What’s wrong with QuickBooks?
We’ve been using the UK version of QuickBooks since 2005 – and it has served us well since then. However as our business has moved on, QuickBooks hasn’t kept up and there’s currently nothing available from Intuit which helps much. Hence QuickBooks – No More!
QuickBooks limitations
- Lack of support
- No management of client information
- No API
- Tied to Windows operating system
- Not ideal for multiple users
- Not easy to update/upgrade
- Limited import/export
Lack of QuickBooks support
Now, this might just be a UK version thing, but the UK version of QuickBooks doesn’t seem to ever have been a fully supported version. Compound that problem by the fact that we have the 2005 version and our chances of finding meaningful support are looking bleak.
No management of clients in QuickBooks
We must have been one of only a handful of people to buy the stunningly awful Customer Manager add-on to QuickBooks. We were hoping for something resembling ACT! – a way of managing the sales process with each of our clients – but ended up with something which integrated OK with QuickBooks but not with anything else. There is no integrated CRM for QuickBooks, and no easy way of integrating external systems with it either.
No QuickBooks API
A more proprietary and closed system you would be hard pushed to find. Not only is there no published way of exchanging data with QuickBooks, its database format is deliberately obscure and fragile. If you’ve ever tried to integrate applications by directly accessing the QuickBooks QIF file, you know how non-trivial and frustrating this is.
QuickBooks is tied to a Windows desktop
Even though the Internet had been around a while when we purchased our 2005 version of QuickBooks, the application is blissfully unaware of it – except for using email every now and then. This is an offline, single user, desktop programme. If you have multiple users or some of them are in different offices, networking QuickBooks will cause as many problems as it will solve.
QuickBooks is not ideal for multiple users
You can buy multiple licences for QuickBooks (we did) and they can (in theory) all be accessing the client database at the same time. You will, however, hear your accounting people shouting at one another “Have you got the record for XYZ client open?” You see QuickBooks isn’t using a ‘real’ database and it struggles with permissions and locked files. Multiple users of QuickBooks is a pain if they’re in the same office – and almost impossible if they’re not.
QuickBooks is not easy to update or upgrade
There is no migration path from our version of QuickBooks to QuickBooks Online. There is no update available for our version of QuickBooks. The only upgrade path within the QuickBooks family is costly – and doesn’t solve many of the other problems already highlighted. That’s why we set about documenting this process of weaning ourselves off of QuickBooks – and in the process ditching WorldPay too
QuickBooks offers limited import & export facilities
The deliberately closed db format makes it very difficult to integrate other applications with QuickBooks – so too does it’s lack of import and export facilities. When we moved to using Highrise as our main CRM – we found that there was no way to extract client notes from the Customer Manager add-on to QuickBooks. We actually had to print the notes to a PDF document and attach them to the new Highrise record for each client – over 5,000 of them.
Luckily a little bit of windows scripting turned this horrendous manual task into a semi-automatic one – but there’s no excuse for such a lack of data export from QuickBooks
Solutions?
The obvious solution to all of these problems would seem to be met by an open, independent online-billing and accounting application. Se we set about figuring out who the players were and what each of them had to offer. While we were doing this, it became clear that now was a good time to rethink our choice of WorldPay to process credit card transactions.
Next step: What’s wrong with WorldPay?
28. January 2009 at 12:16 pm :
Hello,
I’ve just found your site via a link on UK Business Forums.
I’m an accountant who’s used QuickBooks with one or two clients. I tend to find that accountants either love QuickBooks or they loathe it. Me, I fall into the latter category.
Getting meaningful information from QuickBooks was a mare, and as for making certain that the VAT had been reconciled properly… no way Jose!
Here’s a blog post I did about QuickBooks a while back http://tinyurl.com/7ajfwl
M
29. January 2009 at 10:23 pm :
Actually, QuickBooks does have a pretty good API – maybe it doesn’t work with the UK version?
http://developer.intuit.com/
Your other points are definitely valid, however.
31. March 2009 at 5:46 am :
It’s great to have found this site. As an IT journalist I reviewed many accounts packages for Personal Computer World magazine and others. In my companies, we have been users of Intuit accounting products since early versions of Quicken, which was revolutionary in its ability to do basic double-entry accounting in a simple, easy to understand way, whilst being versatile enough to cope with a wide range of small businesses. I never got on so well with QuickBooks. As an accounting package, I preferred TAS Books.
I’m now so eager to move away from QuickBooks once and for all, so we joined you on your quest a (financial) year ago. As a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner we even flirted with the idea of moving to Microsoft Office Accounting 2008/2009 but it’s even more awful, and looks anachronistic next to the online offerings. I note that Intuit now has an online offering in the USA, but no sign of it in Britain. Whenever we need support, such as over the Quickbooks 2008 VAT handling “uncategorised amounts” debacle, it’s almost teeth-pullingly painful dealing with the India-based support people. Now we have very little desire to stick with it for the new financial year except as “better the devil we know”.
23. April 2009 at 11:32 pm :
Why do you need a UK version?
All of your problems would be easily solved by upgrading to Enterprise Edition. Except the one about finding support. Any person who’s been in this business for awhile can support any version, any edition. They aren’t very different. Except Online has a few differences that take a bit of getting used to and it’s my least favorite QB product. Okay, except for the customer manager. I’m still using ACT!. And the ACT! QB Link, which means my working version of QB is one version behind the current edition.
That being said, I think the accounting and paper flow, plus good financial management process, are much more important than the software. That’s why i wrote an accounting book, good for any software.
30. May 2009 at 12:07 pm :
Further frustrations with Quickbooks:-
In Australia, the Tax Office updates tax rates etc, free. But you have to *pay* to have the tax table (for payroll) updated in QB. There is no way for the user to update the table or tax rate.
If you use the Vehicle Mileage, Payroll or Assets modules, the data is ‘locked’ and cannot be migrated to another database.
There is ‘enforced’ obsolescence – support for earlier releases is dropped – obviously to force new purchases.
20. July 2009 at 10:30 am :
I am a (struggling) sole trader and I have been using quickbooks pro since 2003 on the recomemdation of Barclays bank, recently my computer crashed and I had to buy another machine, I installed quickbooks and because it is 2003 they point blank refuse to allow me to register
now I cant generate any invoices or do any accounts come to that, without buying 2005 and 2009 version. I CANT AFFORD IT I didnt know it had a sell by date 
30. July 2009 at 10:00 am :
I just came across this site whilst bizarrely looking for information on TAS Books for a customer. Whilst there are some points that MAY have been valid in your arguments, you are way out of date with your comments and really should update your site to reflect the current situation or take your site down.
Lack of support :
QB have always had support available, free initial support for a while after installation and then paid for support. Also a list of professional advisors who can offer local support if required, we are one of them.
No management of client information:
Yes the Customer Manager was totally crap, but QB is an accounts package, maybe you should have be looking at an ERP package with a price tag to match!
No API:
Clearly you didn’t look very closely at this, the QB SDK has been available for QuickBooks from version 2002 and the UK version from 2004, prior to this data import and export was possible, and still is via IIF files, although this latter method is no longer supported.
Tied to Windows operating system
As are most applications, like most software developers Intuit have gone for the market options that cover most end users. Again it looks like a web based ERP package would be better suited to you, I guess you have deep pockets.
Not ideal for multiple users
Multi user systems need to lock records to prevent multiple people updating a record at the same time. I can’t honestly remember how things were back with the 2005 version but we do not have any issues with this in the 2008 version.
Not easy to update/upgrade
QuickBooks generally publish a new version annually and frequently release updates that are downloaded and installed automatically, on a multi-user system these can be shared so that only one download is necessary. Upgrading is generally very straightforward if you follow the instructions. QuickBooks and QuickBooks Online are separate products, I have no experience of the latter, but I would be very surprised if no migration path was available.
Limited import/export
Excel spreadsheets from reports, IIF files, the API. You can do a hell of a lot if you look at it. I have successfully integrated Microsoft CRM with QuickBooks creating all our customer and invoice data in CRM and dynamically importing it into QuickBooks on the fly using the API.
This web page is so out of date, and was never accurate in the first place, that I would suggest to any reader to ignore any content on this site whatsoever.
19. August 2009 at 3:19 pm :
Ian Foulds is the Managing Director of X.act Systems Ltd, one of Intuit’s ProAdvisor certified outfits in the UK. He alludes to this in his comment.
Anyway, I’d take anything he says about QuickBooks with a pinch of salt. Clearly everyone who hates QB is wrong and he is right, eh?
5. March 2010 at 10:54 am :
PS – Take a look at Diamond Discovery
18. June 2010 at 10:52 am :
Here’s an up to date comment for Ian foulds. Just purchased quick books pro 2010 three days ago 18th june 2010. Did so direct from intuit so i could download it there and then,. Their servers were down and I couldn’t download it. When three days later the software arrived, they duplicated my order, and so took another £300 pounds from my account. Bearing in mind that quickbooks pro is for small business like plumbers etc, having an unexpected extra £300 taken out of their account is crazy. The refund won’t be for another 28 days (.I’m a professional software developer and network architect and so the overpayment isn’t such an issue for me).
However, the licence and product numbers (for either invoice) are not included as stated, so I have to ring up intuit. 40 minutes of being passed back and forth and I’m asked for, guess what ? my license and product number. 5 minutes of further waiting, and my call gets cut off.
The india call centre is pathetic and extremely frustrating. I’ve still not had any emails from intuit, even thought they say they’re going to email me the detaikls there and then. My last call to intuit was to cancel the order.
I’m not a liar Mr Foulds, this information isn’t out of date or inaccurate.
24. July 2010 at 6:08 pm :
I’ve come across this site whilst deciding to upgrade my ancient version of Quickbooks – which I’ve always found ok. But I now find that it doesn’t support online banking from any bank apart from Barclays in the UK! How did this come about?