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The QuickBooks Specialists

Has the Cancellation Policy For QuickBooks Online Edition Recently Changed?

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Yes. According to Intuit:

Effective September 16, 2010, all QuickBooks Online subscribers who cancel their service agreements will have their QuickBooks Online company data converted to a read-only format, which will remain accessible for 15 days from the date of cancellation. This change will impact customers activating new QuickBooks Online subscriptions, starting September 16, 2010, and will also apply retroactively to customers who have canceled their subscriptions since September 16, 2009. Before canceling a subscription, please have your clients export their data or save reports to their computers as needed for tax purposes.

Since most, if not all, Online Edition subscribers that cancel the service have probably just completed a successful export process, the impact of this change is negligible. Previous versions of the cancellation policy gave subscribers more leeway to solve problems discovered after canceling.

Under the new policy, it’s important to make canceling the service the last action you take. Be sure to record all transactions, export your data, and test the reliability of the exported data before canceling. Adequate testing may mean an extra month of service fees, but that price will seem cheap if you cancel and discover a problem with the data outside the 15 day window allowed under this new policy.

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Does QuickBooks 2011 Offer New Online Forms Customization Tools?

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Yes, beginning with QuickBooks 2011, users can take advantage of new online QuickBooks Forms Customization tools.

Methods to download and modify form templates available in earlier versions of QuickBooks are still available in QuickBooks 2011.

The new online tool is largely a vehicle to market Intuit’s forms that are un-related to accounting (such as business cards) and other services, such as purchasing a logo design by running a contest.

Access to the new tools can be found by opening the Templates window via the Lists->Templates menu selection and clicking on the Create Form Design… menu selection on the Templates button in the lower left corner of the window.

Here are screenshots of the first step of the forms design process and the Apply Design window to use a form design in QuickBooks:

QuickBooks 2011 Online Forms Customization
QuickBooks 2011 Online Forms Customization Apply Design Window

Users can edit and re-apply changes to forms customized using the online tool for a period of 30 days. After that period, any additional changes, including applying the form design to new form templates, will incur a fee of $4.99.

The new online forms customization tools don’t extend the capabilities of QuickBooks to customize forms. They simply provide a visual, online interface with a heavy dose of marketing for services that are unrelated to accounting software.

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What Is the Intuit Data Protect Service?

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Intuit Data Protect is a new extra-cost service introduced with QuickBooks 2011 and Enterprise Solutions 11.0 that allows users to back up data to Intuit’s secure servers. It replaces QuickBooks Online Back-up.

Current users of Online Back-up who upgrade to QuickBooks 2011 can continue to use that service or can cancel and sign up for Intuit Data Protect. New subscriptions will only be offered to Intuit Data Protect.

Online Back-up has storage-based limits of 5, 25, and 75 Gb. Intuit Data Protect offers 2 simplified tiers:

  • Backup QuickBooks company file data for $4.95/month
  • Backup any data on a PC up to a 100 Gb limit for $9.95/month

Users can keep up to 45 days of backups, but all backups over the 45 day period count toward the 100 Gb limit when backing up any data on a PC.

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What Is the QuickBooks Attached Documents Service?

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QuickBooks Attached Documents is a new extra-cost service introduced with QuickBooks 2011 and Enterprise Solutions 11.0 that allows users to attach documents to QuickBooks lists or transactions from within QuickBooks. It replaces the Document Management service introduced with QuickBooks 2010.

Versions of QuickBooks prior to QuickBooks 2010 don’t support attaching documents to list items or transactions from within the QuickBooks program itself.

The storage-based limits used by the older Document Management service have been replaced by limits on the number of items that can be attached to a list item or transaction. Users of the older Document Management service can continue to use that platform at pricing levels previously agreed to, even if they upgrade to QuickBooks 2011.

Pricing for the QuickBooks Attached Documents service is:

  • $9.95/month for 1 attachment per list item or transaction
  • $14.95/month for up to 5 attachments per list item or transaction
  • $19.95/month for unlimited attachments per list item or transaction

The principal advantage that Attached Documents provides is the direct integration from within the QuickBooks program. For example, a PDF copy of a vendor bill can be attached to the transaction that records the bill in QuickBooks. Documents are stored on Intuit’s secure servers and are accessible over the internet. For organizations conducting business in multiple locations or that need to exchange documents with an accountant, such as during an annual audit, the direct association of an attached file with an accounting transaction can provide significant productivity improvements because the association is made once and saved. Other storage systems, even cloud-based systems, require a user to independently maintain the linkage between a file name in a folder and an accounting transaction, something that becomes progressively harder with changes in personnel and increases in the number of filed documents.

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What Are the Service Changes For QuickBooks 2011?

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Starting with QuickBooks 2011 and Enterprise Solutions, Intuit has announced a variety of service changes. They are:

  1. New terms for exchanging Accountant’s Copy files using Intuit’s secure servers
  2. QuickBooks Email will disappear unless you’re an active subscriber to another Intuit supported service, such as QuickBooks payroll
  3. QuickBooks Attached Documents replaces Document Management
  4. Intuit Data Protect replaces QuickBooks Online Back-up
  5. New terms of use and extra fees for online forms customization
  6. Changes to the cancellation policy for QuickBooks Online Edition
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