After research, I decided to recommend QuickBooks pro 2012 to my lient. Had a chat with QuickBooks online-chat guy, he told me, for 3 users software, if we pay subscription £42 per month, we only can have one free upgrade, after that we need to pay full price for further upgrade and so on.
I'd like to find out how much do you pay? and what sort of service/upgrade you have? It's not expensive to start, but is there any catch in the future?
Many thanks!
-- Edited by Redcuffs on Friday 17th of February 2012 07:10:17 PM
If your paying a monthly subscription you would expect upgrades to be free.... forever... I say free, sorry, your paying for them...
They either want to sell you the software and you pay for it either immediately or by instalments in which case the single upgrade offer is acceptable or they give you a subscription in order to use the current version of their software with as many upgrades as needed to keep it current.
I can't use the expletive on line that I would use to a software company representative who tried this sort of bull on me.
__________________
Shaun
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I guess all the software are more or less simillar,so between Sage & Quickbooks, which one is cheaper & have better after-sale services? Which one has more 'catch' after you bought it?
QB is cheaper than Sage if you buy it outright rather than on the pay monthly basis. It also has the capability of 99 companies whereas Sage is only for 1 unless you pay megabucks more.
My client only want to buy one for her company with 3 users. They will use PO & Quotation a lot. They're looking for something can really handle this well.
If we buy QB outright, then we can't get upgrade or any helpdesk services, is it right? That's the impressing they gave to me when I talked to QB.
Buying the product you get free telephone support for 30 days. Then there is free online support at quickbooks.co.uk/support. I think you can also buy support.
This monthly direct debit is a complete and utter rip off, the sales team are trained to talk complete and utter bull. There is another post were I researched prices and went into detail about this: http://www.book-keepers.org.uk/t46772586/sage-v-qb/
Their support services are not worth the money, they are crap, crap, crap. I said that three times, because, really, I want to point out how crap they really are. Call centre staff read off help menus that you can view yourself, and when they do, on occasion, provide you with helpful advice, they invite you to complete a telephone survey on how well they have performed. You never get invited to complete this survey when they cannot help, which, believe me, is about 95% of the time, so according to QuickBooks, their call centre staff successfully answer questions 100% of the time!
Don't get me wrong, I use QB Pro 2012, and I really like the program, but the sales tactics and support services leave a lot to be desired.
Sage isn't much better. QuickBooks have an online UK forum which is far better for gaining advice, and it is free. The £42 per month option includes payroll, if your client does not have a lot of staff, I wouldn't recommend paying the extra £250 per year, buy QB outright and they could use Moneysoft or 12Pay for the payroll for under half the price. I use QB payroll for my payroll bureau only because I got the Pro 2012 with a year's payroll on ebay for £165, otherwise I would now be using an alternative package for payroll and jounalling the totals in. QB payroll has jumped from £99 per year to £250, which, call me tight (must be the Scottish blood) but I would not pay it.
One of my clients uses QB with payroll and has done since the 2006 version I think. She pays a monthly subscription which includes payroll and support and free upgrades. This monthly subscription has recently increased from £74.40 to £100.80 which is exorbitant (sp?). I have persuaded her to go over to Moneysoft payroll which I use at another client and she agreed that we should cancel the support (as she's now got me, she said!). She's upgraded the programme twice, once from 2006 to 2008 which caused no end of problems with the VAT (huge uncategorised amounts...which Intuit later admitted was a problem!) which is where I came in and again from 2008 to 2010 which fortunately went smoothly. A few months ago she received the 2012 upgrade, but she hasn't bothered upgrading as she is happy with 2010.
When I telephoned customer services today to cancel the subscription I got the usual Indian call centre...someone I could barely hear/understand and it was such a bad line that I could hear myself echoing in the background, which is really off-putting. He wanted to know the reason why I was cancelling, so I told him it was the price mainly (didn't mention the "crap, crap, crap" support). He proceeded to cancel the support and then told me that my payroll would no longer work and I wouldn't be able to run payroll year end!!! He didn't tell me that *before* I cancelled it. What I can't understand is *what* won't work? He then tried to sell me QB outright for something like £498 and would "throw in" payroll for £20? He carried on and on, getting me more and more confused and when I asked if he could put all this in an email for me so that I could present it to my client and we could make an informed decision, he said he couldn't until I placed an order and then he'd send me the details! (What?!)
Anyway, in the end I said I couldn't make any decision then, that I couldn't understand him and that I'd have to call back and put the phone down. I'm guessing that my client has been paying the subscription all this time and hasn't actually bought the software, just the licence to use it. Question is, now we've cancelled the subscription, is the software just going to stop working? Are we f***** ?
Like Mushroom I like the software itself, although I also use Sage and do prefer that, but the sales and support services are rubbish. (My opinion). If we were to purchase a copy of QB (not direct from Intuit) would we be able to have 3 users on it, or would we have to buy a 3 user licence?
I must say although I love QB the support is totally crap!!!!
They don't know their arse form their elbow and can't speak English!! They are a call centre, not bookkeepers, and its a big difference!
I don't use their payroll as its far too expensive, so I use 12 Pay. I bought my version from Amazon, and again I would buy an upgraded version from Amazon. You don't really need support once you have been using it for a while, and you can always come on here and ask questions.
I also use Sage, and once again I don't have their support, from memory when I did have it it was ok, but that was a long time ago.
Is the version you bought from Amazon a single user licence? My client would need a 3 user licence. I've had a quick look on Amazon and did find one with a 3 user licence.
I'm just worried that now we've cancelled the support and payroll package the software will stop working?
Yes mine is for 1 user. I worked somewhere once that had one user licence although they needed 3, they got away with it I think, but what they did was wrong and was queried by myself, QB and another manager, but some people just can't be told!
I don't know if it will stop working or not to be honest.
