Quickbooks - Getting rid of Intuit Sync Manager & Cloud Accounting-The Future of Accounting

If you are a Quickbooks desktop user, please note that there are some major changes that could drastically effect your business. Quickbooks just released an article about how as of March 1st 2016, they are retiring their Intuit Sync Manager for desktop.

WHAT IS INTUIT SYNC MANAGER?

Intuit Sync Manager is the utility for US versions of Quickbooks Pro, Premier and Enterprise solutions that would synchronize your Quickbooks desktop company file with a copy of your data in the cloud on intuit servers. This feature allows you the ability to connect with 3rd party add on application partners that also operate out of the cloud or integration's into your website or even credit card processing.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU THE QUICKBOOKS USER?

If you are using one of the apps that relies on the Intuit Sync Manager, then by March 1st of this year you will no longer be able to use that application or integration. It is hard to tell how many different apps this will affect as there are under 100 desktop applications that utilize the Intuit Sync Manager. Just know this may finally force you to manage your financed in the cloud (In a nutshell, the cloud is an online version of a software with no real software to download and allows for massive amounts of storage as well as not taking up any space on your hard drives). This is the future of all software.

BUT WHAT IF I USE THE ONLINE QUICKBOOKS VERSION?

Should you use the online Quickbooks version, then this may not have as big of an impact on you since most application developers have created an API integration to Quickbooks online and do not use the Intuit Sync Manager. However many users have found that the Online version is not nearly as good as the desktop version of Quickbooks.  With that being said are you familiar with Quickbooks competitor on the rise?

ANOTHER TYPE OF CLOUD BASED ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE:

Intuit has dominated the accounting software market for many years. Depending on what resource you get your numbers from, estimates state quickbooks owns around 80% of the market share for small business accounting. It's only recently the competition has began to drastically heat up specifically with a cloud based accounting software called "XERO".

Developed in New Zeland and initially geared towards the Australian marketplace, Xero now serves well over 600,000 business in more than 100 different countries. The company provides "Beautiful Accounting" focusing on simplicity, ease of use, solid functionality and an ambitious development schedule as product updates come out every 3-4 weeks.

As of June 2015, Xero has a higher growth rate than that of Quickbooks. In fact Xero has been growing at a 42% growth since May 2014 and that number is rising whereas Quickbooks online has be growing 23%.

In fact, when it comes to add on application partners XERO blows away Quickbooks as Xero has over 450 add on partners whereas Quickbooks online has less then 200. Another note is that XERO is just that XERO and not a credit card processing company such as INTUIT which owns Quickbooks so they are more open to partners and different integration's.

We recommend that anyone who has a issue with Quickbooks online or now desktop, should seek out using "XERO". XERO is so remarkably easy to use, its very affordable and allows for unlimited users. The another nice thing as already mentioned is XERO has well over 400+ add on partners to simplify and streamline your business.

In Fact it's so well designed that I actually found myself grinning ear to ear when I first tired using it because of all the very cool automated features it has such as Cash Coding, Automated Bank Rules for easy reconciliation matching, and the auto bank feeds. Managing your books has never been so easy. Lets not forget that you can do your payroll and inventory management from this software as well. 

I urge you to get setup with a free trial and give it a shot. At Obsidian we are XERO Certified Advisors and can assist you with any of your conversion balances, training and setups. 

The future of cloud accounting is here and Quickbooks is making it much harder to use the desktop version which may eventually be fizzled out. You can either choose to use XERO or the non-comparable Quickbooks online version. The decision is yours, just know that there will be no more Intuit Sync Manager to sync up those add on applications to Quickbooks.

No Matter what you choose, here is to your success,

Joshwa Fuchs- Obsidian Business Advisors