QuickBooks Online Might Not Be for You

Question: I was talking to someone at QuickBooks. They told me to try QuickBooks Online, and if I didn’t like it, it is very easy to switch back to QuickBooks Premier. Is that true?

Answer: No, that is not true at all. QuickBooks is pushing QuickBooks Online (QBO) heavily. Its subscription income is very attractive to QuickBooks, but it is not the best choice of QuickBooks products for promotional products distributors. QuickBooks Premier is the better choice for our complex orders—much better than QBO, which lacks the Sales Order function that is central to our orders.

I have heard from several distributors who made the switch to QBO with the thought that switching back to Premier would be simple. It is not. The two programs were written by different developers in different countries and do not resemble each other at all.

I have recently connected a couple of distributors to a QuickBooks expert to have their QBO file converted back to Premier. It has been messy, and involved a number of clean up adjustments even after the conversion. For instance, non-posting transactions, such as supplier purchase orders, do not come over in the conversion, and need to be mapped through another program into Premier. Even after that, the purchase orders are all listed as open, including those that had been closed.

If considering QBO, know that it is a difficult exercise to switch back to QB Premier or Enterprise from QBO, and it is more expensive than Premier.

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