7 ms·

Good. Hopefully this will cause more people to leave Intuit and search out alternatives. This is just one more reason to add to the list.

Artistry121 5y ago
What are the best alternatives?
- cascom 5y ago
  GnuCash is free, and can do most of what quickbooks does. https://www.gnucash.org/ https://www.gnucash.org/
  - rietta 5y ago
    Use it for personal but gave up trying to get my CPA or his booking staff to work with it at all.
- mox1 5y ago
  I use - https://www.waveapps.com/ https://www.waveapps.com/ My accountant has access to all the data I put in there. Mostly feature parity with Quickbooks. Mostly free to use (I have never paid a dollar for the expense tracking part)
  - sumoboy 5y ago
    If it could import existing QBO account I'd switch over right now.
- encryptluks2 5y ago
  Odoo is also a good option that has an open source component, but their paid version is pretty good.
- avodonosov 5y ago
  https://ledgersmb.org/ https://ledgersmb.org/ (a cloud offering for this https://efficito.com/ https://efficito.com/) https://plaintextaccounting.org/ https://plaintextaccounting.org/ I haven't used these solutions much, just know about thier existance.
- basch 5y ago
  have yet to see FreshBooks mentioned in this thread. https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/ https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/ https://www.freshbooks.com/ https://www.freshbooks.com/
- timbit42 5y ago
  https://alternativeto.net/software/quickbooks/?feature=bookkeeping https://alternativeto.net/software/quickbooks/?feature=bookk...
rietta 5y ago
Have you tried getting a bookkeeper to use GnuCash? Xero has a following as does SAGE/peachtree but not the good open source options. I did and it failed. No reason except everyone in the CPA and bookkeeper business uses and knows QuickBooks. I have up and use and pay the kings transom for QBO so i can focus on my business and not play transaction level bookkeeper myself.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  I have! I ended up having to export my entire general ledger as an excel file for them to have any hope of using it. It cost me a ton of money and time to massage into a format that an accountant could work with, they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program that I'm the only of their customers to use. Now I just use quickbooks. I have never had any issue. Gnucash is great and works fine for personal bookkeeping, but I wouldn't suggest it if you have an accountant.
  - chromatin 5y ago
    > they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program Many of us here are way more expensive per hour than our accountant ;) -- but to your metapoint that the accountant is more expensive than a new quickbooks subscription, that probably remains true even in the face of the price hike.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      If you are not more expensive than your accountant, you should probably do the work yourself. You're not making enough money to pay extra to avoid taxes, and unoptimized taxes are easy enough.
      - neltnerb 5y ago
        This is only true if you will do the job correctly in a similar amount of time to your accountant. But I do agree, when I had just W2 income and a mortgage it was no big deal to do them myself. I definitely wouldn't use an accountant if my taxes were simple enough to handle it. They're just not that hard.
codegeek 5y ago
It is the network effect. Inuit is very aggressive in killing any competition and they are widely used by CPAs and accounting firms. My CPA told me flat that if I don't go with Quickbooks, she would have a harder time playing with a more "fancy" system. So unless the CPAs and accountants are onboard, it is tough to kill Intuit.
- WorldMaker 5y ago
  It's not just the network effects of CPAs/Accountants, but also banks and vendor invoice software. It's also the decades of lock in where all of a company's accounting data has been in QB. From what I've heard part of why CPAs/Accountants are reluctant to learn some other system that isn't QB isn't because QB is good for them, but that they have decades of accumulated cruft like Excel macros and similar hacks to try to make okay double entry lemonade from QB's awful single entry lemons. It's relearning/rebuilding all that that they don't want to do, even if they don't directly realize a lot of their pain stems from the fact that QB is just bad at its job (and has been for a long time). (Disclaimer/source: Way back in ought six, I was an intern on Microsoft's attempt at the space in a product called Small Business Accounting and then briefly Office Accounting before it died. Among other things SBA chased after CPA/Accountant buy-in and from what I heard nearly had it, as it was proper double-entry for one reason. The takeaway that winning over CPAs/Accountants alone isn't sufficient is mine based only a peripheral reading of what went wrong with that project and what I managed to gather of why that product didn't exist any longer by the time I graduated.)
runako 5y ago
In my first business, I spent a lot of time doing my own bookkeeping under the guise of saving money. I've used Xero, Gnu, Wave, etc. At some point, I calculated the effective hourly rate I could earn building my business. Moving to a traditional bookkeeper and QuickBooks was a logical result of that analysis.

Artistry121 5y ago

What are the best alternatives?

cascom 5y ago
GnuCash is free, and can do most of what quickbooks does. https://www.gnucash.org/ https://www.gnucash.org/
- rietta 5y ago
  Use it for personal but gave up trying to get my CPA or his booking staff to work with it at all.
mox1 5y ago
I use - https://www.waveapps.com/ https://www.waveapps.com/ My accountant has access to all the data I put in there. Mostly feature parity with Quickbooks. Mostly free to use (I have never paid a dollar for the expense tracking part)
- sumoboy 5y ago
  If it could import existing QBO account I'd switch over right now.
encryptluks2 5y ago
Odoo is also a good option that has an open source component, but their paid version is pretty good.
avodonosov 5y ago
https://ledgersmb.org/ https://ledgersmb.org/ (a cloud offering for this https://efficito.com/ https://efficito.com/) https://plaintextaccounting.org/ https://plaintextaccounting.org/ I haven't used these solutions much, just know about thier existance.
basch 5y ago
have yet to see FreshBooks mentioned in this thread. https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/ https://www.cloudwards.net/best-accounting-software/ https://www.freshbooks.com/ https://www.freshbooks.com/
timbit42 5y ago
https://alternativeto.net/software/quickbooks/?feature=bookkeeping https://alternativeto.net/software/quickbooks/?feature=bookk...

rietta 5y ago

Have you tried getting a bookkeeper to use GnuCash? Xero has a following as does SAGE/peachtree but not the good open source options. I did and it failed. No reason except everyone in the CPA and bookkeeper business uses and knows QuickBooks. I have up and use and pay the kings transom for QBO so i can focus on my business and not play transaction level bookkeeper myself.

neltnerb 5y ago
I have! I ended up having to export my entire general ledger as an excel file for them to have any hope of using it. It cost me a ton of money and time to massage into a format that an accountant could work with, they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program that I'm the only of their customers to use. Now I just use quickbooks. I have never had any issue. Gnucash is great and works fine for personal bookkeeping, but I wouldn't suggest it if you have an accountant.
- chromatin 5y ago
  > they are too expensive per hour to ask them to learn an entire new software program Many of us here are way more expensive per hour than our accountant ;) -- but to your metapoint that the accountant is more expensive than a new quickbooks subscription, that probably remains true even in the face of the price hike.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    If you are not more expensive than your accountant, you should probably do the work yourself. You're not making enough money to pay extra to avoid taxes, and unoptimized taxes are easy enough.
    - neltnerb 5y ago
      This is only true if you will do the job correctly in a similar amount of time to your accountant. But I do agree, when I had just W2 income and a mortgage it was no big deal to do them myself. I definitely wouldn't use an accountant if my taxes were simple enough to handle it. They're just not that hard.

codegeek 5y ago

It is the network effect. Inuit is very aggressive in killing any competition and they are widely used by CPAs and accounting firms. My CPA told me flat that if I don't go with Quickbooks, she would have a harder time playing with a more "fancy" system. So unless the CPAs and accountants are onboard, it is tough to kill Intuit.

WorldMaker 5y ago
It's not just the network effects of CPAs/Accountants, but also banks and vendor invoice software. It's also the decades of lock in where all of a company's accounting data has been in QB. From what I've heard part of why CPAs/Accountants are reluctant to learn some other system that isn't QB isn't because QB is good for them, but that they have decades of accumulated cruft like Excel macros and similar hacks to try to make okay double entry lemonade from QB's awful single entry lemons. It's relearning/rebuilding all that that they don't want to do, even if they don't directly realize a lot of their pain stems from the fact that QB is just bad at its job (and has been for a long time). (Disclaimer/source: Way back in ought six, I was an intern on Microsoft's attempt at the space in a product called Small Business Accounting and then briefly Office Accounting before it died. Among other things SBA chased after CPA/Accountant buy-in and from what I heard nearly had it, as it was proper double-entry for one reason. The takeaway that winning over CPAs/Accountants alone isn't sufficient is mine based only a peripheral reading of what went wrong with that project and what I managed to gather of why that product didn't exist any longer by the time I graduated.)

runako 5y ago

In my first business, I spent a lot of time doing my own bookkeeping under the guise of saving money. I've used Xero, Gnu, Wave, etc. At some point, I calculated the effective hourly rate I could earn building my business. Moving to a traditional bookkeeper and QuickBooks was a logical result of that analysis.