If you’ve stayed with QuickBooks for a long time, you may still be enjoying the desktop version of the software for your business. Ready or not, that will now have to change as the wildly popular accounting software is sunsetting its desktop version in favor of only offering QuickBooks Online, the cloud-based app. At once a good business decision on the part of QuickBooks, it is also better and more useful for most businesses too. Cloud-based software for business is pretty much established as the norm, and any of the Best Credit Card Processing Companies offer integrations with a range of cloud-based tools that make your business stronger. Here’s what the QuickBooks change means, and why there isn’t much to be afraid of.
At base level, if you’re a QuickBooks lover, not much should have to change. It’s still the same software, and migrating your data over should be easy. The main reason all businesses need to migrate their QuickBooks activity over to the web-based version is to ensure that your customer information remains secure. The desktop version will stop updating its security features, leaving data vulnerable. You’ll also not be able to get any necessary support or troubleshooting service from the Intuit QuickBooks team. By extension, you’ll be able to immediately enjoy any and every updated version of the software, right when it becomes available because you’re logging on to the centrally controlled cloud-based platform. In short, it’s far more effort than it’s worth to stay back on the desktop version.
In addition, if you’re new to QuickBooks Online, you’ll be able to see a number of benefits right away. Probably most useful is the ability to log in anywhere, anytime to your business and get the info you need. This is a game-changer for businesses with multiple locations, or with a certain degree of business done on the go. It means you have the power to upload pictures of receipts from anywhere, keeping your processes streamlined. Probably most convincing of all, QuickBooks Online allows for simple integration with Moolah or any of the best credit card processing companies, enabling you to enjoy easier reconciling and eliminating large amounts of manual data entry.
This change is one small drop in the sea change of business software, which has seen a tidal wave of new digital solutions available to businesses, most of them cloud-based. It works better in many ways for businesses. First of all, the upfront cost is less. In the PC era, you might have had to throw down $300 or more for the latest version of a program, and when a new version became available, you had to buy that one to get the benefits. As we already said, going cloud-based ensures that you’re running the most recent version, which means your business is safer, and benefitting from all the most recent features. With cloud-based, your business is open to a range of powerful tools and features that makes your business stronger.