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Quickbooks online

KaelaHKaelaH Well-KnownFMAAT, AAT Licensed Accountant Posts: 131
in General accounting discussion
Does anybody here use Quickbooks online?
I currently use VT and absolutely love it but I am getting increasing enquiries about using a cloud based software so that clients can use it and I can access it whenever I need to without them losing the use of it. I've received an email advertising the above software and, on the surface, it looks good altho I need to look more into costs etc. Just wondered if anyone has experience of this and your views

Thanks

Comments

  • burgburg Experienced Mentor GloucesterModerator, FMAAT, AAT Licensed Accountant Posts: 1,441
    I use a few although Quickbooks is not one of them. Freeagent and Xero are probably the best but they come with a cost. Accounts portal is very cheap but also fairly basic. A good mid point is Clearbooks and then give good discounts to accountants to choose what to do with i.e. pass onto clients or make money. I've also used Wave (free but no bank rec facililty), Kashflow and Netsuite. We currently offer Xero as our preferred but Clearbooks is far more popular due to pricing and the features available at that price.
    Regards,

    Burg
  • AntoinnetteAntoinnette Well-Known Registered Posts: 118
    After attending several of QBO's flashy accountant meetings I got seduced and started moving my clients to it. After moving nine of them I am doing a quick backtrack......VAT is a nightmare if anything goes wrong especially if you migrate from QB desktop. Clients find it really hard to use as well and unfortunately for me eight out of the nine clients have MACs and surprise surprise QBO doesn't work on the older operating systems. I am paying for it and they don't even enter the data....that's how bad it is. You cant link bank accounts if they are business ones and if you have to upload them from a csv file you need another software to convert it to ofx etc. And if you are desperate for help all you have is a button inside the software that should link to a chat with a support, I have waited four hours on one occassion and not gone through. No one I know has been able to get through to them using that button. When I emailed the sales team who are the only contact I have for the details of support, they asked me to watch youtube videos for answers to any questions I had. In short my experience with QBO has been horrific. I have actually moved some of the clients back to excel templates that do bank rec as well and Freeagent. There is areason why QBO is on offer for £5.99 a month at the moment and its not because they absolutely love accountants. Compared to other cloud software its not user friendly.
  • KaelaHKaelaH Well-Known FMAAT, AAT Licensed Accountant Posts: 131
    Thanks for the feedback. Back to the drawing board on that one then I think!! Hmmm......I wonder if VT would be so kind as to launch an online product ;o)
    I will take a look at the Freeagent and Xero then, thanks again.
    Why do things like this have to be so complicated?? I love VT and a number of my clients do too, it does amaze me how different a lot of these softwares are
  • SuejwSuejw Feels At Home Registered Posts: 39
    As a Sage fan can I suggest their cloud software option
  • anniemanniem Experienced Mentor Pewsey, WiltshireRegistered Posts: 1,326
    Hi KaelaH, I use VT Transaction and have shared folders on Dropbox. My clients download VT Cashbook (free). I set up and upload a VCB (Cashbook) file onto Dropbox and send them a shared link and we can both work on the live file. I do download a back up periodically for peace of mind. Works a treat! If you already have everything on VT then give it a try, you can probably copy your transaction files into cashbook files, as I seem to think that you can't open transaction (VTR) files in cashbook, although you can read cashbook files in transaction. Give it a go. Anna
    FMAAT - AAT Licensed Member in Practice - Pewsey, Wiltshire
  • anniemanniem Experienced Mentor Pewsey, WiltshireRegistered Posts: 1,326
    I don't like quickbooks or sage! Just my opinion having worked both systems. Wouldn't do either online with a bargepole!!!!!!
    FMAAT - AAT Licensed Member in Practice - Pewsey, Wiltshire
  • JodieRJodieR Experienced Mentor Registered Posts: 1,002
    I love the desktop version of Quickbooks. I have had dealings with the previous version of Quickbooks online and it was an absolute disaster. Yesterday I did a full day's work for a client who has transferred all his data from quickbooks desktop to the new online system. I would say that it is a huge improvement on the previous online version, but still not nearly as good as the desktop version. There were several glitches such as the unpaid bills report just showing a blank screen, the suppliers list stopped at R (although all the suppliers had been imported correctly and I could enter transactions for all suppliers), I don't like how there's no keyboard shortcut to 'save and new', and there's no search function from the bills/payments screen. So it feels clunky and gets frustrating, but hopefully these issues will be resolved soon. I used the 'live chat' function to resolve the report issues and that worked well - I got staight through to someone and he accessed my PC remotely which was helpful (he didn't understand why the report didn't work but customised a different report to show the same information).
    Basically I think that this will work alright for a smaller simple business but I'm not going to be recommending it for larger clients.
    If you want to try it out just sign up for the accountant's package and you get access to the software for free to see what it's about.
    Jodie
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