QuickBooks Billing Solutions Isn't Currently Available Through the Web Browser You're Using. SERIOUSLY?!
For the past couple of months, I have been getting this error when trying to check account activity with Billing Solutions, which opens up in a browser within QuickBooks:
QuickBooks Billing Solutions isn't currently available through the web browser you're using. In time, we hope to support all browsers to avoid this inconvenience.
For now, we hope you'll take the time to download a browser that does allow you to use QuickBooks Billing Solutions. We think you'll find that your time was well spent. You can download Microsoft Internet Explorer at
.
Thank you and sorry for the inconvenience.
I'm using QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 13.0 release R8 and Internet Explorer 10 (latest version). After submitting bug reports several times when this started, I finally decided to give them a call today. It turns out that they are finally aware of the problem, although there is NO KB listed neither in the above error message or on any of Intuit's web sites.
Apparently, the cause of the problem is that the latest release of QuickBooks (R8) is not compatible with IE 10. Unfortunately, the only current solution is to not only remove IE 10 and install IE 8 instead, but you also have to downgrade QuickBooks to the R6 release. That means a lot of uninstalling and reinstalling. NO THANK YOU! I will just wait until they have a fix in an upcoming release (hopefully, there will even be one!).
I just feel sorry for those users of Billing Solutions that are actually paying for it, unless they are getting it for free during this time. Otherwise, it would be very unfair to be required to downgrade just because Intuit made the problem in the first place.
Cloud Review: QuickBooks for Desktop vs. QuickBooks Online vs. Xero vs. Method CRM
Everyone keeps talking about the cloud these days, and for the most part, most of my data is in the cloud. I have been hearing a lot about QuickBooks Online (QBO) and Xero, so I thought I would test them out to see how they compare to QuickBooks for Windows (desktop version, which I'll abbreviate as QBs), which I have been using for almost a decade now. I have used QBO and Xero for several months and there are some similarities and some differences. I was going to put together an extensive spreadsheet to compare the features of both, but this has already been done. What is really interesting to me is their comparison to what I have been using for years, QBs; however, that is like comparing apples to oranges. And going through the hundreds of differences really isn't going to tell you which one
is the best,
so I'll just give my
opinion.
It was very easy to setup QBO by exporting from QBs and importing into QBO. Intuit is probably probably wanting to get rid of QBs in favor of QBO, so I suspect they are going to try to make this process as simple as possible to get people to convert. Overall, QBO has come a long way in improving; however, it still doesn't have all the features of QBs (not that it ever will). I won't go into detail, as I really like this product, but would I give up my QBs to change to it? Probably not, at least not yet. There are only a few programs that I must have on my computer and those are Outlook, QuickBooks, and Quicken. I've looked at Outlook.com and even Office 2013, but I hate their interfaces. There is so much that Outlook 2010 can do that I will hold onto it until something
better
comes along. And the same goes true for Quicken and QBs. They can do so much and their mobile "apps" are so limited, that I can't part with them.
Xero is very cool, with a very simple way of doing things. For a business that really only needs to code transactions, Xero works very well. They are from New Zealand so a lot of the verbiage is in the Queen's English. This doesn't bother me, but I could see how this would prevent someone from using it. But the data is stored in US data centers, so no worries there. I had a harder time with the trickier transactions that I am used to doing in QBs and there are some simple features that are still missing, such as being able to calculate (as in a calculator) within a data field. While not huge, this is a feature that I use
all the time
in Quicken and QBs. But of course, this shouldn't be a reason for anyone else not to use it.
And then there is Method CRM. I have been telling my clients about it for years and have nicknamed it, "QuickBooks on steroids." It brings your existing data from QuickBooks (and QBO) into the cloud. And the best thing is that you can fully
customize
how the program works! This includes custom screens with only the buttons, functionality, and accessibility that only you want your users to see. Even better, you can add other types of data that may have nothing to do with accounting but are more related to how you run your business. Of course, for someone techie like me, this is a plus, but may be more challenging for others. But the costs of hiring someone like me for the customization is so much cheaper than customizing and training on a full-fledged mid-market solution such as Oracle or SAP. And Method CRM is the most cost-effective way to do accounting in the cloud
and
act like a mid to high-end market business. So if I am traveling with my Chromebook (all web-based), I may not have my Outlook and QuickBooks (unless I remote into my office computer), but I can still check my e-mail via webmail and still enter QuickBooks data via Method CRM. I am fully aware that eventually in the future there will be no more desktop computers and programs to manage, but until then, I will hang on to my desktop.
Best Free Proactive Live Chat for Websites
While it's seems like web sites are pretty static, it is really cool when you visit a site and someone starts chatting with you. It can be a little startling at first, but I kind of like the idea of someone actively wanting to engage with me. And it just happened that at one point, I actually did have a quick question which was answered promptly without me having to search for it.
With that being said, I was on a quest to find a live chat program that I could easily put on my own web site. I tried several of them, first, one that I had experienced above. It was pretty good, but I couldn't justify paying $40/mo. for the infrequent visitors to my site. I then tried the one that came with my web hosting company, but that one was very technical and looked dated. Finally, I tried a few others but was still disappointed with the technical issues and lack of features for their free accounts.
After many Google searches, I was lucky to come across
this comparison of live chat software
. I was particularly interested in a free plan, as I was going to be the only agent with a small number of chats per month. I also really wanted to see important information about who was visiting my web site, such as from what url they come from, what pages they were viewing on my own site, and especially, their IP address and location.
The winner:
This one really takes the cake and was a breeze to set up on my web site. As a bonus, I was able to use a free IM client, in this case, I am using
, AND it works on my Android phone using
. All were very easy to set up. If I get busy enough, I love it so much that I will probably just start with their Bronze paid plan, which is pretty affordable anyway. I am willing to provide feedback on the ones I've already tried, so feel free to leave a comment.