Quickbooks Desktop EOL Announced

Larry Sabo said:
They used to accept the accountant's data file produced by QuickBooks, but only if the QB version was no older than three years.
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This is part of the "Quickbooks Pro Advisor" agreement they signed. If you passed their silly tests and want to advertise using this "qualification", you have to agree not to work with files produced by software older than 3 years, their official support window. I don't know how strictly this is enforced by Intuit, but I suspect it isn't since my own accountant is breaking this agreement by working with my QBDT2019 files, and they haven't yet tried to get me to upgrade.

I suspect @Sky-Knight is correct that this will eventually push accountants to support other softwares so THEY don't erode their SMB client base, but that change won't be immediate. I have about 6 small accounting firms as clients, and so far they are either "go Quickbooks or go home" or "you can use what you want but we charge more for non-Quickbooks users". I know this because I have discussed this whole thing with them individually over the last couple of years as this writing has been on the wall for a while. So far, none of them have said they are going to change their stance, but that probably won't happen until their own market starts to shrink.

BTW, the fees for accountants have gone up as well - they aren't happy about it, but it is just the cost of doing business, so you know what that means, they are passing the cost along to the clients - as they should. Intuit knows this, of course - this is what happens when monopolies exist...I don't know why I should think otherwise.

For my own company, I use Intuit Online Payroll through my accountant's subscription - they bundle the cost of this into my quarterly fees (which are fixed and haven't increased in a few years now - I'm waiting for that shoe to drop). They do my payroll taxes & filings, my year-end closing calculations & entries and my year-end personal and business taxes. I've looked at moving to a different payroll solution a couple of times and it seems clear I am getting a pretty good deal where I am, so I've stayed.
 
GTP said:
My accountant (a firm of about 6 staff) refuses to work with everything except Quickbooks and MYOB.
They explained it's not viable for them to be knowledgeable in anything else.
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Accountants are a big driving force of what accounting software a business will use.
When a business builds a relationship with an accountant...they'll usually go with what that accountant prefers, or recommends.
We used to cozy up with some accountants and....we'd get business picking up their clients installing servers/networks for their recommended software..be it Quickbooks, or a Sage product, or Great Plains, or Abila MIP ...and yes we've done a little bit of MYOB in years past.

Another big driving force....integration with so much other standardized LOB software. While there is a lot of other choices for small business accounting software, most of them simply don't have integrating with existing LOB software out there...yet. As they grow and work with other software vendors to create that integration....they'll grow more.

So throwing a blanket statement that business owners are "lazy" or "refuse to learn" something else....shouldn't fly.
 
Sky-Knight said:
@Larry Sabo Intuit doesn't just arbitrarily lock people out. Those that had that happen had their subscriptions expire.

If you're still on an old perpetual license, those are still working. Though... they aren't supported anymore so who knows when they won't.
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Can confirm if you already had a perpetual licence for the UK it still works even after the discontinuation date. No support or updates provided going forward.

If you were on subscription you are screwed. Either use QB Online or migrate to another platform, that's your choices.
 
Hopefully this will finally kill this terrible accounting software. I know many accountants that refuse to work with Quickbooks online, and it's the accountants that were keeping Quickbooks afloat in the first place since many accountants won't work with anything else.
 
sapphirescales said:
Hopefully this will finally kill this terrible accounting software.
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There's a huge difference between software being terrible and the maker's attitudes and practices being terrible.

Most people I know who use it love QuickBooks itself. What they don't like is constantly being at the end of the chain that the QuickBooks folks keep endlessly jerking.

This is another of those "effective monopoly as an accident of history" situations. QuickBooks came to dominate its market very quickly and became a de facto standard that, as you and others noted, many accountants insisted upon.

I'm with you insofar as I hope this move finally breaks the death grip that QuickBooks has had on its market segment for far too long. That outcome is long, long overdue.
 
Eh, I see Quickbooks as in a similar predicament as Microsoft...it's the "big common one that dominates the market...so it's trendy to pick on it".
We've used it for almost 25 years.
 
One of my customers sent me a copy of the same message that's in the OP. Here's the way I understand things, want to make sure I've got this straight so I can explain to him and others. By the way, all of my clients that use QB are 1-2 seats, largest is maybe 5 or 6.

There are two kinds of QuickBooks out there these days (well there's more but for the bulk of my base just two) : QuickBooks Desktop Pro and QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus.

QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Old fashioned QB. Buy a perpetual license, use it for three years or longer. Some are still running 2017 for example. Not an issue since they're not linking to a bank or payroll. I think you can still install and activate if you've got your keys. You can keep running it indefinitely but if it breaks for whatever reason you're SOL

QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus
Same as above, but you have to pay for a subscription every year to keep it going. Will be supported, etc. But if you're on Pro and don't buy into Pro Plus by July 31, 2024 you won't be able to and you'll have to just take your chances long term with your old Pro.

Do I have that right?
 
timeshifter said:
QuickBooks Desktop Pro
Old fashioned QB. Buy a perpetual license, use it for three years or longer. Some are still running 2017 for example. Not an issue since they're not linking to a bank or payroll. I think you can still install and activate if you've got your keys. You can keep running it indefinitely but if it breaks for whatever reason you're SOL

QuickBooks Desktop Pro Plus
Same as above, but you have to pay for a subscription every year to keep it going. Will be supported, etc. But if you're on Pro and don't buy into Pro Plus by July 31, 2024 you won't be able to and you'll have to just take your chances long term with your old Pro.
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Knowing Intuit, they will probably NOT expire subscriptions. They are, and have been, in the process of forcing everyone to use a subscription-based version.

There is no current Desktop Pro. I believe the last version is either 2021 or 2022. After 3 years on the desktop version, you won't get updates. But that doesn't mean QB is unusable. I'm still using my desktop version from 2017 and there's not a darned thing wrong with it. It does everything my customer and I need it to do.
 
ThatPlace928 said:
I'm still using my desktop version from 2017 and there's not a darned thing wrong with it. It does everything my customer and I need it to do.
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Understood. I have a couple of people in the same situation. But I want them to be informed of potential future possibilities. For example, Windows 10 has reached EOL and the secure version of Windows is 11 25H2 and QuickBooks 2017 just won't work on that. What then?

For one my customers who's old and doesn't adapt well, he'd be in a real pickle. His choices might be to fully retire by then (his business is a part time hobby), or buy into the $650 per year extortion.
 
timeshifter said:
Understood. I have a couple of people in the same situation. But I want them to be informed of potential future possibilities. For example, Windows 10 has reached EOL and the secure version of Windows is 11 25H2 and QuickBooks 2017 just won't work on that. What then?

For one my customers who's old and doesn't adapt well, he'd be in a real pickle. His choices might be to fully retire by then (his business is a part time hobby), or buy into the $650 per year extortion.
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I haven't installed my QB on a Windows 11 laptop so I can't speak to whether it works or not for that format. As far as subscriptions go, I have to believe there's accounting software out there that is simple enough to use and works great without the exorbitant cost.

Edit to add: I'll try installing my QB 2017 on one of my Windows 11 laptops and let you know what it does. Or doesn't... do.
 
I use QB Pro 2017 on Windows 11 and it works perfectly. There's only 1 thing to know...

Get into the Turn Windows Features on or off window, and enable Microsoft XPS Document Writer.

This feature is enabled on Win10 by default, and disabled on Win11 by default. All on premise versions of QB use this for PDF functionality, so you'll get an error regarding the PDF printer on QB launch without it.
 
Sky-Knight said:
I use QB Pro 2017 on Windows 11 and it works perfectly. There's only 1 thing to know...

Get into the Turn Windows Features on or off window, and enable Microsoft XPS Document Writer.

This feature is enabled on Win10 by default, and disabled on Win11 by default. All on premise versions of QB use this for PDF functionality, so you'll get an error regarding the PDF printer on QB launch without it.
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Good to know. I haven't had the chance to try it on 11 yet.
 
ThatPlace928 said:
Good to know. I haven't had the chance to try it on 11 yet.
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The office had a client on Enterprise 22 generating the same error on WIndows 11. Nothing Intuit did solved it...

I came home that weekend, built a new desktop, tossed in Windows 11 and got the error, and wound up tripping over some forum post somewhere that mentioned the feature. A quick comparison between old and new desktops revealed that feature was off, I saw no harm and flipped the switch.

Got my junk sorted AND made me a hero in the service desk on Monday. ;)

So everyone that wants to be able to support on premise Quickbooks log that tidbit away, because every QB install that runs on Win11 / Server 2022 needs it.
 
Sky-Knight said:
The office had a client on Enterprise 22 generating the same error on WIndows 11. Nothing Intuit did solved it...
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THAT is hilarious...Intuit support didn't catch that.
Quickbooks has used PDFs since..jeeeze...practically before computers! Estimates, invoices, etc. That's like...old stuff...QB and PDFs.
 
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