I've been using Quickbooks Desktop for several years. It has cost about $240 for a 3 year term. Now Intuit is going to charge $649 per year for a 1 user copy. It's excessive but I've really become to rely on paying my bills directly thru my bank and of course tracking rental income and expenses. I'm looking for an alternative that does those 2 things. Any experience with other software that you can provide a recommendation?

You possibly could still use it. I am not totally sure. But I know the features I use will be unavailable/disabled for me. Like direct connect banking. Emailing receipts for rents paid. Sending invoices (anything to do with an outside service..email..etc) And I'm sure they will disable anything they can.

I have read QB online is $30ish per company file. I run 3. My biz, my personal, and my sisters..$90+ a month? crazy.

I've been using QB 2016 since 2016. So, you can continue to use what version you are using now. The issue with not upgrading is 2 fold. First, they end support for it. You will not get any updates and bug fixes. Probably not a huge issue for most. Certainly wasn't for me. If you ever have a problem though, you are on your own to get it fixed. Second, they turn off all the bells and whistles. This mainly pertains to payroll and the ability to download transactions from the bank. I never used either, so it didn't bother me at all. I think a few other things are you can't do billing and email either.

As far as the accounting goes, it still works fine. Accounting basics don't change, so I'm still going along just fine. I have to manually reconcile the bank account every month, but I always have anyway. Reporting is all still there. My accountant is able to import my company file into their system just fine. I create a backup and they restore from backup. It updates it to their version and then they can pull whatever they need in order to do the tax return.

So for my business, it works just fine and I don't plan on upgrading any time soon. Most software is going to a subscription service, so I would imagine even QB competitors will be there someday. I use Quicken for my personal finances and it has the same issues. I'm on 2016 version for that and all bells and whistles are deactivated. There is one small bug in this version that will never be fixed, but I'm aware of it and it's still ok. When it crops up, I know the work around to fix it and it takes 2 clicks. Not worth paying a monthly fee for IMO.

Maybe someday if I actually start making money at this, I'll switch to the subscription upgrade. Haha!

I personally don't use Quickbooks, but thought I would see if there are some freeware alternatives. Take a look at this site for some possible alternatives:

synder.com/blog/8-best-free-quickbooks-alternatives/

Also, for those who need an alternative for Windows Office products like Word and Excel, you might want to use the free and open source version of Apache OpenOffice available here:

openoffice.org/

I think I was the one that started asking about it. Intuit has just gotten ridiculous. I am looking into these.

Freshbooks

Xero

Wave

ZohoBooks

Sage

QB Online

I think the only one that has a free version is Wave. The rest have some monthly fee. I guess it just depends on what you need.

For my personal checkbook, I just use an Excel spreadsheet and can sort by Category if I feel like it.

For my property business, QB does a great job and I am familiar with it. I attach invoices to checks and the accountant is happy.

For my day job I need the payroll and they royally gouge you with fees (quickbooks) as that is an add on.

For payroll, I am looking at Gusto which will integrate with some of the above software. At the end of the day, most of these are charging a monthly fee so I am not sure how to optimize my experience and my pocket book.

I am very fustrated with it and I don't have time to properly evaluate these programs

If any of you look into them, please post your observations.

You can still use the QB version you have now. Unless it is already on a subscription and in that case you cannot.

I use personal accounting software - Quicken not Quickbooks which is its own company these days, Intuit sold them off.

I've been using them since forever and when I tried to switch to QB I found a key feature lacking, and that it was all cloud-based, so I stayed with Quicken. The $89 or whatever it is per year is worth it to me.

Same with Office. I have NO NEED for 99% of Office, but I need Outlook. And I need MS Word or Excel once in a blue moon.

I have a call scheduled next Tuesday with a QB rep to "explore my options." I will not be using QBO. I may consider upgrading to Desktop 2024 and paying an annual charge, depending upon the amount. Or I may just keep using my current version. I do not use QB payroll - I have one employee, so I just do it manually. Their support is terrible anyway, so I won't miss it. The one thing I would miss is connection to bank feeds for credit card accounts. I have four different QB files for different entities, and one of those has rather heavy credit card usage - several hundred transactions per month. It is really nice not having to completely enter each one of those charges.

I did go to oldergeeks.com last night and downloaded Gnucash. They have a couple of other Accounting programs to try. So far Gnucash seems very foreign, so we'll see. I do think it may be the only place to get software that isn't pushing online subscriptions.

I used classes for each of my rentals in QB. I am assuming I'll have to use subclasses of accounts to do that without the class feature? Like Utility Expense, Utility exp-Apt 1, Utility exp-Ap2, etc. Does anyone know if that's how I'd track individual properties expenses and incomes without Classes?

Tim: You can still buy retail copies of Office. MS is pushing subscription/365, yes, but the stand-alone retail version is still available for purchase.

I have been with "Rent Manager" since 2005. (London Computer System out of Ohio) Can not say enough good things about the program and the support. I use the "stand alone" version. Yes, there is a yearly fee---but it includes all updates and customer service and is well worth it.

They are primarily geared towards large property management company..but support the smaller guys also.