QuickBooks Price Increase: Should We Stick with QuickBooks Online Software?

Social media and community sites like Reddit are abuzz with posts from people seeking QuickBooks alternatives following the latest price increase announcement. Hey, I’m not happy about the price increase either. For more details, check out this thorough write-up by Heather Satterly over at the Woodard Report.

Here is what we consider when the topic of accounting software change arises internally, or from customers.

QuickBooks Online still offers the most app integrations for the small business market. 

While Xero is offering increasingly integrated applications, QuickBooks Online (QBO) remains the frontrunner in this race. Changing a general ledger software is one thing. Having to change a client’s whole tech stack is something else. You need to consider this when evaluating the “change cost.” Notably, Intuit has recently announced significant changes to API access for its app ecosystem. Under the new system, developers will pay a toll, of sorts, for each call on the data. This could lead to significant changes in app pricing. Some apps may no longer be viable depending on the price point and other factors. If the app pricing increases significantly, the change cost may shift. Until that happens, however, we are holding onto the GL and associated app system. 

They still outperform many other GLs in terms of function, and they know it. 

We love our friends at FreshBooks, Zoho, Wave, Puzzle, and Accounting Seed, but these other general ledger (GL) systems still lack the functionality and features that many clients and accountants rely on. Being able to track and report on departments or locations is a key feature that we often depend on. Although there are reports that aren’t working, the reporting that is functioning is more robust and malleable than the reporting in many other systems we have tested. We would love to see project reporting fixed and things like committed costs included in those same reports. However, even without committed costs reporting, the estimates vs. actual reports we depend on aren’t available in the other GL tools we are currently testing, with the exception of Xero.

Training for team members 

For decades, I have greatly appreciated the various training opportunities that Intuit has provided. Online certification, in-person conferences, and an ecosystem of trainers and specialists with courses and catalogs of content they create. While some of the new UX updates have put a wrench in the works by changing the overall layout, I’m sure updated training tools that utilize the new UX are on the way. Xero has some great folks out there writing about their product, but the volume of content and opportunities for team or client education just aren’t quite the same. I have heard Xerocon is pretty great, though.  

Stress of change on clients

There is never a good time to upend a client’s business systems. Moving to a new accounting tech stack for existing clients, even clients that are furious about the price change, is not something we take lightly. These transitions require careful planning well in advance. Intuit knows this and increases its prices in the American market with a month or two's notice, typically mid-year by design. Sure, some businesses will react and switch, but larger-scale operations can’t move on a whim, or shouldn’t. Here at Snow and Blair, we are focused on decreasing the cognitive load for clients, so large-scale systems change must be even more carefully considered.

Bandwidth

The quiet part that Intuit leverages well, and that I hate to admit, is that change requires mental capacity and learning new things on my part. After 20 years in a system (even when it updates almost daily), there is still a significant amount of institutional knowledge to be lost. Do I really want to start all over? I’m not sure what the threshold is that would force me to clear the hurdle and just move, but I haven’t found it yet. Intuit knows that millions of accounting professionals have invested time in their product. 

I don’t think the price increase reflects an increase in the value of the software. If anything, I am finding the software more difficult to work with than ever before. The bugs are prolific, the rapid changes cause more problems, and the consumer has less and less say in their customer-facing interactions, such as invoicing, sales receipts, and payments. All that said, we will likely remain in QuickBooks due to Intuit’s market leverage. As the market evolves, we will see if we reach a tipping point, such as the price of the integrated tech stack or even greater overreach by Intuit into customer-facing aspects of accounting. (Anyone else over the ever-changing Invoice send email text that overrides your company-crafted default?)