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Updating Quickbooks Forces Online Membership?
garyebickford asks: "I've been using Quickbooks 2001 for a long time, sending out invoices via email.
A couple of months ago it asked if I wanted to do an online update - these occurred occasionally and I agreed. There was no information regarding what the update would do, although IIRC there was some mention of 'new features' and 'improvements'. Since that time, it is now impossible to either fax or email an invoice without signing up for Quickbook's 'Online Business Member' program since it appears to use their own mail server. Membership is free for now, but the required click-agreement forces me to agree in advance to any future fees! I have no interest in letting Intuit know about my invoices and other financial information. As a result, this software is essentially useless and I must find a new accounting package. I've looked at various OSS packages but haven't found one that has developed far enough to use in this way. But there are many out there and I haven't kept up to date, so maybe someone else out there can suggest something. I'd prefer using it on Linux, of course. I'd also be interested if this loss of functionality would be sufficient to consider a class action suit to recover costs of conversion." The issue at hand is that commercial software has started to force consumers to fall into such schemes to maintain features that they already had. Today it is Quickbooks, but what about tomorrow?
Good luck finding the patches. Once they fall to a forced use scenario, it's common practice to only allow previous patches to include the forced use option.
Well, that sounds all well... but Quickbooks itself, also updates all of the Tax Forms, along with all other State / Federal tax filing information.
You have to keep that information updated.
I looked at QuickBooks, MS Money, etc and for complete control, nothing can match using spreadsheets for all the tracking, etc. One master spreadsheet for accounting gets numbers from all the other spreadsheets (sales, expenses, etc). Will I need something stronger a year or two from now? Yeah, and I'll be reading the posts right here for an idea on what I will do then. But for anyone who is a one-h@x0r shop up to a couple of employees, spreadsheets fit the bill just fine. Oh, and of course online banking (Citibank is pretty sweet and reasonable fees for corporate account).
Good luck!
We had the same thing happen a few years ago to us. We were using it at the start of the new year wrapping up previous years finance stuff, a message came up saying that since they didn't want us to get in trouble, they were going to disable the tax tables in 30 days time so we couldn't use them. We would have to purchase new tax table info from Intuit, EVEN IF THE DAMN TAX TABLES HADN'T CHANGED!
No tax tables makes Quickbooks about as useless as tits on a boar hog. Our CPA switched us over to Netledger at Netledger.com
I'm good with numbers -
Tomorrow all commercial software will pull this sort of stunt. To get to full 'pay per use' models.
They will have to, once the unwashed masses become technically educated enough that they realize what is going on with this constant upgrade cycle and stops buying new products since what they have 'works well enough for me'.
The entire market is based on this deceit. and will suddenly implode..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I used Quickbooks a *long* time ago to help out with my father's small business. For myself, I've been using GNUcash for about a year, and I'm fairly pleased. Some of the reporting options could use some work, but it keeps track of all my data, and that's the important part. Quick look at their website indicates a new stable version is on the way, with some things that might help you, although the faxing/emailing features don't seem to be on the radar...
- Small Business Accounting Features:
GnuCash now can be used for Customer and Vendor tracking, Invoicing and Bill Payment,
and using different Tax and Billing Terms in a small business.
- OFX Import:
GnuCash is the first free software application to support the Open Financial Exchange
protocol that many banks and financial services are moving to use. The development of
OFX and HBCI support has also resulted in an improved transaction matching system that
more accurately picks duplicate transactions.
I am switching Quickbooks after I send out W2's this year for very similar reasons. Quickbooks will stop allowing you to do payroll if the TaxTables get too out of date. This normally wouldn't bother me, but they offer absolutely no way (that I know of) to manually enter the tax data, the payroll functionality get killed.
To get the new TaxTables, they have really upped their subscription price to more than I think is reasonable. Also, they periodically force an update to the Quickbooks software to be able to use the new TaxTables format. So, for me to keep using Quickbooks, I would have to pay for a new (higher) TaxTable subscription and also update to a new version, which I can't justify.
I have looked at PeachTree, and it seems very usable. It's Tax Table like subscription is about the same as Intuits (around $150), but they do allow you to manually enter details if you need to.
I hate to see Inuit stoop to this, I really like their product. I used Quickbooks at version 5, and liked it. (I don't need any features now that version 5 didn't have). I just can't justify them doing these kind of things to customers, though.
I haven't had time to fully use this yet, but I am considering purchasing: AppGen MyBooks (www.appgen.com) which has a Windows/OS X/Linux accounting program. Looks nice to me.
I purchased Quicken Deluxe about this time last year. It came with a free downloadable version of QuickTax. I decided to download and install QuickTax around January so I could get a headstart on my taxes. Around this time, I upgraded my computer and had to re-install Windows. I re-installed Quicken Deluxe no problem but when it came time to re-install QuickTax I was notified that I could not do it. A version of the software had already been installed on a different computer! I was told to call their tech support line if this was not the case. So I did. I called their non-toll-free number long distance and was notified that their office was closed and would be until Monday (this was late Friday afternoon). So, I could not do my taxes that weekend. I waited until Monday and phoned their tech support line. I had to answer some questions to verify my identity and was told that if there ever was a next time, I would have to fax them with appropriate documentation verifying my identity! So, 3 days and 2 long-distance charges later I was left with a program that would only last until my next reformat. No thanks. I will never buy another Intuit product because of stories like my own and this one. Moreover, experiences like this helped push me to going 100% Linux/OSS - I've been doing so since late August with much less problems than I expected I would have.
I'd suggest checking out Appgen's MyBooks,
http://www.appgen.com/products/mybooks.html
It works on Windows, Linux, and Mac, will import your Quickbooks data, and you can try it free for 30 days. I've downloaded it, but haven't played with it much. Maybe other Slashdoters can attest to its usefulness.
Regards,
Chris
This message was recently posted to alt.comp.financial.quicken. It appears Turbotax 2002 may be installing and starting a spyware service without any notice. I just checked my machine, where I installed Turbotax last week, and indeed, this service is running:
--
Recently I found a running Service named C-DillaCdaC11BA on my Windows XP Pro system. Being an individual interested with Internet Security (viruses, etc), I naturally became concerned that my system may have become compromised. Starting my investigation revealed the associated file (called "CDAC11BA.EXE") located in the Windows\System32\Drivers directory. In addition, I found a hidden directories under the C drive. This first directory was named C_DILLA" and below it was a directory named "SafeCast Product Licenses". Contained within this directory was a single file called "BD6FD000.DAT".
I traced the dates/times the files and directories were created to the same date/time I had installed this years version of Intuit's TurboTax. This is interesting because last year's version of TurboTax did not install this application and nowhere in this year's installation did it make mention of installing it, a third-party application that attempts to hide itself and runs as an additional service! A search of Google for C-DILLA revealed the following article, entitled "C-Dilla! "Copy Protection or Spyware?". It's located at http://www.tswn.com/modules/news/article.php?item_ id=45
Nowhere on Intuit's website does it offer a description of this service or appropriate removal instructions. Is it really copyright protection or is Intuit utilizing spyware with their latest version of TurboTax?
After losing information crucial to QuickBooks operation (ex-wife) I reinstalled QB99 on a new machine and called Intuit for my serial keys only to find out they don't support calls related to any product over 2 years old. They refused to give me my keys (which they had on file) and essentially forced me to fork out $400 for a new version of QuickBooks. Somwhere along the line they also threathened to take me to court after I demanded they give me what I legally own. Needless to say I will never buy an Intuit product again and encourage others to do the same.
...you'd have known all about Intuit's anti-consumer practices months ago:
Twist in Intuit's crippleware techniques doubles the cost of its tax-table service (4/27/01)
Intuit is up to its old tricks: Adding taxing burdens on its QuickBooks clients (3/17/00)
There is another column by Foster -- the #1 and only consumer IT columnist of whom I am aware -- on the practice of making QuickBooks users transmit invoices using Intuit's servers but you'll have to find it yourself.
I really do not understand people's "need" to always have the newest version of a program.
I upgrade *ONLY* when I encounter either a major bug (meaning "uncircumventable") in what I already have, or what I have simply cannot do what I need it to.
For my web-surfing machine, I run W2K. I will *not*, *ever*, upgrade to XP simply because it doesn't do anything "new". Perhaps I will need to upgrade to the next version of Windows someday, but considering Microsoft's (and most companys') release habits, I doubt I'll need to for at least a few more versions. Hell, I only upgraded from NT4 because it had poor PNP and high-end multimedia support (which I don't really consider a "good" reason, technologically speaking, but when I couldn't run 90% of modern games or get any new hardware, I didn't have much choice). Before NT4, I used DOS (the entire Win95 line quite simply sucked, and amazingly, seemed to get progressively *worse*, not better).
For email, I use Calypso (well, mostly, I use Elm, but for my junkmail account I find it easier to get it via POP and just let the nice filters strip out 99% of the spam). Calypso, for those who don't know it, still uses a text-only interface (basic support for HTML/RTF, but the only email I get in HTML consists of spam, so I don't really care 'bout that).
For compiling under windows, I still use Borland C++ 5. I suspect I'll have to upgrade when 64-bit chips hit the mainstream in a year or two, but at the moment, that 6-year-old compiler does the job just as well as anything I could go out and buy today.
The "solution" here seems obvious. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Don't get me wrong, I have no strong love for "retro" computing (except classic console video game emulation ). But of the programs I regularly use, not a single one has made any real improvement in half a decade.
And now, we see companies moving toward *decreased* functionality in their programs, along with non-permanant licenses to use them. Explain how that benefits me?
For other than XP:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Intuit\QAgent\Guid
"AppID"
"AppName"="Quicken for Windows"
"AppVer"="11.0.0.0"
"Enable"="Yes"
"M
"SubAppID"="2"
For Windows XP"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2B30D0-E0A2-11D2-
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2
@="Quicken 1.0 Type Library"
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2B30D0-E0
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLi
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Qu
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{4E2
@="1"
[HKEY_CLASSES_
@="C:\\PROGRA~1\\Qu