Howdy all. I use Quickbooks Pro 2002 (another Intuit product) to run my mail order business, and I do all my credit card billing through the Quickbooks Pro payment portal. Its extremely convenient, and the whole reason that I upgraded from Quickbooks Pro 6.0 (which came out in 1999 or 2000 I think). When I write up an invoice - all I do is punch a button at the bottom of the invoice and it goes out and bills my customer's credit card, and then marks the invoice as paid. It makes it easy to track who has paid (it actually changes the color of the invoice, and makes the invoice items uneditable) so I don't make the mistake of double billing or sending out an unpaid order. I process an absurd amount of orders for a one-woman company, so the convenience and simplicity matters!
Now - Quickbooks has an automatic updater - when ever new updates for my version of Quickbooks are available, it auto-downloads and asks to install it. Over the past few years, the payment portal has been updated several times, so I know that they can keep it current with what ever the standard or back end is. Updates, by the way, come out 1-2 times per year.
However - the note that I received from Quickbooks this week informed me that they don't have TIME to keep updating older versions anymore - so they're going to cut off the credit card billing portal in April rather than continue to provide updates. I have to upgrade, or I have to find a new processor.
Now - I have actually been considering getting a new processor anyway. When I first bought Quickbooks Pro 2002, the credit card billing system was marketed as a partnership with several different banks, and the user was given a choice of which bank, each with different service options, to use. Fine - I was happy with my choice of Wells Fargo, and they were pretty speedy transferring billed funds into my account, and answering questions.
Last July (2004), I received a letter from Wells Fargo saying my account had been transferred to "Innovative Merchant Services" - which is entirely owned and operated BY Quickbooks/Intuit. The amount of time it takes to receive billed funds into my account has doubled. When I called to ask why the deposit time had doubled, I was told that Wells Fargo could "do it better because they are a bank". My question - if they could do it better, why did you force me to switch and take away my ability to choose and/or shop around? To "improve service" of course.
Not only does the "improved service" take longer (my theory is that they are generating interest by holding onto the capital for an extra 48 hours) but this December, during the busiest time of the holiday season, there were numerous service outages during the day, unlike previous Decembers with Wells Fargo. Fortunately for me, as a mail order business, I can "try again" in an hour. But anyone with an actual customer waiting would have been completely screwed!
There are numerous other examples of QuickBooks features that start out both free and open (allowing you to send invoices through your e-mail, for example), but have changed over time to become closed (you have to use Quickbooks e-mail) and eventually I'm sure will no longer be free, either. These changes, by the way - are frequently patched in with the updates, and with no warning.
That said - I couldn't run my business without Quickbooks. There just aren't any alternatives that can do it all so well. If I had more time, or more employees (or any employees), I'm sure I could put together some kind of a conglomeration of various other programs that all combined would do what I need.
But it still really gets my goat. Or to put it another way - we hates them, my precious.
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Howdy all. I use Quickbooks Pro 2002 (another Intuit product) to run my mail order business, and I do all my credit card billing through the Quickbooks Pro payment portal. Its extremely convenient, and the whole reason that I upgraded from Quickbooks Pro 6.0 (which came out in 1999 or 2000 I think). When I write up an invoice - all I do is punch a button at the bottom of the invoice and it goes out and bills my customer's credit card, and then marks the invoice as paid. It makes it easy to track who has paid (it actually changes the color of the invoice, and makes the invoice items uneditable) so I don't make the mistake of double billing or sending out an unpaid order. I process an absurd amount of orders for a one-woman company, so the convenience and simplicity matters!
Now - Quickbooks has an automatic updater - when ever new updates for my version of Quickbooks are available, it auto-downloads and asks to install it. Over the past few years, the payment portal has been updated several times, so I know that they can keep it current with what ever the standard or back end is. Updates, by the way, come out 1-2 times per year.
However - the note that I received from Quickbooks this week informed me that they don't have TIME to keep updating older versions anymore - so they're going to cut off the credit card billing portal in April rather than continue to provide updates. I have to upgrade, or I have to find a new processor.
Now - I have actually been considering getting a new processor anyway. When I first bought Quickbooks Pro 2002, the credit card billing system was marketed as a partnership with several different banks, and the user was given a choice of which bank, each with different service options, to use. Fine - I was happy with my choice of Wells Fargo, and they were pretty speedy transferring billed funds into my account, and answering questions.
Last July (2004), I received a letter from Wells Fargo saying my account had been transferred to "Innovative Merchant Services" - which is entirely owned and operated BY Quickbooks/Intuit. The amount of time it takes to receive billed funds into my account has doubled. When I called to ask why the deposit time had doubled, I was told that Wells Fargo could "do it better because they are a bank". My question - if they could do it better, why did you force me to switch and take away my ability to choose and/or shop around? To "improve service" of course.
Not only does the "improved service" take longer (my theory is that they are generating interest by holding onto the capital for an extra 48 hours) but this December, during the busiest time of the holiday season, there were numerous service outages during the day, unlike previous Decembers with Wells Fargo. Fortunately for me, as a mail order business, I can "try again" in an hour. But anyone with an actual customer waiting would have been completely screwed!
There are numerous other examples of QuickBooks features that start out both free and open (allowing you to send invoices through your e-mail, for example), but have changed over time to become closed (you have to use Quickbooks e-mail) and eventually I'm sure will no longer be free, either. These changes, by the way - are frequently patched in with the updates, and with no warning.
That said - I couldn't run my business without Quickbooks. There just aren't any alternatives that can do it all so well. If I had more time, or more employees (or any employees), I'm sure I could put together some kind of a conglomeration of various other programs that all combined would do what I need.
But it still really gets my goat. Or to put it another way - we hates them, my precious.