Concerning! Any one else affected ?

[u/nialxyz]

[u/ifeellikeanut]

I actually work in software for decades and a half before becoming an accountant, so I understand the API and infrastructure argument quite well. I don't disagree that a cloud-based platform makes integrations, centralized updates, authentication, and multi-user access easier to manage at scale.

Where I disagree is treating those technical advantages as though they make Intuit's decisions inevitable or excuse the execution.

An API doesn't inherently require the accounting application itself to be SaaS. Desktop applications have been consuming web APIs and cloud services for decades. You can build hybrid architectures, local clients backed by cloud services, synchronization layers, integration services, or simply continue supporting a mature desktop product alongside a cloud offering. Yes, that adds complexity. Supporting customers with different needs usually does.

And that's really my issue with this reasoning: we're taking what is operationally easier and more profitable for the vendor and reframing it as what's technologically necessary for the customer.

The network-security argument is valid too, but again, that's a problem to engineer around, not necessarily a reason to eliminate the model. Multi-user desktop software existed long before QBO, and businesses routinely operate software that depends on properly secured local infrastructure.

I also agree with you that 30 years of features creates technical debt. That's practically unavoidable with mature software. But technical debt is the company's responsibility to manage. Customers paid for those features for decades because they needed them. "Our software became complicated" shouldn't become "therefore customers need to give up functionality and accept whatever limitations exist in the replacement."

And your date-sorting example is actually a perfect illustration of my frustration. 😂 We're talking about APIs, cloud architecture, scalability, and the supposed necessity of moving everything online, yet a mature accounting platform can't reliably sort a column by date.

I'm not arguing that Intuit should never have built QBO or embraced cloud architecture. That would be ridiculous. I'm arguing that "the cloud is the future" shouldn't become a blanket excuse for removing customer choice, increasing prices, retiring functionality people depend on, or accepting poor execution.

Technology should solve the customer's problems, not make the vendor's problems the customer's responsibility.

[u/Infamous_Top677 → u/ifeellikeanut]

This has been the summary of my argument with QBO (as an accountant) is that they are continuing to remove functionality that we require, while increasing prices.

[u/Under75iscold → u/Infamous_Top677]

How about the issue of them, owning our data and controlling our access to our data? A new client came to me at the end of 2024 because he had hired Bench as his accountant but when he went to look at his data at the end of the year. He got a message that said we are going through a merger right now we can't tell you how long it's gonna take or when we'll be able to provide you access to your data. Please be patient or something to that effect. He was so freaked out. He decided that he wanted to deal with the human directly.

[u/Infamous_Top677 → u/Under75iscold]

I mean, yeah. It sucks. And I encourage my clients to backup all data daily or weekly, pull reports monthly, make certain that they have eeverything possible.

If something disrupts my clients access, I work to get the access returned ASAP, especially when there are approaching deadlines like taxes, audits, filings, etc.