The end of the road for QuickBooks Desktop?

Alas…those vicious rumours of QuickBooks being “no more” are based on truth, though it’s not quite as dramatic as that!
QuickBooks has been an amazing Accounting program that took bookkeeping back from that weird breed of people that sit in dark rooms at all hours typing in figures and hatching income and expense graphs…yes: Accountants! - and enabling everyday people to understand and run their own accounts. So it is sad to see it go…but then it was just as sad to see VCR’s go, and now DVD’s - but these have similarly been swallowed up in the inevitable march of progress.

So what’s the deal? Can you still buy it? Can you still use it? Are you at risk of being arrested for uttering it’s name on the street or of it blowing up if you try to run it on your new Windows 11 laptop like a scene from Mission Impossible?…
If you have a licence then you can happily go on using it (yay!)…until you can no longer happily go on using it (groan!): and by that confusing bit of paradoxical information I mean simply that you will reach a stage where the little niggles and hassles with the program will outweigh the benefit of using it. Usually it appears in the form of: help, printing and emailing, and non-fixable data-verification errors. Think of them like IT mushrooms that just keep growing. But you can relax and keep using it if it’s working for you.
You can buy a second-hand licence from someone that has embraced the modern migration to QB Online (warning: please do not buy licences from dodgy, unregistered “dealers” - you will end up regretting it!). If you do buy one second-hand,I advise trying not to get anything older than the last year or 2-3 before it was discontinued (in 2021). The newer it is the more reliable it is and the longer it will last…yes, much like buying a car.
We do still consult and assist on QB Desktop, and might be able to connect you with an old licence-holder and get the installation done if needs be.

We strongly recommend that you consider QuickBooks Online (QBO) before any other consideration. It isn’t right/ideal for every circumstance and company but it is what we consider to be the best solution available for tracking your accounting and finances. Check out our table detailing the difference between Desktop and Online and where the problem areas are to be found. If you are ready then speak to us: We will able to answer your questions, provide you with a QBO subscription and get you setup and running in next to no time.

Staying with my policy of not promoting anything that we don’t use ourselves, we run our business on QBO, and have done so for a few years. When I moved over I had to send our internal bookkeeper on permanent beach-duty because there was hardly anything for them to do suddenly… there are clear advantages to moving with the tide of progress - and it has held very true for us in this area of bookkeeping with QBO (ask me about it).
Rob