open in the remote desktop window won’t either.

The option to keep a user logged in to QuickBooks is another item that may not be useful or workable in a hosted environment, and isn’t necessarily a great idea even if running QB on a local computer. This option keeps the user logged in to the QB “instance” which can make working with lots of company files a bit faster and makes loading/unloading QB seem faster because it doesn’t really unload or shut down. While it may be convenient to eliminate the wait times during these login processes, the offset in security risk and problematic application functionality may be higher. Leaving a user connected to QB for a fast login means that an unattended PC becomes a vulnerability as someone could access the app and files without having to enter credentials every time. In a hosted environment, the functionality tends to leave QuickBooks running in a user session, often causing the user to be unable to launch QuickBooks if they log off and back on to the host system (getting the message that QuickBooks is already running or the company file is already open).

Support for 3^rd party integrations varies in hosting environments, too, but the granting of administrative permissions to users is largely consistent: users do not get administrative permissions. This means that some applications which require Windows administrator permissions to run cannot be easily handled in a hosted delivery. Additionally, applications that run as services on the computer, and particularly those with controls accessible via the task manager, are difficult to manage in a hosted environment because users are generally not able to access the task manager on the machine to start or stop running services.

Among the most challenging items to support in a hosted environment are mobile and handheld scanning devices. Mobile scanning devices have become essential tools for inventory and product management, providing users with the ability to rapidly access item information by simply scanning a barcode. Manually keying in data increases the potential for errors, but also requires a machine with a keyboard be nearby. With mobile scanners, workers are able to input item information regardless of whether they have a computer nearby or not (which is often the case in a warehouse or out on the shop or store floor). The software sees the barcode scanner input as though the data were typed in, which eliminates input errors and failed lookups by ensuring the item number is correctly entered every time.

Where the challenge with a hosted solution comes to play is in communicating between the hosted software (QuickBooks in this case) and the scanner device. Usually, a scanner must be able to “see” the computer running QuickBooks on the local network. The scanning device, like a networked printer, is able to communicate directly with the PC on the network so it is able to work with the software running on the PC. When the QuickBooks software is running on the hosting provider’s computers, the mobile scanners in your business location aren’t able to “see” the host computers on the local network so they may not be able to communicate.

The time for software upgrades is also the time to take a look at how you’re implementing the software to ensure that your business has the most effective and easy to manage system possible. Rather than simply installing the new version on top of the old, consider whether your systems and software might be handled in a more cost efficient and useful manner.

If you’re installing the new QuickBooks editions in-house, maybe it makes sense to take a look at doing a server-based approach, which reduces the number of software installs required, centralizes the access and applications which makes managing the system easier, and creates a single system to back up and administer.

If you’re looking to eliminate the burdens of installing and maintaining your software, backing up your systems and dealing with hardware issues, moving to a managed hosting solution may be the right answer.

Software upgrade time is the right time to explore these options, giving your business the opportunity to test out new delivery models and services without impacting the production system. There is always some element of risk in updating applications, so it is important to make sure things are ready before starting the process. Make sure all systems are fully backed up, and make sure you have the tools necessary to re-install the old versions of your applications just in case there are changes you can’t work with or problems you didn’t expect. If you’re not sure the best way to approach upgrading your QuickBooks system, contact me and we’ll find the right answer together.

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August 29, 2013August 30, 2013

Focus on the Finance Department: QuickBooks in the Cloud

Vendors and IT solution providers are all buzzing about their cloud services and solutions available via the Web. This buzz often includes statements about lower cost of IT acquisition and service management and how mobility and remote access benefits the business. These statements are proving true for many businesses, yet there are still vast numbers of small business operating on local computers and unmanaged service. The reasons which hold back these business from adopting cloud computing models are as many and varied as the businesses themselves, but there is a consistent thread to be found in these reasons, and it has to do with a lack of understanding of what certain applications really mean to the business. In this case, the discussion is about the focus on strictly operational or administrative areas of the business and not on the finance department which, in so many small businesses, uses QuickBooks.

Cloud solution providers are in business to make money, and hosting companies in particular are looking for the right applications which will drive usage and revenues on their platforms. When these providers look at the small business market, they’re trying to identify the applications and services that small business owners will adopt in volume. Identification of these opportunities to serve a large customer base is essential to the provider’s economy of scale and profit model. It makes sense that hosts would want to offer the applications which drive the highest degree of usage in their environments, so they tend to focus on the applications used by the greatest number of users within the customer organization. In the small business market, these applications are email and productivity tools – solutions which are used broadly throughout the business and which serve a horizontal rather than vertical industry orientation. Those are the two easy picks; finding the next most valuable solution represents a bigger challenge for the provider.

With Intuit QuickBooks desktop editions boasting the lion’s share of the small business accounting market, it seems that hosting QuickBooks products would be the next natural selection by hosting providers already serving their small business clients with email and productivity solutions. However, because these service providers do not fully understand the essential functions QuickBooks serves in the small business, the assumption is that the usage of the solution is so nominal that it doesn’t make sense to develop the capability to offer it. It is a misunderstanding that many providers have, and is the result of a lack of historic participation in the product. QuickBooks, you see, is a direct to consumer product rather than a channel product, and most IT service providers and hosting companies recognize the product name but not really what it does or how it operates. And these hosts are often large companies and therefore have no direct experience using the product, so there is no frame of reference for them to work from. These service providers are simply overlooking the important role that QuickBooks solutions play in many small businesses, where it is used to handle various operational aspects of the business as well as being the product of choice for bookkeeping and accounting. Particularly with the QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise editions offering additional functionality and industry-specific features, the products are used widely by small businesses and not just for accounting and finance.

The point of the discussion is that hosting companies and “cloud server” providers should look at the mixture of applications used by their small business customers, and they are likely to find that QuickBooks products are pretty high on the list. Even if there are only a few people in the accounting department, and the usage by these individuals is not representative of the entire hosting opportunity, hosts should recognize that those few individuals and the software they use are not only essential, but are probably processing payroll for all those other users on the system and are paying the bills for products and services purchased. After all, if you’re going to make anybody in the company happy, make sure to focus on the finance department and help them get their QuickBooks in the Cloud, as they’re the ones that will be paying the bill for the service.

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet

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August 26, 2013October 9, 2017

Cloud Computing for Small Business: It’s All About 3 Apps

Every business uses technology at some level, and every business has certain fundamental needs which are most frequently met through the use of computing technology. Regardless of business type or size and independent of industry orientation, there are 3 fundamental things which every business does which means that there are 3 fundamental application types or solutions which every business will buy at some point. These 3 application types, which could be distilled down to just “applications”, have become so broadly used in business and so widely recognized as the standards that their names are often used instead of the term representing the functionality they provide. When it comes to cloud computing for small business, it’s all about these 3 applications.

In what are now referred to as “legacy” or “traditional” models, these products would generally be purchased as software and associated hardware to run it, and would be installed and managed on the local premises. With cloud computing models, the solutions may be purchased or subscribed as managed infrastructure and application licenses, or as a full service subscription (SaaS). Regardless of the service model, the applications are the key to the customer win. While cloud computing may be challenging how IT products and services are sold and delivered to customers, it is not fully impacting which solutions customers are actually looking for. Over the past 16 years this has been the reality, and it may take another decade before these products are unseated from their top positions simply due to the inertia of the installed bases they’ve already developed. Service providers have found (or will find) a way to deliver these applications in cloud computing style, or small businesses will simply not move everything to the cloud very quickly. It is really just that simple, and I’ll explain why.

The three things that each and every business does, and which they generally purchase computers and software to facilitate, are communicating, producing information, and keeping score.

1. Communicating is an essential need for every business. Whether it is communication via phone, fax, email or otherwise, businesses will communicate and they will purchase products which help them do it better. The standard for business email communications has become Microsoft Exchange, which is now available as a highly affordable subscription service from Microsoft or from a wide variety of commercial MS Exchange hosting providers. Certainly the popularity and growth of hosted Exchange supports the argument that not only is MS Exchange mail very widely used in businesses of all sizes, but that it is also highly acceptable as a hosted solution because users retain desired functionality and are able to benefit from a variety of add-ons and additional services from their hosted Exchange email provider. The other thing about hosted Exchange is that the user can still use MS Outlook on their desktop to get their mail. Now we’re back to the desktop application again. Regardless of what mail server and service the user has, they are often more attached to using Outlook than they are to the mail service. In fact, when you ask a fairly non-technical user what they use for email, they’ll often say they use Outlook (the desktop client, not Outlook.com).

2. Producing Information is another essential need for every business. Whether the information is produced for internal or external use, there is a lot of information created to inform various people about the business. Documents, spreadsheets and presentations are used in every business, and productivity applications help people create them. The standard in this area is Microsoft’s Office suite of products which includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint. It isn’t unusual to have someone suggest “making a powerpoint to get the message across”, rather than using the word “presentation”, and does anyone expect to get a document not in .doc format? When users ask for productivity products, they usually ask for Office software and they usually mean Microsoft Office suite products.

The broad use and proven suitability of these products has well established them as the standards for use in business. While these applications are now available as limited-functionality web-based applications, most businesses continue to rely on the desktop products which resulted in myriad file sharing and “collaboration” tools which work with the Office products. Microsoft recognized the value of having the feature-rich productivity applications available in hosted and managed service models (as hosted applications rather than true web-based apps), and made the products available for licensing and distribution via their Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA). Microsoft (direct and via partners) also offers Office 365, which provides licensing for Office desktop applications and/or hosted Exchange email services.

Hosts with cloud servers and managed infrastructure and VDI solutions are all facing this truth: their services are useful when there are applications running on them, and among the most frequently requested applications are the Office apps. This is why so many providers offer not only cloud servers and virtual desktop solutions, they add value to their service by also offering the Microsoft Office products. At least in the case of MS Office, service providers have recognized that certain fundamental applications must be present in order for the server or desktop to have value for the SMB customer. After all, “moving the server to the cloud” doesn’t solve the problem if all the apps remain on the local PCs.

And then we come to the final application – the last fundamental small business application for service providers to focus on. It is with this application that hosting companies will make real impact in moving their small business customers from local to hosted applications, virtual desktops, and the world of cloud servers and managed hosting.

3. Keeping score, or accounting, is the final absolute and fundamental business function which exists in every business regardless of size, type or industry. This is another area where service providers are focusing, realizing that within the realm of small business accounting there is a single standard product line which serves the exact profile of the target SMB/SME customer: Intuit QuickBooks desktop products.

When challenged to find a single application solution which addresses a fundamental business need, is not oriented towards a particular industry segment, and which is likely to drive increased usage simply due to existing market penetration and sales – there is only one name that answers, and it is QuickBooks, most specifically the Pro, Premier and Enterprise desktop editions.

Looking further into the problem reveals that there may be more options for small business accounting emerging in the SaaS market, but this doesn’t help the hosting companies looking to increase usage on their own platforms. Additionally, while new and emerging solutions may be introducing options for very small business, the activity actually serves to increase awareness of and usage of computerized accounting solutions, resulting in increased share of the market looking for and purchasing these solutions – increasing the overall market for SMB accounting products and providing an opportunity to sell QuickBooks solutions to those new users. Further, Intuit QuickBooks remains the dominant choice once the business has needs beyond simple invoicing and bill payment, and continues to see growth in product sales and distribution for this reason.

It’s also true that, once a business has itself “invested” in an accounting product, change is not something considered easily. In many (most?) cases, the business is more closely tied to their financial systems than they are to their service provider. If the provider can’t work with the software, the business is likely to seek services from another provider.

Moving everything but finance to the cloud is not an option for most businesses, either. Particularly with small business/small enterprise, there are generally systems which serve a broad business need and not a single function. QuickBooks is not just a back-office accounting product. It also provides some front-office functionality, such as storing general customer information, handling invoicing, inventory management, job costing and other functions. It is essential that service providers not minimize the importance of this solution in their target client operation.

The financial system is not an island and is often integrated with or connected to other applications and data. Even though the QuickBooks desktop products are designed to suit businesses up to 250 employees, it is unlikely that a business will have all 250 people running QuickBooks. Rather, the product may be used by 2 or 3 people in the accounting department, or possibly by up to 30+ users in an Enterprise deployment where the product serves more operationally oriented functions. The rest of the company is likely using MS Office and email as suggested earlier, and perhaps some other operational or business specific product which may integrate with QuickBooks. The point is that it’s unwise for service providers to minimize the importance of the financial software and systems, even if those solutions are used by only a very few of the total number of users within the organization.

More evidence suggesting that the name QuickBooks has become almost synonymous with small business bookkeeping is visible within the accounting and bookkeeping industry, where bookkeeper training programs focus as much on the QuickBooks product (if not more so) than on actual accounting fundamentals. Businesses hiring bookkeepers don’t ask for bookkeeping experience, they ask for QuickBooks experience. If a small business owner asks his accountant what product to use, it’s a good bet that the accountant will recommend, and possibly even set up, QuickBooks for the client. There is momentum there which cannot be argued with, and it represents significant opportunity for those who have platforms to run the stuff. Weirdly, QuickBooks desktop editions and other desktop-based financial products available in a cloud hosted model represent a last and final element which is driving broad adoption of cloud servers and hosted desktops within the SMB markets.

It is all about the apps, but not just any apps. It’s about the apps small businesses need, want, know, and currently use. Service providers who can offer their customers these applications as cloud service – as managed applications on a cloud server or VDI platform – are in a position to serve the broadest base of SMB/SME customers. Talk about addressable market… at that point, it becomes a simple function of exposure as the value proposition is undeniable (and barrier-free).

Joanie Mann Bunny Feet Make Sense?