sunset policy for payroll

Hi,

I am running Quickbooks pro 2005 UK version with payroll. Just tried torenew my payroll subscription and was told that I have to renew the whole programme for the sum of £347.00. So they are saying that each payroll version is only usable for 2 years. What a bunch of crooks!! Also it says that after June

6th, I won't be able to enter any new transactions only work on data already in the programme.

ken

Reply to
Ken
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Here in the US it is 3 years-they will be sunsetting 2004 this month leaving support for 2005-2007 available.

Reply to
Laura

You are telling us this because?

Reply to
Allan Martin

Don't cry in my beer.

Reply to
Allan Martin

Agreed. The Sage solution I sell and support requires a $400.00/Year tax table subscription. It also gets sunset every 3 years.

Reply to
Allan Martin

just to let off steam. I have a year left to run but they won't let me just renew the payroll subscription because of the year end here in the UK, which is April.

ken

Reply to
Ken

Thanks for all your comments. I have been thinking about Sage. But--- my customer and supplier data base in Quickbooks is huge and I bet I cannot transfer all this into a new programme. I like Quickbooks and have been a loyal customer since 1999. I have subscribed to payroll every year as I think it is good value for money. But this new policy is over the top. The big snag is that they have you stuffed. They know you need it for the year end returns to HMRC etc. and I need to do this. So I either pay up or shut up (go elsewhere).

Rant over.

Ken

Reply to
Ken

Because it's one more reason not to use QuickBooks. If QuickBooks wants to keep selling their programs they shouldn't expect you to pay as much as that after you have paid for the program and updates.

I use Sage Payroll and it's far superior anyway.

Reply to
Peter Saxton

Where are you going? Most software vendors today have the same policy

Reply to
Allan Martin

I prefer QuickBooks for the accounting of a small business and Sage for payroll but if you are a professional accountant you will pay what it takes and use the best. It's different for an individual small business.

Reply to
Peter Saxton

The way I see it--after june 6th, I won't be able to use Quickbooks for entering new transactions. So whilst getting sage payroll on it's own is a good option, I will still need an accounts programme which means stick with quickbooks or go for sage and have to learn a whole new programme. I will check out the prices.

ken

Reply to
Ken

Look at Sage Instant Payroll it's cheaper than Sage Payroll.

Reply to
Peter Saxton

There are many small business owners that also prefer and feel they are better off (and rightly so) having higher end software to run their business, especially when it comes to paying their 50 plus employees. Hey these are the same people that cruise around in $120,00 rides.

Reply to
Allan Martin

That's 120,000 dollar rides.

Reply to
Allan Martin

Having also just had to buy a copy of 2006 in order to keep using payroll. My comments are:

It is a con. But if you only have to upgrade every 2 years the annual cost is not great and who knows there may be some new features :- )

But as for the debate Sage vs QB. I use QB 2005 Pro, QB payroll, Sage L50 v12 and Instant Payroll. I don't think you can say one is "better" than the other. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I certainly curse the poor interface of Sage more often than I do QB. Lists that are hard to navigate, awful report writer, inability to display/edit a journal once it's posted, most reports dependent upon account/customer/product codes being in sequence to name but a few. But the fact that you can't change things has it's benefits and although the Sage report writer is awful you can create some useful reports. Sage departments are more useful than QB classes. It is probably quicker to enter lots of data in Sage. You can import data from a csv file which I find useful for budgetting (work out a monthly budget in Excel and import it) The default codes for nominals when entering supplier invoices are useful. QB's strengths are that it is so easy to do things and correcting mistakes is simplicity itself. The chart of accounts is not constrained by account numbers so you can add accounts and have as many levels in your P&L as you want. The interface with Excel is good and being able to drill down eg from the P&L to transactions is extremely useful. And also for VAT where I like to run through the VAT transactions before filing my return to make sure I have correctly assigned VAT. I like being able to reconcile any balance sheet account. The QB reports are extemely well thought out, things like P&L by month or Balance sheet by month are easy to do in QB.

But it's like any tool - there is generally a way to do what you want with it if you search.

And personally I have yet to crash QB but Sage is a different matter.

Mike

Reply to
Mike Scholl

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