QBO online is free??? boy am I a loser

[Strongsilence-CPA]

A new QB representative and I talked today, and he informed me that I could have QBO online for free. (I have been paying $30/month for about 18 months for my own bookkeeping.) He said that as an accountant, with clients who have bought QBO and have added me as an accountant, that Intuit allows me to have QBO for free for my own business bookkeeping (in exchange for the hopes that accountants will learn it and promote it to more businesses.)

!

I feel perplexed. Why did I miss this?  

Did you know about this free offer?

Was I bamboozled intentionally or just misinformed or just overwhelmed with information that I missed an email?

[IRonMaN]

I use Sage for our own business use.  Free QBO wouldn’t entice me to change.  If they wanted to pay me to use it I would think about it - depending on how much they were willing to pay me. 

[qbteachmt]

I have a couple of levels of QBO free, got various desktop free, and even have ProConnect Tax free. In the past, I also got Turbo Tax free. Since I used to teach Desktop, Intuit used to send boxes of disks for the quick start version for me to hand out in class, too. It really depends on your level of involvement with the products. I support integrating programmers as my clients; there's a Software Developer's Kit for QB and for Lacerte. None of this is "free" for me, though. It's a lot of time spent.

What you might want to explore is the QBO Accountant Portal. That's what you should be using as a sort of dashboard or umbrella for your use of these products in a centralized access point. Top center it shows "Accountant Tools" and "Go To QB" is a drop down for All Clients or My Company. Also, the menu on the left, starts with Your Practice, then My Clients, etc. If you aren't seeing this, you are missing a lot of great functions and easier ways to navigate.

You also qualify for some pricing support as well as being a sort of third-party reseller to your own client base. Some people don't like making a bit of money from their clients for the service, others like that extra $$.

[Strongsilence-CPA]

Thank you.

I would like to keep using QBO for my own practice accounting.  A sticking point seems to be that my current data can't be easily transferred to the QBO Accountant version.  The rep said something about people scamming QBO by signing up then transferring to the other portal, or something.... 

[Strongsilence-CPA]

I have concluded that Intuit failed to tell me (about the free offer). I feel cheated out of $1,000!!!

[IRonMaN]

I'm sure a check for $1,000 is already in the mail to you 😁

[Strongsilence-CPA]

Funny, but it hurts.  

[Taxes-by-Rocky]

After spending some time looking this past week, I can honestly say that I never thought it would become so difficult to purchase an accounting package...and I'm not just picking on Intuit.  I expect that level of difficulty with a large system for a large operation....but not for a small one.  The products, sales process and "everything is ala carte" is so over-engineered these days it has become ridiculous.

And to think we used to run fairly large organizations with basic g/l packages -- where debits and credits were the focus and a set of financial statements were the end goal.  Excel is looking better and better all the time.....otherwise, I'm going back to ledger cards.

"It's just a list" - Luca Pacioli