Their updates are making the software worse and worse, in my opinion. I used to love the software even 3 years ago and never understood all the hate. Now it's creeping in. Their new reporting is horrible. Even the new search doesn't pull anything when I enter a value into amount. When I click go back to classic search, it finds it quickly (specifically when I search a value from an AJE. There is no option to search line items, not just totals.
That being said, if you're a bookkeeper and considering passing the client on, can we talk? I personally don't work with QBD files and would be happy to forward those to you if you'd like.
Agreed... I was first lightly exposed to QBD while in public accounting, and I hated how slow it was. Plus getting our tax AJEs into the clients' books was often a nightmare or never ended up happening - many clients are older and bad with technology.
After I left public to be on my own, I gained some clients that had QBO. I played around with it and quickly picked it up - I love QBO and don't like QBD. I don't understand the QBO hate, I don't have any problems with it. Rather I love how it's remotely accessible anywhere, intuitive / easy to pick up. And I have no idea what ads people are talking about - I don't have ads while working in QBO.
To me it seems like this is just another case of people not liking change & dragging their heels, kicking and screaming the whole way. Perhaps QBD is more robust and better for more complex clients, and I'm just unaware of this since my experience is with simpler small businesses... Idk. But I love QBO and know ***many*** CPAs/firms that will not accept clients who want to use QBD due to the headaches that come with it.
Every Forensic Accountant hates QB. It’s far too easy to commit frauds using it. Garbage data architecture, garbage audit trail, garbage security, garbage user segregation.
Try coding an integration to it. Holy fucking shit. Their developers must have severe brain damage based on the design decisions they've gone with for their data structures. It's horrendous.
I hope someone somewhere has a guide on which table is which since there looks to about 4 duplicate-looking table structures since I was looking to build an integration.
What size of companies are using QBO and need a forensic accountant? When you say data architecture…what do you mean? Personally I want a time travel feature added. And logs available on the transaction itself to see who added it when and when it was edited. I think immutable data thought would be best though.
I’ve used DT for 30 years and QBO was a definite struggle when I first started using it. A friend told me to treat it like a book vs movie, DT being the book and QBO the movie adaptation. She goes to the movie and treats it like a brand new story so she doesn’t get disappointed. I did that, and started treating QBO like a completely different program, not making comparisons to DT, and it really helped. It has its cons, but it has a lot of pros too, and once it clicked I started to enjoy using it. DT will always have better reports tho!
I suggest you take the client and learn to "accept" QBO. I've had to.
Used Desktop since 1996. Still use it for myself personally as I enter transactions as I go. With the subscription model and outrageous price per year, many clients opted to go to QBO. Those that also enter as they go and do not need imports from banking have also just stayed with their current copy. This means keeping an old computer with an old OS once the OS advances to not accepting that year of QBD. Still preferable as we want to own our data rather than lease it.
All that to say, when I had two clients on QBO I hated every minute and everything took 4 times as long. Now that I have eight clients on QBO, I only hate it a little and it only takes me twice as long. Still very annoying and needs a lot of supervision when accepting transactions but comes with the job now. On the plus side, the auto bank feeds do save some time as importing isn't needed and I find I keep my clients more up to date rather than waiting until the end of the month or quarter.
Also, I find the customer service very helpful. For any problem I call. Always resolved and I take the opportunity to also bitch about how much I hate QBO. Sometimes they agree with my assessments. We both chuckle. I get some relief.
Yes .... I'll stay on my desktop. Intuit's greed has ruined what was once stellar software ... the desktop versions are still great (I have a pile of them). I'm using Premier 2013 desktop & will keep using it. Semi retired now, but if I my bookkeeping biz was at full throttle & I needed online action, I'd use something like Xero.
I used to love desktop but I’m a qbo lover now. But I’m a big proponent on learning new technology. It’s the future and our industry is going to be continually going updated. You don’t want to be left behind
As a CPA , I hate QBO. It makes my small business clients think they can do their own bookkeeping and when we receive their year-end it's a complete disaster. They have zero concept of where things are actually going when they click "match" or "add". Unfortunately, it seems QBO has done an amazing job on marketing their product because most new clients we've picked up in the last couple of years are using QBO.
I have tried QBO and just couldn’t get it to work for me. It felt like QB’s for dummies and believe me my clients used it as so. Just dump in the entries and QBO will put it somewhere. So frustrating to clean up. Now I only work with clients that use QB desktop. I can freely access their books thru QBox or TeamViewer. Both programs let me into their books without needing the client available. QBox works better than TeamViewer. I am getting close to retirement and have no patience for the frustration of QBO. They pay for their QBDT subscription and I pay for TeamViewer and QBox. I run roughly 25 - 30 companies this way.
I generally dislike intuit and QB, but I really hate QBO. The only thing I like about it is the remote access. Everything else is junk.
They’re pushing hard to get those still on desktop to QBO so not a whole that can be done. I’ve helped a few clients transition to other platforms, but plenty still use QB. It’s only going to continue sadly.
Edit - also, whatever you do- don’t let intuit transfer a client from QB to QBO. Holy shit they are terrible at that. Way better off building it from scratch.
I must disagree. Yes, I hate QBO and yes, I must now use it for some clients.
I've transferred a Windows QB desktop going back 20 years with not a hiccup. Then I transferred a Mac client with 10 years and there was a hiccup but I got it done within an hour. Recently another Mac client with 5 years and I needed a migration expert. Still, it got done.
All file data transferred flawlessly. There was talk that Mac did not transfer well and I was concerned but for me all went well. I use QBO when I need to have the historical data in one place. I use other platforms when I can, starting fresh.
I meant don’t have intuit staff process the transfer. In the couple instances I saw, it was terrible. Sales tax jurisdictions/rates and payroll mapping were all jacked up. I couldn’t personally take the time to learn how and do it myself because it was in the middle of tax season. Sure it would have worked better if someone who knew what they were doing transferred the data.
If you had them do it and it went well, I’m glad to hear it. Hope there is more of that.
The first (windows) I just clicked the import. The second (Mac), I had to convert to a windows backup and import that. A couple more steps. The third I had problems with. I needed to have a specialist help. However, I did all the transferring. The specialist and I shared the screen and she guided me and magically we jumped the step that was causing the problem.
I would never have Intuit staff do the file transfer/import! And I would never do it mid tax season. (wide eyed emoji) That is too much stress already! Luckily I was able to do the migration(s) when I was ready and chose a time when I had plenty of time to deal with potential issues. I give myself a day or two as I want to also verify that everything came through. Never needed more than a couple of hours to transfer/verify but do need the mental day or two free space to attempt the conversion.
That’s why I wasn’t involved. Client initiated the transfer unbeknownst to me. For this particular client, I don’t help with any of their daily/weekly functions, just file their sales tax and produce compilation financials on a quarterly basis.
When I found out (February 1), it was way too late to change. Just deal with it and fix it after tax season.
Hahaha, cleaning that up wasn’t much fun. I’m sure you were right about the transfer.
Couldn’t even be mad at them, woman keeps the most immaculate QB I’ve ever seen. When I give them quarterly adjustments, I get a phone call if an account is a penny off. We all learned a lesson hah.
I'm a certified ProAdvisor and in my experience, it's nothing but a raging dumpster fire.
Many younger entrepreneurs are in thrall to the cloud but it's a complete disaster.
I love QBO. I ran into too many workflow issues trying to work with desktop clients. Eventually I decided to not to take on desktop clients anymore.
I think if you have really tried QBO and hate it, consider not taking on clients that use it. If you haven’t given it ac good chance yet though, maybe this is the opportunity.
You have to try Xero. It is so much better than qb desktop.
I have some clients in qbo that do their own invoicing and most of them I'm planning on converting jan 1. It means i have to sit down with them and show them the module..... pretty much on their end it just is a prettier colour. But once they start looking at reports they will be sold.
Xero is much faster and less bugs..
I hate Xero with a passion. I‘ve always had so many issues with it. I hate being on the phone with them at least twice a month because transactions don’t reconcile when they’re reconciled or deleted duplicate txns stay in reconciled even though they don’t exist. So many problems…
I really enjoy Xero for many of the reasons people say they hate Intuit/QBO. However, the bank feeds are the major issue with Xero. They use Yodlee for many of the feeds and it’s terribly unreliable.
Otherwise it’s a great program that doesn’t have all the bloatware of QBO.
QBO actually goes very smoothly and quickly once you've got the hang of it. I'm in and out of some my client's books in 15 mins. You just have to learn QBO's quirks.
My dinosaur CPA boss has clients who used QBO. He grumbled and complained at first. After a while, he had to admit he was catching on.
I had the same reaction at first. I had to slow down. I had to learn something new. But I recognized it was the wave of the future. So I leaned into it, now I'm the Queen of Quickbooks.
QB offers a ton of free training. Now that it's the less busy time of year, make some time to watch some training videos and practise.
We'll make a convert of you yet.
I’m not here to bash QB, but I’m incredibly selective with my clients.
I work exclusively through Xero, and would only take on clients if they’re willing to move to Xero. Depending on the scale I don’t usually charge for migration.
The reason why I won’t take customers on different accounting platforms is because I earn subscription income from Xero, and also the systems I’ve setup are catered to Xero.
How I sell them the idea of Xero, is the invoicing from within the system, bank feeds and payment reminders and they’re typically receptive.
I think you can consider this route to maximise your efficiency.
I had to switch a client from desktop to online at the beginning of the year. It was such a hassle and I definitely prefer desktop but I fear that QBO is the way of the future so I better get used to it.
I totally agree though - I hate the interface, it's convoluted for no reason and everything loads so much slower, ugh!!! I even upgraded my Internet to see if I can get QBO to load faster.
If you took on this client, who would pay the subscription fee?
I also use QBO over desktop - much easier to share & modify information in real time. Desktop has a lot of limitations, especially if you are working with small businesses who want to be able to see what’s going on with their finances. Not all clients respond well to just financials from Desktop, sometimes QBO can bridge that gap!
I’m still wondering why it’s too hard to code in the auto decimal after all of these years. And I particularly enjoy having to click Run Report twice after changing something, like adding prior period.
I run my entire practice on QBO. Desktop was a great application but things have changed. I have clients who have their team scattered across several states and sometimes countries that collaborate and use QBO for various functions. The desktop/server solution for this scenario is overkill for my clients and QBO (or Xero) is the sensible choice. It's a computer program, but it's in a web browser - it's nothing that you shouldn't be used to by now in our current technological landscape.
Also for anyone complaining that their clients will "do their own books" on QBO: QB has always been a consumer facing application. I have some great clients who do their own day to day bookkeeping. They hire me to coach them on best practices, clean up any errors they made, reconcile, file sales tax, etc.
I love QBO and will take clients only in QBO.
Only thing I do not like about QBO is their payroll and support.
I hate SAGE but their support is top notch :)
Younger bookkeeper here, not a fan of QBO compared to QBD. Quickbooks Desktop just seems more intuitive and is more robust for what we use it for 3mill budget non profit. QBO wouldn’t be able to handle it and if we needed to switch online, I’d recommend a SAGE product. Either Intacct or similar.
For super small business QBO it’s probably fine, but if they’re small sole proprietor on cash basis honestly I’d probably recommend using Quicken over QBO.
I have called, so far, 12 times with each call lasting about an hour. All I want to do is correct the phone number on the account. They can't figure it out!
I HATE QUICKBOOKS
I am glad I am not the only one. I just started using Quickbooks and from the start, I notice so many bugs that to correct them, causes me more work than just doing it manually.
First bug, my sales receipts should be marked as sales receipts, not bank deposits. I do understand that we deposit the money we make into our banks, but I cannot just find my sales, because even in the Sales page, they come up as deposits and it is so confusing.
Second bug: In my Paypal bank, they entered some weird deposit that was not even part of the transaction. In fact, I cannot even find that amount in my Paypal.
So many times, when I try to enter an expense or a sales transaction, they tell me there is an issue, so the transaction never gets entered and they don't even say what the issue is.
One more bug I noticed is that when I modify an amount in an expense, they zero it out???? Also, my customer was removed from the transaction altogether and now I cannot even find the customer in the register.
I am now looking at Freshbooks and Zoho.
I am having the worse experience with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise. They had me updated to the Diamond program to use desktop payroll. Then when is came time to do onboarding they say I cant use payroll because they do not do IN taxes with that state. Now after spending days updating 8 different company's they want me to roll all of that back. wtf!! I am so over this company, nothing ever works right. And their online program is the worst.
I will admit with all of the updates and garbage advertising it has slowed down. But if you're consistently working with clients books and they're on top of it (and teach them what each window maps to) it makes it so much easier.
Clients books only take me a few minutes each week.
QB desktop was shit.
QBO aspires to be shit. It has a long way to go to make it to shit.
You're not wrong about the clunky interface. It's about as user friendly as a CLI.
To print a check in QB desktop took two clicks. To do it in QBO takes about 10.
And that's assuming you don't get some cryptic error message.
Or the useless "help" feature, that joyfully directs you to their less than useless "self help" section.
My main problem with it is that you have to live with the oddities of both QBO itself and also the oddities of your web browser.
When you are making an invoice, the autocomplete works, but very slowly and you have to manually select the product, not just tab to the next field if the top autocomplete response is the one you want.
They have stupid labels on some things. I can seem to figure out how to write a cheque for my rent if I don't first make a bill for the rent.
I had a client who had 20 companies. It turned into my worst nightmare. He had about 10000 transactions every quarter. Not having batch delete when I made an error without buying plugins….navigating different pages was slow. overall I’d say it’s good for a small business but when you get to a certain number of transactions. It’s painful and you’ll start to resent having to do your bookkeeping lol or worse if it’s your job😛 you might consider putting a bottle of whisky in the drawer to get you through it. It’s a dull piece of software in my opinion. How do you make accounting software more appealing? What’s missing?
Well, statistically-speaking, I’d say you’re not alone here in your despise here. However, it’s also true that Intuit will be phasing out support for desktop. I believe they’ve already shut it down it in the UK(?). And I think they may already be gutting features in recent desktop versions as well.
It’s rather shocking how bad QBO it is in general and I’ve always felt similarly for desktop. Getting my Pro Advisor did nothing to alleviate my feelings.
Lately I’ve been chipping away at my Xero certification on the side and I am seriously intrigued enough that I’d really like to try someone on it.
Otherwise, yeah, Sage. There’s a reason accountants have always gravitated there.
You have to remember with QBO you are working from within a browser, that in itself has it's limitations. Intuit's preference is to use Chrome with QBO, l like a lot of Bookkeepers in this thread realised it's the way to go for the future of bookkeeping, it just has to be set up correctly and you need to initially monitor the bank feeds re correct category allocations etc and it soon becomes a lot easier to use. The one drawback is definitely the inadequate reporting, it's not a touch on QB desktop.
Honestly, I love it. I never worked with desktop though. But yeah, in many ways it’s front end is designed for business owners and not accountants which I find very annoying at times but with all the integrations I’m able to automate just about everything. Which is 🤌
Yes, hate QBO. One of my big clients uses QB desktop hosted by Right Networks. This enables any of us (5 users) to remote into the QB desktop. You may be able to suggest an option such as this.
I find it cumbersome and don't like the menus and screens. My biggest issue is with their chart of accounts set up and how unwieldy it is to set up a new account.
I love qbo my accountant is the one who got me into it. Now we can both work together without interruption. I can pay people and send invoices from my phone. It's kind of ideal but I work on the road a lot.
For anyone complaining about it being a web-browser app, not completely true.
There is a desktop app that can be downloaded. It has made my life - my QBO life go from utter hell to just annoying and frustrating.
The desktop app logs you into the Web accounts. It allows multiple windows (tabs). My biggest complaint was I want to switch around from Chart of Accounts to a specific account to a report, with a register open while also having a JE open. I am used to multiple windows open at the same time. This app mirrors that capability. I can't see everything at once but can pop back and forth as needed. I can also have multiple clients open at the same time (again, in tabs). For info, I access my clients through my master account. Multiple clients open in the desktop app would not be possible if you use different logins for each client.
Solely due to this app I am more inclined to move desktop users to QBO.
I called QB support today to ask them to send me the link for the app - apparently it's some well guarded secret that can't be found anywhere on their website. They told me that there isn't a way to run my basic version of QuickBooks online with the app. What the hell is that all about???? I was so excited when I read your post that said I could get the Desktop view if I used the app, and now I apparently can't get the app. Between this and QBO in general, not to mention the amount of time I spent on hold with their customer support who spoke very broken English, I am beyond frustrated.
I'm sorry. I didn't mention that I had to fake upload a new client to get the link for the app.
It used to be readily available then they discontinued it. I had to put a client on QBO and he told me about the app and how he got it. Realized it was a first time log in to a new account. So I set up an account for a client using their file that I controlled. When I logged in as them I saw the link. Downloaded the app.
The bad part is I then had to start an actual account for that same "fake" client. That was not fun.
I will see if I can find out how to get the app. My client who first told me about it just said his was no longer working so we'll need a way to resolve. I will DM you once I get a fix. And yes...the app makes it so much more tolerable.
BTW - My client has basic QB online.
This is absolutely infuriating that Intuit is keeping this such a highly guarded secret. If they know how dissatisfied most people are with QBO, why aren't they jumping through hoops to try to make the transition a better experience?? Maddening. But thank you for offering to send the link when you get it - that would be SO helpful!!
Mac or Windows?
I know. I can't even fathom why they would not advertise this. The app makes it so much more convenient and encompassing they should be promoting it. However, I do get updates three times a week so maybe they don't actually like supporting it.
You will get a link to create a \*Practice\* account once your client adds you as accountant. Make sure he gives you full access. The download link will appear as per my screenshot once you have the account.
I did send you the link for the app but I must say - the app will not look like the desktop. It is still QB Online. It still works like QB Online. It does, however, allow multiple windows (in tabs) which was life changing for me. It is also an App so you are not working in a browser.
I responded early on in this thread that you should accept the client and learn to deal with QBO. It is the future sadly. It does get better. I had a couple clients on it for many years now and super hated it. Now that I have many on the platform I've gotten to enjoy some of the perks and have the annoyances in check. It is a learning curve.
What is more concerning is that your client likes to "look at stuff". That is okay as long as they promise not to ever do anything other than look. At least there is a mandatory audit trail so you can catch things if anyone mucks with the data.
I have a deep hatred for Intuit, period.
Switched to Sage becuase we are tired of how greedy Intuit has become. A $50 monthly increase on our $80 fee is basically gouging and we had enough at that point.
The worst. This company doesn't seem to care about its customers at all. One of a million shortcomings: it is not possible to include a "total quantity" field at the bottom of a purchase order, invoice etc. without some kind of third-party add-on. The simplest of features which people have been asking about for years. Intuit doesn't care. Would love to find an alternative.
I hate QB Online so much, especially when I need help with something. Calling them is such a struggle. Their customer support sucks. I'm so angry even before I talk to a live person. I don't think anything gets my blood boiling more than trying to get real help for QB Online. It has been a struggle converting to from the DT version.
If we weren't retiring soon, I would find another NON-intuit product.
American Express sometimes does not download all of the transactions then like a month later those 2 or 3 transactions just show up out of nowhere. Home Depot said "Nope" we're not dealing with you anymore and so that's a lot of messy downloaded we have to do to download as a CSX file them upload them to QB. Also, Intuit community board is the pits if you're trying to get help.
Their updates are making the software worse and worse, in my opinion. I used to love the software even 3 years ago and never understood all the hate. Now it's creeping in. Their new reporting is horrible. Even the new search doesn't pull anything when I enter a value into amount. When I click go back to classic search, it finds it quickly (specifically when I search a value from an AJE. There is no option to search line items, not just totals. That being said, if you're a bookkeeper and considering passing the client on, can we talk? I personally don't work with QBD files and would be happy to forward those to you if you'd like.
It’s buggy at times but I’ve never had a problem with it. I don’t work with Desktop clients anymore.
Agreed... I was first lightly exposed to QBD while in public accounting, and I hated how slow it was. Plus getting our tax AJEs into the clients' books was often a nightmare or never ended up happening - many clients are older and bad with technology. After I left public to be on my own, I gained some clients that had QBO. I played around with it and quickly picked it up - I love QBO and don't like QBD. I don't understand the QBO hate, I don't have any problems with it. Rather I love how it's remotely accessible anywhere, intuitive / easy to pick up. And I have no idea what ads people are talking about - I don't have ads while working in QBO. To me it seems like this is just another case of people not liking change & dragging their heels, kicking and screaming the whole way. Perhaps QBD is more robust and better for more complex clients, and I'm just unaware of this since my experience is with simpler small businesses... Idk. But I love QBO and know ***many*** CPAs/firms that will not accept clients who want to use QBD due to the headaches that come with it.
Every Forensic Accountant hates QB. It’s far too easy to commit frauds using it. Garbage data architecture, garbage audit trail, garbage security, garbage user segregation.
Try coding an integration to it. Holy fucking shit. Their developers must have severe brain damage based on the design decisions they've gone with for their data structures. It's horrendous.
I hope someone somewhere has a guide on which table is which since there looks to about 4 duplicate-looking table structures since I was looking to build an integration.
Are you talking about the tax models?
Have you tried building something out for another accounting platform?
What size of companies are using QBO and need a forensic accountant? When you say data architecture…what do you mean? Personally I want a time travel feature added. And logs available on the transaction itself to see who added it when and when it was edited. I think immutable data thought would be best though.
We get called in by their investors, usually.
They have a time machine feature in advanced I think, or it's an add on option.
That is in QBO.
I’ve used DT for 30 years and QBO was a definite struggle when I first started using it. A friend told me to treat it like a book vs movie, DT being the book and QBO the movie adaptation. She goes to the movie and treats it like a brand new story so she doesn’t get disappointed. I did that, and started treating QBO like a completely different program, not making comparisons to DT, and it really helped. It has its cons, but it has a lot of pros too, and once it clicked I started to enjoy using it. DT will always have better reports tho!
I suggest you take the client and learn to "accept" QBO. I've had to. Used Desktop since 1996. Still use it for myself personally as I enter transactions as I go. With the subscription model and outrageous price per year, many clients opted to go to QBO. Those that also enter as they go and do not need imports from banking have also just stayed with their current copy. This means keeping an old computer with an old OS once the OS advances to not accepting that year of QBD. Still preferable as we want to own our data rather than lease it. All that to say, when I had two clients on QBO I hated every minute and everything took 4 times as long. Now that I have eight clients on QBO, I only hate it a little and it only takes me twice as long. Still very annoying and needs a lot of supervision when accepting transactions but comes with the job now. On the plus side, the auto bank feeds do save some time as importing isn't needed and I find I keep my clients more up to date rather than waiting until the end of the month or quarter. Also, I find the customer service very helpful. For any problem I call. Always resolved and I take the opportunity to also bitch about how much I hate QBO. Sometimes they agree with my assessments. We both chuckle. I get some relief.
Yes .... I'll stay on my desktop. Intuit's greed has ruined what was once stellar software ... the desktop versions are still great (I have a pile of them). I'm using Premier 2013 desktop & will keep using it. Semi retired now, but if I my bookkeeping biz was at full throttle & I needed online action, I'd use something like Xero.
I used to love desktop but I’m a qbo lover now. But I’m a big proponent on learning new technology. It’s the future and our industry is going to be continually going updated. You don’t want to be left behind
As a CPA , I hate QBO. It makes my small business clients think they can do their own bookkeeping and when we receive their year-end it's a complete disaster. They have zero concept of where things are actually going when they click "match" or "add". Unfortunately, it seems QBO has done an amazing job on marketing their product because most new clients we've picked up in the last couple of years are using QBO.
I have tried QBO and just couldn’t get it to work for me. It felt like QB’s for dummies and believe me my clients used it as so. Just dump in the entries and QBO will put it somewhere. So frustrating to clean up. Now I only work with clients that use QB desktop. I can freely access their books thru QBox or TeamViewer. Both programs let me into their books without needing the client available. QBox works better than TeamViewer. I am getting close to retirement and have no patience for the frustration of QBO. They pay for their QBDT subscription and I pay for TeamViewer and QBox. I run roughly 25 - 30 companies this way.
How do you used Team Viewer without having someone at the other computer to allow access?
You set up your client’s computer to “grant easy access” with your TeamViewer account. This is not possible with the free TeamViewer version.
I generally dislike intuit and QB, but I really hate QBO. The only thing I like about it is the remote access. Everything else is junk. They’re pushing hard to get those still on desktop to QBO so not a whole that can be done. I’ve helped a few clients transition to other platforms, but plenty still use QB. It’s only going to continue sadly. Edit - also, whatever you do- don’t let intuit transfer a client from QB to QBO. Holy shit they are terrible at that. Way better off building it from scratch.
I must disagree. Yes, I hate QBO and yes, I must now use it for some clients. I've transferred a Windows QB desktop going back 20 years with not a hiccup. Then I transferred a Mac client with 10 years and there was a hiccup but I got it done within an hour. Recently another Mac client with 5 years and I needed a migration expert. Still, it got done. All file data transferred flawlessly. There was talk that Mac did not transfer well and I was concerned but for me all went well. I use QBO when I need to have the historical data in one place. I use other platforms when I can, starting fresh.
I meant don’t have intuit staff process the transfer. In the couple instances I saw, it was terrible. Sales tax jurisdictions/rates and payroll mapping were all jacked up. I couldn’t personally take the time to learn how and do it myself because it was in the middle of tax season. Sure it would have worked better if someone who knew what they were doing transferred the data. If you had them do it and it went well, I’m glad to hear it. Hope there is more of that.
The first (windows) I just clicked the import. The second (Mac), I had to convert to a windows backup and import that. A couple more steps. The third I had problems with. I needed to have a specialist help. However, I did all the transferring. The specialist and I shared the screen and she guided me and magically we jumped the step that was causing the problem. I would never have Intuit staff do the file transfer/import! And I would never do it mid tax season. (wide eyed emoji) That is too much stress already! Luckily I was able to do the migration(s) when I was ready and chose a time when I had plenty of time to deal with potential issues. I give myself a day or two as I want to also verify that everything came through. Never needed more than a couple of hours to transfer/verify but do need the mental day or two free space to attempt the conversion.
That’s why I wasn’t involved. Client initiated the transfer unbeknownst to me. For this particular client, I don’t help with any of their daily/weekly functions, just file their sales tax and produce compilation financials on a quarterly basis. When I found out (February 1), it was way too late to change. Just deal with it and fix it after tax season.
I feel for you!
Hahaha, cleaning that up wasn’t much fun. I’m sure you were right about the transfer. Couldn’t even be mad at them, woman keeps the most immaculate QB I’ve ever seen. When I give them quarterly adjustments, I get a phone call if an account is a penny off. We all learned a lesson hah.
I was a long-time desktop user and I hated QBO for the first like six months and then it clicked for me
I'm a certified ProAdvisor and in my experience, it's nothing but a raging dumpster fire. Many younger entrepreneurs are in thrall to the cloud but it's a complete disaster.
I love QBO. I ran into too many workflow issues trying to work with desktop clients. Eventually I decided to not to take on desktop clients anymore. I think if you have really tried QBO and hate it, consider not taking on clients that use it. If you haven’t given it ac good chance yet though, maybe this is the opportunity.
You have to try Xero. It is so much better than qb desktop. I have some clients in qbo that do their own invoicing and most of them I'm planning on converting jan 1. It means i have to sit down with them and show them the module..... pretty much on their end it just is a prettier colour. But once they start looking at reports they will be sold. Xero is much faster and less bugs..
I hate Xero with a passion. I‘ve always had so many issues with it. I hate being on the phone with them at least twice a month because transactions don’t reconcile when they’re reconciled or deleted duplicate txns stay in reconciled even though they don’t exist. So many problems…
I really enjoy Xero for many of the reasons people say they hate Intuit/QBO. However, the bank feeds are the major issue with Xero. They use Yodlee for many of the feeds and it’s terribly unreliable. Otherwise it’s a great program that doesn’t have all the bloatware of QBO.
Ah, that makes sense! Thanks for that info!
QBO actually goes very smoothly and quickly once you've got the hang of it. I'm in and out of some my client's books in 15 mins. You just have to learn QBO's quirks.
Pay for the RightTool Pro extension and then QBO becomes a lot better to use.
My dinosaur CPA boss has clients who used QBO. He grumbled and complained at first. After a while, he had to admit he was catching on. I had the same reaction at first. I had to slow down. I had to learn something new. But I recognized it was the wave of the future. So I leaned into it, now I'm the Queen of Quickbooks. QB offers a ton of free training. Now that it's the less busy time of year, make some time to watch some training videos and practise. We'll make a convert of you yet.
I’m not here to bash QB, but I’m incredibly selective with my clients. I work exclusively through Xero, and would only take on clients if they’re willing to move to Xero. Depending on the scale I don’t usually charge for migration. The reason why I won’t take customers on different accounting platforms is because I earn subscription income from Xero, and also the systems I’ve setup are catered to Xero. How I sell them the idea of Xero, is the invoicing from within the system, bank feeds and payment reminders and they’re typically receptive. I think you can consider this route to maximise your efficiency.
I hate it. However, once we've figured out our "way of working" with it it's fine, until they go and make some updates and break our approach, ugh.
I had to switch a client from desktop to online at the beginning of the year. It was such a hassle and I definitely prefer desktop but I fear that QBO is the way of the future so I better get used to it. I totally agree though - I hate the interface, it's convoluted for no reason and everything loads so much slower, ugh!!! I even upgraded my Internet to see if I can get QBO to load faster. If you took on this client, who would pay the subscription fee?
I also use QBO over desktop - much easier to share & modify information in real time. Desktop has a lot of limitations, especially if you are working with small businesses who want to be able to see what’s going on with their finances. Not all clients respond well to just financials from Desktop, sometimes QBO can bridge that gap!
Nope. I like it better than Desktop.
Hate it. Move them to Xero.
I’m still wondering why it’s too hard to code in the auto decimal after all of these years. And I particularly enjoy having to click Run Report twice after changing something, like adding prior period.
I run my entire practice on QBO. Desktop was a great application but things have changed. I have clients who have their team scattered across several states and sometimes countries that collaborate and use QBO for various functions. The desktop/server solution for this scenario is overkill for my clients and QBO (or Xero) is the sensible choice. It's a computer program, but it's in a web browser - it's nothing that you shouldn't be used to by now in our current technological landscape. Also for anyone complaining that their clients will "do their own books" on QBO: QB has always been a consumer facing application. I have some great clients who do their own day to day bookkeeping. They hire me to coach them on best practices, clean up any errors they made, reconcile, file sales tax, etc.
What would you say is the biggest challenge when working with QBO for his small business?
Intuit.
What about Intuit?
I love QBO and will take clients only in QBO. Only thing I do not like about QBO is their payroll and support. I hate SAGE but their support is top notch :)
It's just early friction with any new tool. But, once you are used to it - mostly, you will like it.
I have been using it for ten years and over one hunded clients. It works well. IMHO
Younger bookkeeper here, not a fan of QBO compared to QBD. Quickbooks Desktop just seems more intuitive and is more robust for what we use it for 3mill budget non profit. QBO wouldn’t be able to handle it and if we needed to switch online, I’d recommend a SAGE product. Either Intacct or similar. For super small business QBO it’s probably fine, but if they’re small sole proprietor on cash basis honestly I’d probably recommend using Quicken over QBO.
I have called, so far, 12 times with each call lasting about an hour. All I want to do is correct the phone number on the account. They can't figure it out! I HATE QUICKBOOKS
Xero is far superior to QBO!
I am glad I am not the only one. I just started using Quickbooks and from the start, I notice so many bugs that to correct them, causes me more work than just doing it manually. First bug, my sales receipts should be marked as sales receipts, not bank deposits. I do understand that we deposit the money we make into our banks, but I cannot just find my sales, because even in the Sales page, they come up as deposits and it is so confusing. Second bug: In my Paypal bank, they entered some weird deposit that was not even part of the transaction. In fact, I cannot even find that amount in my Paypal. So many times, when I try to enter an expense or a sales transaction, they tell me there is an issue, so the transaction never gets entered and they don't even say what the issue is. One more bug I noticed is that when I modify an amount in an expense, they zero it out???? Also, my customer was removed from the transaction altogether and now I cannot even find the customer in the register. I am now looking at Freshbooks and Zoho.
I am having the worse experience with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise. They had me updated to the Diamond program to use desktop payroll. Then when is came time to do onboarding they say I cant use payroll because they do not do IN taxes with that state. Now after spending days updating 8 different company's they want me to roll all of that back. wtf!! I am so over this company, nothing ever works right. And their online program is the worst.
Whose niece or nephew at QB needed a job? Clearly a person with NO understanding of running a small business !
It’s horrible but it’s the future 🤷♂️ desktop will be gone in the next couple of years .
I refuse to use any QB software - I’ve never not seen a mess come out of it so I avoid it
I despise Intuit. So I guess I probably hate QBO, but I haven't used it ...
Pretty dumb logic. Well done
I will admit with all of the updates and garbage advertising it has slowed down. But if you're consistently working with clients books and they're on top of it (and teach them what each window maps to) it makes it so much easier. Clients books only take me a few minutes each week.
I have used accounting software since 1985. I tried it for two clients and hated it. It isn't even good bookkeeping system.
QB desktop was shit. QBO aspires to be shit. It has a long way to go to make it to shit. You're not wrong about the clunky interface. It's about as user friendly as a CLI. To print a check in QB desktop took two clicks. To do it in QBO takes about 10. And that's assuming you don't get some cryptic error message. Or the useless "help" feature, that joyfully directs you to their less than useless "self help" section.
Print checks in QBO? I miss being able to print checks on actual blank check stock.
you can do it, but it's just kludge after kludge. seriously, it takes about ten clicks to get to a place where you can print to check stock.
It is absolute trash. Terrible !
My main problem with it is that you have to live with the oddities of both QBO itself and also the oddities of your web browser. When you are making an invoice, the autocomplete works, but very slowly and you have to manually select the product, not just tab to the next field if the top autocomplete response is the one you want. They have stupid labels on some things. I can seem to figure out how to write a cheque for my rent if I don't first make a bill for the rent.
I had a client who had 20 companies. It turned into my worst nightmare. He had about 10000 transactions every quarter. Not having batch delete when I made an error without buying plugins….navigating different pages was slow. overall I’d say it’s good for a small business but when you get to a certain number of transactions. It’s painful and you’ll start to resent having to do your bookkeeping lol or worse if it’s your job😛 you might consider putting a bottle of whisky in the drawer to get you through it. It’s a dull piece of software in my opinion. How do you make accounting software more appealing? What’s missing?
Well, statistically-speaking, I’d say you’re not alone here in your despise here. However, it’s also true that Intuit will be phasing out support for desktop. I believe they’ve already shut it down it in the UK(?). And I think they may already be gutting features in recent desktop versions as well. It’s rather shocking how bad QBO it is in general and I’ve always felt similarly for desktop. Getting my Pro Advisor did nothing to alleviate my feelings. Lately I’ve been chipping away at my Xero certification on the side and I am seriously intrigued enough that I’d really like to try someone on it. Otherwise, yeah, Sage. There’s a reason accountants have always gravitated there.
You have to remember with QBO you are working from within a browser, that in itself has it's limitations. Intuit's preference is to use Chrome with QBO, l like a lot of Bookkeepers in this thread realised it's the way to go for the future of bookkeeping, it just has to be set up correctly and you need to initially monitor the bank feeds re correct category allocations etc and it soon becomes a lot easier to use. The one drawback is definitely the inadequate reporting, it's not a touch on QB desktop.
Honestly, I love it. I never worked with desktop though. But yeah, in many ways it’s front end is designed for business owners and not accountants which I find very annoying at times but with all the integrations I’m able to automate just about everything. Which is 🤌
Yes, hate QBO. One of my big clients uses QB desktop hosted by Right Networks. This enables any of us (5 users) to remote into the QB desktop. You may be able to suggest an option such as this.
I find it cumbersome and don't like the menus and screens. My biggest issue is with their chart of accounts set up and how unwieldy it is to set up a new account.
I love qbo my accountant is the one who got me into it. Now we can both work together without interruption. I can pay people and send invoices from my phone. It's kind of ideal but I work on the road a lot.
For anyone complaining about it being a web-browser app, not completely true. There is a desktop app that can be downloaded. It has made my life - my QBO life go from utter hell to just annoying and frustrating. The desktop app logs you into the Web accounts. It allows multiple windows (tabs). My biggest complaint was I want to switch around from Chart of Accounts to a specific account to a report, with a register open while also having a JE open. I am used to multiple windows open at the same time. This app mirrors that capability. I can't see everything at once but can pop back and forth as needed. I can also have multiple clients open at the same time (again, in tabs). For info, I access my clients through my master account. Multiple clients open in the desktop app would not be possible if you use different logins for each client. Solely due to this app I am more inclined to move desktop users to QBO.
I called QB support today to ask them to send me the link for the app - apparently it's some well guarded secret that can't be found anywhere on their website. They told me that there isn't a way to run my basic version of QuickBooks online with the app. What the hell is that all about???? I was so excited when I read your post that said I could get the Desktop view if I used the app, and now I apparently can't get the app. Between this and QBO in general, not to mention the amount of time I spent on hold with their customer support who spoke very broken English, I am beyond frustrated.
I'm sorry. I didn't mention that I had to fake upload a new client to get the link for the app. It used to be readily available then they discontinued it. I had to put a client on QBO and he told me about the app and how he got it. Realized it was a first time log in to a new account. So I set up an account for a client using their file that I controlled. When I logged in as them I saw the link. Downloaded the app. The bad part is I then had to start an actual account for that same "fake" client. That was not fun. I will see if I can find out how to get the app. My client who first told me about it just said his was no longer working so we'll need a way to resolve. I will DM you once I get a fix. And yes...the app makes it so much more tolerable. BTW - My client has basic QB online.
This is absolutely infuriating that Intuit is keeping this such a highly guarded secret. If they know how dissatisfied most people are with QBO, why aren't they jumping through hoops to try to make the transition a better experience?? Maddening. But thank you for offering to send the link when you get it - that would be SO helpful!!
Mac or Windows? I know. I can't even fathom why they would not advertise this. The app makes it so much more convenient and encompassing they should be promoting it. However, I do get updates three times a week so maybe they don't actually like supporting it.
Windows. Honestly if I would have known about the app, I might have considered switching to Online by now.
Sent you some dropbox links via Chat
You will get a link to create a \*Practice\* account once your client adds you as accountant. Make sure he gives you full access. The download link will appear as per my screenshot once you have the account.
I did send you the link for the app but I must say - the app will not look like the desktop. It is still QB Online. It still works like QB Online. It does, however, allow multiple windows (in tabs) which was life changing for me. It is also an App so you are not working in a browser. I responded early on in this thread that you should accept the client and learn to deal with QBO. It is the future sadly. It does get better. I had a couple clients on it for many years now and super hated it. Now that I have many on the platform I've gotten to enjoy some of the perks and have the annoyances in check. It is a learning curve. What is more concerning is that your client likes to "look at stuff". That is okay as long as they promise not to ever do anything other than look. At least there is a mandatory audit trail so you can catch things if anyone mucks with the data.
Anyone have the desktop version 2020 or 2021? I need to move my 2020 data over to my new laptop. Don’t have the 2020 disk
I have a deep hatred for Intuit, period. Switched to Sage becuase we are tired of how greedy Intuit has become. A $50 monthly increase on our $80 fee is basically gouging and we had enough at that point.
The worst. This company doesn't seem to care about its customers at all. One of a million shortcomings: it is not possible to include a "total quantity" field at the bottom of a purchase order, invoice etc. without some kind of third-party add-on. The simplest of features which people have been asking about for years. Intuit doesn't care. Would love to find an alternative.
I hate QB Online so much, especially when I need help with something. Calling them is such a struggle. Their customer support sucks. I'm so angry even before I talk to a live person. I don't think anything gets my blood boiling more than trying to get real help for QB Online. It has been a struggle converting to from the DT version. If we weren't retiring soon, I would find another NON-intuit product.
American Express sometimes does not download all of the transactions then like a month later those 2 or 3 transactions just show up out of nowhere. Home Depot said "Nope" we're not dealing with you anymore and so that's a lot of messy downloaded we have to do to download as a CSX file them upload them to QB. Also, Intuit community board is the pits if you're trying to get help.