Is this the end of QuickBooks Desktop?
It is at least for pricing.
The deadline for purchasing QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, Mac, and Accountant editions for 2021 is December 10, 2021. These one-time licenses will be supported through May 2024, after which they will become sunsetted.
Starting with QuickBooks Desktop 2022 products, an annual subscription will be required. There is no monthly option to pay, but if canceled before the end of the subscription, a pro-rated refund will be provided.
I have been seeing changes in QuickBooks Desktop that are closely resembling QuickBooks Online. For example, there is now a third version of Bank Feeds called Advanced Mode that was implemented in the Desktop 2021 PC versions that looks very similar and functions like the Banking page in QuickBooks Online. It is almost as if Desktop is becoming a hybrid of Windows programming with embedded web pages. This is probably signaling a true end to desktop sometime in the future.
Important Feature Missing in QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online comes in different versions. The plans currently available are Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced. It is important to choose the right one for your business, and to not miss out on very important features.
While they all track income and expenses and have reports you can run, there are limitations to reporting in the Simple Start and Essentials versions. For accuracy in bookkeeping, I always want to drill down on the total expenses in the Profit & Loss report. Then, I want to be able to Group by Name.
Why is this important? For one, it shows you each vendor and list of transactions for each one so that you can verify that the categorization of checks and expenses is consistent, as applicable. It also shows you transactions at the bottom that don’t have a payee (vendor). All transactions should have a name, even if it a generic one. For example, I like to have a vendor Restaurants so that I can categorize all charges to many different restaurants without cluttering up the vendor list, especially for one-off places that won’t be visited again.
This report grouping makes it so much easier to verify directly from the financial statements instead of going through each vendor to look at the transactions. And this feature is only available in the Plus and Advanced versions, which is why I never set up my clients in the Essentials plan, and never with Simple Start.
Go Get Geek!’s Brett Barry Receives Insightful Accountant’s 2021 Top 100 ProAdvisor Award
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT:
Mollie Macklin, mmacklin@insightfulaccountant.com
Go Get Geek! is pleased to announce that Brett Barry has been named a 2021 Top 100 ProAdvisor by Insightful Accountant, an independent news and information source written specifically for the small business advisor to keep up with current technology, trends in the industry and continuing their education.
This list recognizes the leading consultants who have embraced the ProAdvisor program and have leveraged it in order to better serve their clients and grow their own business. “I want to congratulate each of the ProAdvisors who made this year’s Top 100 list and thank all of the ProAdvisors who participated in the demanding process…” said Insightful Accountant Senior Technical Editor, William “Murph” Murphy.
“This is the eighth year of our ProAdvisor awards,” said Insightful Accountant Publisher and Managing Partner, Gary DeHart. “The ProAdvisors who make this list are the best in the business. Any small business would be well-served working with any one of the winners on this list. Their inclusion is a testament to the level of knowledge they possess and ongoing training they participate in.”
“It is an honor to be recognized by my peers and receive this award again this year. I am dedicated to the success of the clients that choose me to work with their businesses and believe that this award reflects my passion,” said CEO, Brett Bary.
You can view the full 2021 Top 100 ProAdvisors list here.
About Insightful Accountant: Insightful Accountant is an independent news and information source written specifically for the small business advisor who needs to stay current on the latest news and offerings in accounting technology; including updates from Intuit, Xero, Sage and the hundreds of add-on products serving the small business ecosystem. With news and insight specifically written to help the advisor better serve their clients while building their firm, Insightful Accountant is unlike any other news source serving this space, you can subscribe here.