QuickBooks Online, The Camille Epiphany Part 2: Open Windows List

This is part 2 of 3 in a series by Woody Adams. You can find Part 1 here. 

As an Intuit product specialist for the Accountant segment, I get to spend time supporting sales agents and account managers as they work with their customers (accounting firms) and their clients. For the most part, most firms are opening the door and shifting their client base from a desktop platform like QuickBooks Pro to QuickBooks Online Plus. There are some reasons that are perfectly valid to ignore the knocking on the front door. Maybe it is not a good fit for yet, due to finances, consistent internet activity, fear of change, lack of perceived urgency to adopt latest technology, feature set, etc. There are many reasons like this that I totally understand; concerns with which I can empathize.

However, there is one push back from firms adopting QuickBooks Online: it doesn’t have the open windows list like in QuickBooks Desktop. Well, there is a QuickBooks Online utility app you can download on windows or mac machines that renders QuickBooks Online more relatable to long time desktop QB users. And we have the browser tips oft discussed in webinars and trainings to show accountants that they can indeed have a P&L, a Balance Sheet, and other forms or windows open in multiple tabs. It works well, but is not the same thing as the good ole QuickBooks Desktop Open Windows list.

These things aren’t going anywhere

Open Windows list isn’t QuickBooks Online. That’s a desktop thing.

Instead of the open windows list, we can use browser tabs. And move them around, on any monitor.

You can put these bad boys any place!

So I just do not fight that complaint anymore. I don’t put the gloves on and duke it out with some tips and tricks. I demo the QuickBooks Online Windows app, but would never actually use it myself. Why? I grew up on QuickBooks Desktop but also on QuickBooks Online, and when on QuickBooks Online, I am in a browser, mainly Chrome or Firefox.

I will Right click/Duplicate tabs when needed, move a tab to a 2nd monitor if I need a split view, or Tile the tabs vertically when on one screen. Like Stacy, to me, the point of using QuickBooks Online is so that I don’t have to install local apps. But even this does not matter. I am not using QuickBooks Online because of the open windows list. I am using it because QuickBooks Online offers me the best platform for the following WAY MORE CRITICAL business life stuff:

1. No file transfer
2. No QuickBooks Desktop versioning or installation of a desktop application
3. No expensive IT structure
4. Better real time collaboration with clients
5. Automatic connection to bank and credit card feeds
6. Automatic sync to apps that pull in feeds from other vendor sources with attachments, transactions auto created in QuickBooks Online.
7. Auto-sending of reports
8. Auto sending of transactions
9. Auto-creation of invoices from unbilled activity
10. Better collaboration within the firm
11. Ability to hire better talent that will think desktop installed solutions unacceptable, unimaginable…
12. One client list inside of QuickBooks Online
13. New features and functionality in product without installing maintenance releases
14. Access data from any device
15. No re-entry of data after the day is done and I been out on road working with customers
16. More time back to spend with family

I am sure there are more.

So I give you your victory regarding QuickBooks Desktop Open windows list. Congrats. Cling to it as long as you can. But how sustainable is your stance? How do you encourage an employee natively powered for the cloud to adopt your QuickBooks Desktop client collaboration process of transferring files back and forth? Or explain the benefit of using the accountant’s copy process? They will just think you are out of touch and apply to a firm down the street that is better adapted.

The desktop platform is not relatable to employees that are embracing technology. These demographic – regardless of their age –  is fast becoming your clients and employee base. Is not being able to do a bank feed from an iPhone while on the road so much more viable than having an open windows list in one screen on a computer in an office? Your answer to that question is critical to your own sustainability as a sought after accounting practice. Are you in retirement mode or growth mode? Retirement = QuickBooks Desktop, Growth = QuickBooks Online…

Stay tuned for Part 3: It looks really old

This is a guest post, authored by friend and QBOShow.com co-host, Woody Adams.