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QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

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31–40 of 66 posts

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#31
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the best alternatives?

I use - https://www.waveapps.com/ My accountant has access to all the data I put in there. Mostly feature parity with Quickbooks. Mostly free to use (I have never paid a dollar for the expense tracking part)

If it could import existing QBO account I'd switch over right now.

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#32

Good. Hopefully this will cause more people to leave Intuit and search out alternatives. This is just one more reason to add to the list.

What are the best alternatives?

https://ledgersmb.org/ (a cloud offering for this https://efficito.com/)

https://plaintextaccounting.org/

I haven't used these solutions much, just know about thier existance.

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#33

It's a massive price hike for people like me that are frugal with software purchases. I just checked and I paid $171 CAD for QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2018 because I bought it on sale. The same subscription version is $199, which I assume is USD, so ~$250 CAD per year . Now I don't have a PHD in math or anything, but $1250 over 5 years vs $171 for a perpetual license that I estimate should last me to the 5 year mark is…

> It's abusive, anti-competitive behavior

I think it's abusive, but I don't see how it's illegal or anti-competitive. Why can't businesses switch to someone else?

I know migration is not easy, but that's true of almost any application.

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#34
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides banking, what are your other "must-have" integrations? Any sense as to why QuickBooks is so entrenched with accounting firms? I've seen Xero mentioned more often lately, and curious how they broke through the QB barrier to entry.

I ended up on QuickBooks because my accountant insisted on it when i started my business. About ten years later i found out she's part of some kind of insider program. She probably thinks it's just cool for her to get special access to stuff. But i don't think she realizes it's a plot to lure small businesses into the QuickBooks platform.

The Quickbooks Accountant program isn't 'special access to stuff', but Intuit does offer accountants a special version of the software (at no charge IIRC), which allows them to easily work with many customer files with no complicated licensing requirements (as is the case with many other softwares).

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#35

Banktivity did the same in the last release... Now I'm looking at alternatives.

I'm in the same boat, I'd love to know what you end up with.

Personally, I'm leaning towards just doing everything in a big spreadsheet, but that's not great for many reasons.

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#36
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you tried getting a bookkeeper to use GnuCash? Xero has a following as does SAGE/peachtree but not the good open source options. I did and it failed. No reason except everyone in the CPA and bookkeeper business uses and knows QuickBooks. I have up and use and pay the kings transom for QBO so i can focus on my business and not play transaction level bookkeeper myself.

I have! I ended up having to export my entire general ledger as an excel file for them to have any hope of using it. It cost me a ton of money and time to massage into a format that an accountant could work with, they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program that I'm the only of their customers to use. Now I just use quickbooks. I have never had any issue. Gnucash is great and wo…

> they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program

Many of us here are way more expensive per hour than our accountant ;) -- but to your metapoint that the accountant is more expensive than a new quickbooks subscription, that probably remains true even in the face of the price hike.

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#38

Good. Hopefully this will cause more people to leave Intuit and search out alternatives. This is just one more reason to add to the list.

What are the best alternatives?

have yet to see FreshBooks mentioned in this thread.

https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/

https://www.freshbooks.com/

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#39
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides banking, what are your other "must-have" integrations? Any sense as to why QuickBooks is so entrenched with accounting firms? I've seen Xero mentioned more often lately, and curious how they broke through the QB barrier to entry.

I ended up on QuickBooks because my accountant insisted on it when i started my business. About ten years later i found out she's part of some kind of insider program. She probably thinks it's just cool for her to get special access to stuff. But i don't think she realizes it's a plot to lure small businesses into the QuickBooks platform.

[deleted]

Re: QuickBooks Desktop moves to subscription model

#40

Banktivity did the same in the last release... Now I'm looking at alternatives.

I'm in the same boat, I'd love to know what you end up with. Personally, I'm leaning towards just doing everything in a big spreadsheet, but that's not great for many reasons.

https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/
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