QuickBooks Desktop is Dying – it keeps getting worse
QuickBooks Desktop is Dying
Quicken started Intuit, but it is gone now. QuickBooks Desktop (QB DT) is dying compared to QuickBooks Online. Local networks and desktop apps, like QuickBooks Desktop (QB DT), have been dying for many years. This includes QuickBooks Pro, Premier, and even Enterprise. Meanwhile, QuickBooks Online grows at 30 to 50% a year, so QuickBooks Desktop is Dying.
Brad Smith, then Intuit CEO, amazed me SEVEN YEARS ago. He said Intuit was putting 75% of development money into online apps. I was then well known for saying I would rather spend an hour at the dentist than use QuickBooks Online (QBO). However, Brad was right to follow the industry trend to online apps. Based on QBO vs QB DT new features, Intuit now probably spends more than 90% of development money for online apps. Both QBO and QB DT also can now have 30 users. Online apps save Intuit money on programming, speed, markups, upgrades, support, and distribution. Income comes in monthly, not every 2 or 5 years. Regular income is great for stock prices.
Brad Smith, Intuit Executive Chair
QuickBooks Online Accountant is FREE
You do not need to be a CPA, EA or bookkeeper to get QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) FREE FOREVER. The QBOA Subscription agreement says it expires in 2034, but I would love to help you extend that FREE (see my Great QuickBooks Contacts posts). Compare this to the rather expensive QB DT. Even Enterprise loses important functions in less than 4 years, so so QuickBooks Desktop is Dying. These lost functions include free Intuit support, online banking, and payroll. QBOA also is far better than the included Free QuickBooks Online Plus. QB Plus is $70 a month, after one free month and $35 a month for a few more months. Please click here to contact me, so we can help you qualify you for it FREE! This is an example of why QuickBooks Desktop is Dying.
QuickBooks Desktop Apps
QuickBooks Desktop also is dying based on the number and quality of often very inexpensive and easily installed add-on apps. The difference is growing very fast. We can get most things clients want from QBO with some extra apps. However, while QuickBooks Online is growing users and revenue much faster than Xero, the latter has more than twice as many add-on apps. Therefore, Intuit must move fast. That means beefing up QBO and dropping QB DT soon. I believe Intuit has long done this by requiring internet access for QB DT. They are now doing it is with the FREE QBO ACCOUNTANT. QBOA already links to QBO and QB DT, so QB DT should increasingly rely on QBOA. This will make QB DT faster, more secure, and more add-on app friendly, until we no longer talk about QB DT. It will simply be QBO Enterprise.
20 years ago I was on my first QuickBooks ProAdvisor Advisory Council. Intuit surveys then showed that those with add-ons upgraded QB DT far more often than those who did not use add-ons. That alone pointed the way. Frequent QBO upgrades are now automatic, fast and almost painless. Xero, Microsoft, Netsuite, and many others also do this, so so QuickBooks Desktop is Dying.
The QuickBooks Online Future
Soon after QuickBooks arrived, there was a very smart keynote speaker at a national accounting conference. He said, “Some of you may be thinking of going to war with QuickBooks. Let me tell you, the war is already over and QuickBooks won.” You may not like everything Intuit does, but they have made many fantastic changes. Small business accounting technology did not exist 60 years ago. Very few business owners or their wives could do any recordkeeping. We did not know any better. Microcomputers made QuickBooks Desktop possible. The internet is now killing it.
The next few years will see MANY more wonderful changes. Getting involved with change-makers like Intuit will make you much happier and more productive., even if QuickBooks Desktop is Dying
