Given Intuit’s normal “sunset” policies, that would indicate that QuickBooks for Mac will be discontinued in 2019. Update 3/1/2017: Just as I predicted, today Intuit told ProAdvisors that there will be no new version of QuickBooks for Mac on the desktop. The 2016 version is the last, and support will expire on May 31 2019. Jan 03, 2018 Services Discontinued for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise and Mac 2015. After May 31, 2018, you will no longer be able to use the following services if you are using one of the 2015 products (note that not all of these were available to Mac users). May 31, 2019 QuickBooks for Mac Discontinued, Advice from Oprah, and a New QuickBooks Offer. Mac No More QuickBooks Desktop for Mac 2016 will officially be the last version of the product available, according to Intuit. QuickBooks Desktop Pro and Premier will continue to be available, but Mac for QuickBooks will be discontinued.
Quickbooks for Mac 2012 @ $183.96 (you can get it cheaper on Amazon at $138 and you don't have to deal with their terrible customer service) Intuit Mac support free for one month and $19.95/month. Intuit will discontinue support and other relevant services related to QuickBooks 2015 Pro, Premier, Accountant, Mac and Point of Sale versions. Older versions are usually put to rest at the end of May each year. The QuickBooks 2015 version is scheduled to be discontinued on May 31, 2018.
Intuit has just announced the release of QuickBooks for Mac 2020. Initially this product will be rolled out to QuickBooks ProAdvisors with an Enterprise Software Bundle (that includes a license for QuickBooks for Mac). Not long after, current QuickBooks for Mac users will begin being notified about the availability of the initial release of the software (should they wish to purchase an upgrade for download). Soon thereafter, QuickBooks for Mac 2020 versions will begin appearing on retailers' shelves.
Insightful Accountant has had communications with Intuit personnel, including product managers and developers, concerning the new features so we can give you a glimpse into the new version. This article provides a synopsis of those features. This year I decided to post this QuickBooks for Mac summary separate from my 2020 QuickBooks (for Windows) Summarybecause I realize that most of our readers who ‘do Mac’ don’t have any interest regarding the Windows versions, or vice versa.
Insightful Accountant will however be including QuickBooks for Mac in our SeptemberQB Talks webinar scheduled for 2 PM Eastern on September 18, 2019 when we discuss all of the QuickBooks 2020 versions, so you may want to tune in for that webinar even though it does contain ‘Windows’ versions (sorry), there will be more information about that webinar in a future article. You can register HERE.
![Mac Mac](/uploads/1/3/3/9/133911179/101451792.jpg)
The New Look
Probably the biggest and brightest, or perhaps ‘darkest’ (depending on your perspective) change in my way of thinking is QuickBooks for Mac has ‘gone dark’ with compatibility to use the Dark Mode user interface found in the Mojave Operating System. It certainly gives QuickBooks for Mac an entirely different look that many QB-Mac users have been asking for.
×For 2020 QuickBooks for Mac has 'gone dark' (optional) with Mojave OS Dark Mode compatibility.
More Snap in the Snapshot
Who doesn’t love a dashboard? For 2020 QuickBooks for Mac has put even more visibility into the users business by providing clearer snapshots of the company in a centralized dashboard. Users can easily customize the layout by selecting or moving the various displayed widgets, changing the date ranges, and configure the types of graphics being displayed.
×Centralized Dashboard in QuickBooks for Mac 2020 gives you an enhanced company snapshot with more widgets, and customizable layout from which to choose.
iPhone Scanner Integration
Upload text searchable images from your iPhone/iPad to QuickBooks for Mac
QB-Mac-2020_iPhone2Mac_01_4x3-R
Most Apple lovers are indeed ‘Apple lovers’ that means they not only love their Macs they love their iPhones as well, and so they want they two of them to work together and that’s true even when it comes to QuickBooks. Well for 2020 these Apple lovers can now upload text searchable images from their iPhone cameras to QuickBooks for Mac. You can also add these images to your QuickBooks transactions via the ‘Attachments Center’ as long as you have everything set-up properly.
In order to use this feature the following configuration and settings must be operational: (1) you must be using the Mojave MacOS, (2) your iPhone must be using iOS 12 (or higher), (3) your Mac and iPhone must be on the same WIFI network or must be connected via Bluetooth, (4) you must be signed into iCloud on both your Mac and iPhone, (5) and you must have enabled two-factor identification.
When you take a Phone, say of a receipt, and press photo the phone will be saved in the QuickBooks Attachment Center. From there you can attach it to any document.
×User your iPhone camera to quickly scan in photographed bills, receipts, invoices, or other forms, then search them easily with new QB for Mac search features
As an alternative you can add attachments directly from a transaction by clicking on attachments, then clicking on the plus icon and selecting either your iPhone or iPad, then click on either scan docs or take photo for the appropriate device to open the camera on the device, when you press photo it will be saved as an attachment directly to that transaction.
By the way, this process uses OCR when attaching documents so as to make them searchable which is the next new feature.
Improved Search of Attached Images
Significant improvements have been made in the ability to search scanned PDF attachments for text. Because the new process is reliant upon the OCR being when attaching documents, they should be as high a resolution with a high a contrast as possible to make searching easier to insure that you find the information you are seeking.
×QuickBooks for Mac 2020 has enhanced text searchable image scanning, search scanned PDF images for specific text using integrated OCR functionality.
Note, if you are using either scanned images of, or searching for scanned images of Intuit Online Payroll documents, you must have Adobe Acrobat available, and Adobe Acrobat license is not included with your QuickBooks for Mac license. https://renewemporium353.weebly.com/flash-player-for-mac-1058.html.
Reporting Modernization
I remember several years back QuickBooks for Mac supposedly enhanced their reporting capabilities and the general consensus was that “they made it more like QuickBooks for Windows” when Mac users had hoped they would make it more like typical Mac reporting tools Numbers, or even 3rd party tools likes today’s Domo or Looker. Now we have another revision they are calling a ‘Modernization’ that promises improved customization, usability, presentation and navigation. Since I am not a regular QuickBooks for Mac user, I am not a good judge of these changes, you will need to decide for yourself.
So, let’s start by taking a look at the interface… one of the first things you will notice is that there are 3 tabs: options, filters and format. In detail reports you can search by the available columns.
×Modernized reporting with improved customization and real-time updates that show changes automatically
By the way, reports are self-refreshing now which means that they show changes to your data in real-time automatically.
The filters tab provides another location by which you can easily search for information you are needing, then build your report to express your report results.
×QuickBooks for Mac Modernized Reports mean refreshed reporting structure affording greater usability, easier navigation and better appearing presentation(s).
With the ‘format’ tab you can easily create customize reports by selecting and modifying the format style you want, and then saving your customizations to fonts or other design elements as a new custom format setup.
×The modernized reporting found in QuickBooks for Mac 2020 affords greater customization and formatting than ever before. Save your designs and use them over and over with your own customer format style.
So, you tell me, is this the kind of reporting modernization you have been looking for, or are you still expecting more from QuickBooks for Mac when it comes to reporting? Let us know by posting a reply in the comments below, we will pass them along to Intuit's QuickBooks for Mac Development Team.
Invoice e-Payments
This new feature allows QuickBooks for Mac users to send customers electronic invoices with online ACH, credit card or e-check payment options; however, it requires QuickBooks Payments service which is sole separately. Users can sign-up for the Payment Service via the in-product link.
×Send customers electronic invoices with online ACH, credit card or e-check payments using the new Invoice ePayments feature. (Requires QuickBooks Payments subscription, sold separately.)
Bounced Check Processing
This new feature allows you to easily deal with insufficient funds checks you have received from one of your customers as a payment for an invoice, while at the same time handling the bank fee(s) your were charged for the bounced check. You also have the option of charging your customer a fee for having to deal with their NSF check.
Quickbooks For Mac Reviews
You begin this process by locating the Customer Payment for which the NSF check was received and click the new 'Bounced Check'.
×For 2020 QuickBooks for Mac has a new Bounced Check feature that provides an efficient way to deal with NSF checks you have received as payments from a Customer.
You can then record the bank fee you were charged for the bounced check, along with the appropriate expense account you wish to use to record that fee (and any Class, optional), as well as any NSF handling fee you wish to charge your Customer for the inconvenience of having to deal with their bounced check.
×QB-Mac for 2020 does the work for you of properly posting all fees and reversing Customer payments when you experience a bounced check.
When you click Next, QuickBooks for Mac displays a summary window (as shown top of next page) of the actions it will take in response to the bounced check. In this example you wills see that QuickBooks will mark 2 previously paid invoices now as 'unpaid', post a previously deposited check in your checking account as 'returned', post a new 'bank service' fee for the NSF, and create a new Invoice to the customer for your NSF Charge for handling the bounced check.
×QB for Mac displays a summary of the various actions it will take in response to the bounced check feature prior to recording them, you can either choose to record or cancel the actions as appropriate.
Once you Record the actions QuickBooks for Mac displays the modified Customer record reflecting the entries that have been adjusted including the unpaid invoices, the journal entries recording reversing entries related to the transactions (as shown above), and the new fee invoice.
Remember, our companion article on QuickBooks Desktop 2020 can be found also in the headlines of today’s Insightful Accountant here and we will also be continuing our series on QuickBooks 2020 tomorrow with individual articles on the various QuickBooks Desktop features.
Editor's Acknowledgements
That about wraps up my article on QuickBooks for Mac 2020 but again I have to thank my friend Laura Madeira who has helped me remain consistent and accurate with my content this year by cross-checking it against her own resource. Mac dump trailer for sale. So, for the official Intuit version of “QuickBooks Desktop 2020 – What’s New and Improved” (which includes QuickBooks for Mac) written by Laura Madeira be certain to check out this Firm of the Future blog website.
https://renewemporium353.weebly.com/media-converters-for-mac.html. A special thanks to Brooks Bell with Intuit's QuickBooks for Mac team who provided content related information and resources used in the development of this article. Of course, there countless numbers of people on the Intuit Product Development teams that work on each of the various features to make the magic happen and too often we forget to say, thank you, so to all of them I say,'THANK YOU'!
As is their policy, Intuit has announced that they are discontinuing an older version of QuickBooks. If you are using QuickBooks 2016 (Windows and Mac) then you won’t be able to use certain services and features after May 31, 2019. Let’s see what the impact will be on your business.
For details beyond what I provide here see this Intuit support document on Intuit’s disco (discontinuation) policy.
What this means is that for the QuickBooks 2016 desktop products:
- QuickBooks 2016 will continue to work after this date, for basic accounting functions.
- Any service that relies on an Intuit server (such as desktop payroll, online banking, etc.) will no longer be functional in this release.
- Live technical support will no longer be available from Intuit.
- Intuit will not guarantee that you can register products or retrieve keycodes (although, in general I find that this hasn’t been an issue, for at least a few years following discontinuation).
- Intuit will not provide replacement CDs or manuals, although you can download older products.
- There will be no further updates to the program.
This applies to the following products:
- QuickBooks Pro 2016
- QuickBooks Premier 2016
- QuickBooks Desktop Accountant 2016
- QuickBooks for Mac 2016
- QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions V16
If loss of any of these services are a problem for your business, you can upgrade to a more current version to continue getting support.
Services Discontinued for QuickBooks Pro, Premier, Enterprise and Mac 2016
After May 31, 2018, you will no longer be able to use the following services if you are using one of the 2016 products (note that not all of these were available to Mac users):
- Basic, Standard, Enhanced or Assisted Payroll: After the cutoff, QuickBooks 2016 will no longer automatically calculate correct payroll taxes, provide updated forms, or send your payroll data.
- Worker’s Comp: You will no longer be able to process Worker’s Comp Payments through QuickBooks 2016.
- QuickBooks Workforce (formerly ViewMyPaycheck): You and your employees will no longer have access to QuickBooks Workforce.
- QuickBooks Merchant Services will no longer process credit card transactions through QuickBooks 2016, although you can still process outside of QB. You also will not be able to receive downloaded credit card information.
- Recurring Payments will no longer be downloaded
- Automatic Credit Card Billing will be discontinued. You won’t be able to download transactions, your customer profiles will be deleted, and you will not be able to access the data you entered there.
- eInvoice mailing will no longer be enabled.
- Intuit Check Solutions will no longer process transactions in QuickBooks 2016 (you can still process outside of QB).
- Live Technical Support will no longer be available. If you have an active QuickBooks Care Protection Plan, support will end when the plan is due for renewal (monthly, 90 day, or annual).
- Accountant’s Copy File Transfer (ACFT) service will no longer work with QuickBooks 2016.
- Multicurrency Exchange Rates will no longer be available for enabling or updating.
- Bill Pay will no longer be available.
- Online Backup will no longer be available when your support plan expires.
- Online Banking, such as downloading transactions or sending/receiving online payments, will no longer work. If you try, it will show you one of several different error messages (depending on your download method) if you attempt to download transactions, send online payments, or send online transfers. One example would be “QuickBooks is unable to verify the Financial Institution Information for this Download.”
Those are the services that Intuit specifically mentions, but I believe that there are other services not listed that will no longer work after the discontinuation date. Here’s list of the other services that I expect will not be provided for QuickBooks 2016 after the disco date, based on what we’ve seen in prior years:
- 1099: You might not be able to launch the 1099 Wizard. You still should be able to use an add-on 1099 e-filing service, though.
- Contributed Reports: You should not be able to contribute reports and you should not be able to access any new reports on that platform.
- QuickBooks email (the internal QuickBooks mail service for emailing invoices), which is generally associated with one of the services listed earlier, should no longer be available.
Third party add-on products should not be directly affected by this – but you should check with your vendor to see what their policy is.
What Should You Do?
If you are using QuickBooks, the standard answer is, “Now is the time to upgrade.”
There are four areas of concern when upgrading:
- What features have changed? Intuit is adding fewer new features every year, and moving from 2016 to 2019 isn’t going to be as traumatic a change as has occurred in some prior years. These articles can give you some idea of what to expect:
- Have system requirements changed? This might be a problem for some people. QuickBooks 2018 isn’t supported on all of the operating systems that QuickBooks 2016 worked on. Windows Vista, for example, is no longer supported. See this system requirements page for details.
- Converting your QuickBooks company file. Upgrading of your QuickBooks data should be relatively painless going from QB 2016 to 2019, although there can sometimes be problems. Before you install the upgrade, make sure you have a good backup of your company file. You should do a verify of the database before conversion, to see if there are any glitches. If there are, they can interfere with the conversion. We recommend that you work with a knowledgeable consultant in performing your upgrade so that you don’t lose any time in working out the details. However, essentially all you must do is to install the new program and open your old file with that new program. QuickBooks 2018 will handle the conversion automatically.
HOWEVER – keep in mind that your basic QuickBooks 2016 product will continue to work for your basic business needs as long as you aren’t relying on the services I listed.
If you are a QuickBooks consultant, you need to check with your clients so that they understand what will be changing in May. Don’t let them be surprised when things stop working – evaluate their needs and see if they will lose anything crucial to their operation. Keep in mind that sometimes upgrading to a new release takes a bit of time and effort. You want to make plans so that this can be done in an orderly fashion, rather than as a last-minute scramble when they find that things aren’t working right.
My recommendation would be to talk to clients about this now, to prepare them for the changes. From what I can see, there is no major reason to not upgrade to QuickBooks 2018 at this time. Don’t wait until May – if you run into any conversion problems (which can happen), you don’t want to have to deal with that in a hurry, as things like credit card processing stop working.
There are alternatives, of course:
Quickbooks Software For Mac
- Many of the discontinued services are available through other sources. There are payroll systems, merchant services systems, that will continue to work with older versions of QuickBooks.
- If you subscribe to the QuickBooks Pro Plus and QuickBooks Premier Plus programs, you are paying a monthly subscription fee, and therefore the latest version is available to you for no additional charge. Enterprise users are on a subscription plan, which provides an upgrade.
- Move to any online accounting product and you’ll (almost) always be using the most current version of that product. Unfortunately, this isn’t always a viable option for many desktop users, due to the smaller number of features currently provided by most online products.
What Do I Think?
Every year, when Intuit sunsets an older version of QuickBooks, we hear a great outcry over the practice. “How can Intuit disable the product that we bought?!”
I do have some sympathy for what Intuit is doing, but I don’t entirely agree with the policy when you look at the bigger picture.
While I do believe that it is appropriate for Intuit to discontinue support for older products, particularly with features that require an online services of some sort, I also believe that a software provider should make it relatively simple to upgrade your product to the latest version. This is where I think the Intuit policy fails. If you are using the older product and you must upgrade to the current product so that you can continue to use these services, Intuit should provide a low-cost upgrade path. Intuit does offer a small upgrade discount through the “disco” page, but it isn’t very big. I think that a reasonable upgrade pricing plan would resolve a lot of issues as far as I’m concerned. But I just don’t see Intuit doing that.
Category: General Tips, QuickBooks 2016