Some
months ago Intuit, the manufacture of QuickBooks, released a new
version of QuickBooks Online that runs with the Safari web
browser. This new version of QuickBooks presents a multiuser
alternative for existing users of QuickBooks in a Mac environment,
as well as future users of QuickBooks Support for Mac. It is now
possible for Mac QuickBooks users to run multiuser
versions of QuickBooks for a healthy monthly price, and have
unattended backups and software updates included in the monthly
price.
Besides the Safari interface, QuickBooks Online has been perfect
for the iPhone. The iPhone app is basically a read only
application, however some added features exist for customer,
vendor and employee information as well as the ability to create and
send invoices. Another benefit for Mac users of QuickBooks is
that there is no longer a wait for updates to the Mac version
of QuickBooks.
Installing QuickBooks Online is
relatively easy and direct. However, it gets a bit complicated
when you need to convert an existing QuickBooks for Mac
file to a QuickBooks Online file. Intuit does a reasonably
good job of ease the online installation.
Manually converting your QuickBooks for Mac file to QuickBooks
Online is not that difficult, as long as you carefully follow the
instructions and generally takes about 30 minutes. You cannot
directly convert your QuickBooks for Mac file to QuickBooks
Online.
There is an intermediate step that requires you to convert your QB Mac file to a QB Windows files and begins with the drop down menu in QuickBooks Mac. The process begins, by selecting the File menu and then selecting "Back up to QuickBooks for Windows" within the QuickBooks for Mac software. Upon completion of this process, the file is sent to QuickBooks and you receive a notification when the process for converting the QuickBooks Mac to QuickBooks Online is completed. Initially, I was surprised to observe that this process is performed at the Intuit level rather than in real time. A suggestion to facilitate this process, is that in the event you do not receive timely notification of completion from Intuit, I suggest that you contact tech support and ask them to look into the status of your conversion and request that they expedite it for you. Generally, when I have called tech support, and they are very accommodating. They will facilitate the process, although they generally do not give any time guarantee and attribute the potential delay to their busy servers.
There is an intermediate step that requires you to convert your QB Mac file to a QB Windows files and begins with the drop down menu in QuickBooks Mac. The process begins, by selecting the File menu and then selecting "Back up to QuickBooks for Windows" within the QuickBooks for Mac software. Upon completion of this process, the file is sent to QuickBooks and you receive a notification when the process for converting the QuickBooks Mac to QuickBooks Online is completed. Initially, I was surprised to observe that this process is performed at the Intuit level rather than in real time. A suggestion to facilitate this process, is that in the event you do not receive timely notification of completion from Intuit, I suggest that you contact tech support and ask them to look into the status of your conversion and request that they expedite it for you. Generally, when I have called tech support, and they are very accommodating. They will facilitate the process, although they generally do not give any time guarantee and attribute the potential delay to their busy servers.
Overall the manual transition process takes approximately 30
minutes and my clients have been happy with QBO. One client was
disappointed that the vendor type classifications are not available
in QuickBooks Online. The workaround for this is to use one of
the fields in the vendor profile as the vendor type. So far, my
clients are happy to have multi-user access, the ability to work from
anywhere and unsupervised and automatic backups, despite a slightly
slow performance attributable to the web connection.
Two
words of incaution, the first of which is that QuickBooks Online
currently does not support list applications and the second, that the
conversion may require the services of your accountant or CPA to
affect a smooth and orderly transition to the QuickBooks Online platform.
