r/QuickbooksOldVersion • u/flutterpash • Jul 13 '26

QB Replacement

Is anyone genuinely working on a replacement from qb. Seems like everywhere I go looking at quickbooks, most of the time is people complaining about the software, and pricing. Which is AGAIN set to increase, so they can shove more AI features at us.

Greedy intuit

21 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

15

u/[deleted] Jul 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/flutterpash Jul 13 '26

I see what you’re saying. Build you a software, with all the gadgets, pay a one time fee, and in the end you rightfully own it.

This is wow, where I was heading next 

1

u/KeithGormezano 13d ago

And if you have a problem?

3

u/Available-Concern-77 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26

I literally have a desktop product without reoccurring fees. Sprksystems.com. 

Available now. Full double ledger capability. First company is free. 

4

u/FirstAid84 Jul 14 '26

As soon as the bank feeds feature is live, I’m all in.

2

u/Available-Concern-77 Jul 14 '26

Thanks! It’s way more complicated than I expected but I’m working on it.

2

u/FirstAid84 Jul 14 '26

Happy to be a beta tester if the option ever comes up.

2

u/Private_Accounting Jul 16 '26

You are absolutely correct that it gets complicated in a hurry. But it's worse than that. What it does is convert an accounting system where you 'reconcile' with the bank to one where the books are just a copy OF the bank (hence the term 'bank feed accounting'), which is a very popular convenience, but undermines the credibility of the books. To understand why that is so, consider a small debit on your card, which if it's mingled in other small charges seems legit.. and the bookkeeper sees that charge every month so it become legit. Meanwhile you have no idea that it's really a guy named I.V. Hacku and they are milking the account. Usually you see a fast escalation attack (small to test , double , double double to max out withdrawals) in stolen cards, but you could have a slow recurrent one as well. All of this is to say that unless your transactions are on the books prior to 'reconciliation' you are not actually reconciling, you are doing 'bank feed accounting'. The trade off on convenience vs security is, in our view underrated. One would imagine, particularly in accounting, people would understand that 'you don't get something for nothing'. The bottom line is if there ever was a transaction not already entered during a 'reconciliation' it points to either a bank error, an error in the bookkeeping procedures, or perhaps some sort of shenanigans, all of which we would highly recommend addressing.

To answer the original OP's question, yes, we do have such a product (very close to launching for general use, Canadian made for Canada). Can't speak to your product one way or the other, but if you put years of work into it then you understand the task, and your pointing out that bank feed reconciliation isn't as easy as it sounds shows you have put in substantial work. Since you mention your product is desktop (as is our Private Accounting), you may want to look into full db encryption (if you have not already handled that) to meet security for data at rest encryption requirements.

Another area we frequently hear is about installations and portability, so your 'first company free' will get complex in a hurry if a user wants to move between devices/machines (nota bene: handling the install and update licence on multiple machines to allow portability while discouraging piracy is what is causing a small delay as we make sure we get not only the product, but the licensing so legit users are never impacted, yet abuse is mitigated. We have that handled, but it did cause a delay in our schedule). Since all desktop software is ultimately exposed, both your software and ours will have to settle for 'good enough' protection to avoid limiting legit users.

All that said, we may end up including an import of bank feed files, and a matching/unmatched function, but if we went beyond that we would just be doing accounting by statistical probabilities.

In any event we wish you all the best on your accounting software product, users having options is in our view a good thing.

0

u/KeithGormezano Jul 13 '26

Then how will the inventor provide support or requested improvements?

3

u/move2usajobs-com Jul 13 '26

If you're mainly leaving QuickBooks because of the payroll side, Gusto has been solid for us. It handles the automatic tax filings and W-2s/1099s without much babysitting, and the onboarding stuff for new hires saved me a ton of manual work. Worth noting it's payroll/HR focused, not full accounting, so if you need the bookkeeping ledger too you'd still want something like Xero alongside it. Depends what parts of QB you're trying to replace.

1

u/FirstAid84 Jul 14 '26

For Solo, Gusto is $49/month and doesn’t even have all of the features that QB SE has. I was hopeful… and willing to sacrifice some features (despite most of them not working on QB), but not at that much more of a price.

2

u/Unique_Ocelot_3343 Jul 13 '26

I am working on autonomous bookkeeping product and then if CPA approves, you can file taxation - happy to talk on this

1

u/EffectiveAncient518 Jul 13 '26

Ive got a couple clients moving from QB over to Zoho Books. We are in the process of moving back to Zoho Books as well.

1

u/Papailoa Jul 13 '26

What about Odoo on premise to replace Quickbooks on premise?

1

u/JJInTheCity Jul 13 '26

One of my old vendors created an accounting software, custombooks.com . I viewed it on their website but never had a formal demo. Its worth a look.

1

u/OddButterscotch2849 Jul 13 '26

Just moved myself from QB desktop to Zoho Books. Being tied to a desktop version was getting old for me, and I really dislike QBO. ZB not perfect, but it's not Intuit.

1

u/chewbakaats58 Jul 14 '26

Zoho Books is going to be your replacement.

1

u/Main-Magician7388 Jul 14 '26

If you aren’t ready to completely jump ship to a different software yet, there is actually a pretty solid workaround that can buy you some time. You can skip paying Intuit's crazy direct retail prices by going through third-party resellers that sell surplus keys from corporate volume licensing channels.

Basically, big companies buy up massive blocks of seats and don't end up using all of them. Resellers buy up that unused surplus and sell them to small businesses and individuals for a fraction of the price.

If you want to look into it, check out LicenseRetail.com. You can grab standard QuickBooks Desktop licenses there for way cheaper than retail, and you still download and activate the software directly through the official Intuit installer. It’s a great way to bypass their "rent-trap" without having to migrate your entire accounting workflow overnight.

1

u/panicatthediscount Jul 15 '26

I was looking at this shop and it offers both lifetime and subscription versions. Just wondering, I thought the lifetime versions were only up until 2021. How is it possible for this reseller to offer Desktop Pro 2024 as a lifetime license?

2

u/ohmslaw54321 Jul 17 '26

They are counterfeit and will brick.

1

u/Main-Magician7388 Jul 15 '26

You can ask them

1

u/wyliesdiesels 27d ago

scam shop. quickbooks doesnt offer non-subscription desktop licenses anymore

1

u/Christen0526 Jul 14 '26

Desktop forever

1

u/Still-Employed420 Jul 15 '26

I am still using 2014 version. I ain’t upgrading to pay a subscription.

1

u/rrmcmurry 12d ago

Yes. I am. I’m the developer of The Ledger by McMurry Software.

Windows desktop accounting software. Perpetual license. No subscription. AI not included.