QuickBooks 2015- The Good, Bad and Ugly, Part 1
QuickBooks 2015 became available for purchase, beginning yesterday.
Most years I spend hours writing about the new features in the upcoming version – but this year has just gotten away from me and while I did beta test QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2015 – time has simply gotten away from me. Plus the fact that no matter how many notes, screenshots, and comparisons you make during beta testing; the final product is often quite different.
So what I’ve decided to do this year is a three part series called The Good, The Bad, and the UGLY and just highlight things in bullet points with a brief description. I may raise a few eyebrows over some to the things that I end up putting in each of the three categories, but so be it.
I’m going to start with the “ugly” things, because I feel some of the following items are just that – ugly. Ugly enough to make some people consider NOT upgrading to the 2015 product line because they will have a negative impact in one form or another.
QuickBooks 2015 – The Ugly
The following items pertain to QuickBooks Pro and Premier 2015 OR Enterprise 15.0.
- NO support for Windows XP – We all should have seen the writing on the wall back in July with the release of the R6 Maintenance Release for QuickBooks 2014 that produced an Error Connecting to the QuickBooks file when using 3rd party desktop software. Don’t even bother to “try” and install any of the QuickBooks 2015 product on a Windows XP machine, it won’t install – and it’s NOT a bug. Bite the bullet and buy a new computer, preferably a Windows 7 machine.
- NO support for Office 2003 – None of the Technical Specifications lists for any of the QuickBooks 2015 product say anything about integration with Office 2003. I don’t know for certain if you can still export reports Pfrom QuickBooks 2015 to Excel 2003 as I do not have Office 2003 installed anywhere any longer.
- Employee Organizer is no longer available in Enterprise – If you rely on Employee Organizer you just won’t find it in Enterprise 15.0, apparently Intuit’s provider of the regulates content has discontinued updates – this is the only thing I’ve seen and you can read it here – https://payroll.intuit.com/support/kb/2001733.html
- Sync Manager to be discontinued on March 1, 2016 – Intuit has told 3rd party software developers that the Sync Manager functionality built into current desktop versions of QuickBooks will be discontinued. As of yet, I have not heard about an alternate or substitute to the use of Sync Manager.
- Intuit PaymentNetwork no longer integrated/available in QuickBooks 2015 – If you utilize the Intuit PaymentNetwork (or IPN as it’s also called), you’ll find that it’s not an available option in QuickBooks 2015. Apparently you can still use IPN outside of QuickBooks to request payments, BUT you’ll need to manually add pay links to your emailed invoices and manually reconcile the deposits and fees. Here’s information on how to do this – https://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/SLN88182?rmid=31904_QBDTMangoEmail31Tier2plus_001&rrid=21854932
- Salesforce for QuickBooks to be discontinue on December 3, 2014 – Supposedly all current subscribers have been notified of this and there is a transition plan to move existing subscribers from the Intuit version to the full-fledged Salesforce subscription – see this FAQ for more information – https://salesforceforquickbooks.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203141840-About-Discontinuation-FAQ
So there you have the ugly about the latest release of QuickBooks 2015. If none of these items apply to you or your business then all is well.
Look for Part 2 – QuickBooks 2015, The Bad and Part 3 – QuickBooks 2015 – The Good later this week.
What do you think of these changes? Will any of them negatively impact your business or your clients business?
22 Responses to QuickBooks 2015- The Good, Bad and Ugly, Part 1
Nancy Smyth, Sunburst Software Solutions, Inc.QuickBooks Construction & Payroll Expert
I've been using and supporting QuickBooks products since the early 1990's. I've worked with thousands of contractors, assisting them with QuickBooks setup, Certified Payroll Reporting requirements, AIA Billing and Weighted-Average Overtime.
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Since converting to Enterprise 15.0 I can no longer filter by class on my reports. The field that used to allow this function comes up blank. Any one else having this issue?
Can you send me the for the other two parts … So far I’m should be ok with the Bad, just hate being forced to upgrade.
Thank you,
Hi Nancy, Just curious if you know of a possible non-QuickBooks software that would work like the employee organizer. I don’t have a problem entering the information into QB and then into my own organizer, I am just really frustrated that they took that away without warning. We are a small (53 employee) company and tracking raises and such was such a blessing with that program and now it’s in the notes of the employee but only the last entry that was made so I have no comparison. Thankfully I did keep a printed copy for each employee in my files beforehand or I’d be toast. Let me know when you can if you know of anything I can use. Thanks 🙂
If you haven’t already, I would suggest that contact QB support.
Maggie
The contractor version is one of the Premier versions – but yes, there is a contractor version – after the install when you start QB you would choose the Contractor version.
Is there going to be a contractor version available for 2015? All I have seen is Premier. Thanks!
Hi Nancy,
In terms of hardware, dedicated server, network, etc…we have everything above Intuit requirements. This issue start happening only with QBES 2015. It can happen with 2 or more users logged in. With 1 user using QBES – it works perfectly, no delay…but as soon as 2nd user will login and start working that’s where problem occurs. We even created brand new environment outside of our network…and issue still remains.
Data file is 177MB which is not consider to be big….Also, if it would be data – it would not matter how many users are logged in.
We did went directly to the server via multiple users with separate remote sessions and experienced the same issue…..
Vlad
Sorry for the late response. I’ve seen performance issues with QB caused by various things including the amount of memory on the server and/or workstation, a faulty network connection to the server, file size, number of concurrent users, etc.
The one thing that you didn’t mention was how many people were logged into the file at the same time when this happened. If this is a large data file and numerous people are logged in and working, then QuickBooks may be having a hard time keeping up.
If you go directly to the server does this same thing happen? Is it happening on all the workstations or just 1 or 2?
Lisa
Sorry for the late response. Did you ever find the checks? And if so, what did you do in order to find them?
Client using 2015. Entered and printed 38 checks. Checks printed correctly but only 4 checks appear in the checkbook register. The other 34 checks are no where to be found. Has anyone encountered a problem like this? I’ve been using QB for more years than I want to admit and never encountered such a problem.
I would like to ask if anyone experienced performance issues with QB Enterprise 2015 with company file hosted on dedicated server? Very often simple operation as clicking on “Vendors” or “Customers” will send QB client into “Not responding” mode for 3-4 minutes and freezes up any operation for another logged in user….Then 3-4minutes latter it will comeback with Vendors list but clicking somewhere else will repeat 4 minute wait….and issues for other users…We did resort all lists but that did not help….Please, advise.
I hear you. I guess they don’t understand that “Old people” are using the program. Thanks again.
Hi Kathryn
Unfortunately there isn’t any way to make the headings brighter or darker, this is the “new” look that Intuit feels is so much more modern! Makes me feel like I’m really loosing my vision.
Nancy, I just downloaded QB Premier Contractors 2015 and I noticed that all the headers on the write checks, enter bills, etc are extremely light. Is there anyway to brighten these items. I did go to the preferences tab and change the background colors, but have found no way to darken these items. Do you have any suggestions?
Stewart, I’m so sorry you’ve encountered this issues. I haven’t heard anything new. Keep after Intuit support, even though the time spent on the phone is painful.
This is pretty helpful. I am on the subscription service and my QB was updated to 2015 (Pro Plus) early October and since then it won’t consistently match up some credit card payments and has also, as you have heard, gone back to 2013 and 2012 and shows 69 different transactions as no longer matched. I haven’t reconciled October, my busiest month ever in 20 years as it turned out, waiting for them to fix it. Today started with a Merchant Services update that has not solved that problem … and from your post, it doesn’t look like it ever will be solved. It’s also unfortunate that after 2 hours on the phone in October and 3 hours on the phone 2 weeks ago, that they don’t seem to know there is no solution. It wasn’t until at the end of the 3 hour call that they realized it’s a known issue and they are working on it … https://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/articles/SLN88451. I am very unhappy but will proceed now to match payments manually. What in the heck are they thinking?
Patti
This has been a real deal breaker for many people and it’s my understanding the recent (this week) Maintenance Release 3 still doesn’t fix or correct this issue.
Thanks so much for reporting this info.
I’m so bummed that IPN payments won’t integrate in QB 2015. I really like the convenience of IPN and I’m not thrilled about having to do a work-around to continue to use it.
Karen I sympathize with the “if it works don’t fix it” attitude (most of the time I feel the same way myself) – but at some point we all have to bite the technology bullet and spend the money on systems that are supported. I see this as being an accident waiting to happen so to speak.
Nancy, thanks for another great article. We actually have a lot of users that use a dedicated machine for their QuickBooks that often times is Windows XP, uses older versions of office and is not connected to the internet. My guess is probably because it is working fine today they do not want to chance making any changes.
Thanks Frank. I really didn’t want to start with the “ugly” because there are several things that I think are improvements in the new version. But some of these items are just deal breakers for some folks.
I have also seen reports of when someone clicks on Merchant Service Deposits, it pulls in “unmatched deposits” going back to 2012 (even though they were previously reconciled) in the 2015 version.
Nancy, thanks for pointing out the ‘ugly’ highlights so clearly and distinctly. The IPN and Office 2003 issues were a surprise. Can’t wait to read the ‘bad’ and ‘good’ articles…