Workshop - 2024 Features and 2021 Service Discontinuation
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Welcome to another Workshop Wednesday brought to you by schoolbookkeeping. com, where you can be the best bookkeeper that you can be, where it's casual conversations for serious workflows. And as you can tell, I'm flying solo today, so I apologize if there's any technical issues since I'm.
Kind of managing everything myself here. [00:01:00] But today we're going to be talking about the QuickBooks 2024 enhancements, as well as the QuickBooks 2021 service discontinuation. A couple things that happened this, around this time of year is The service discontinuation notices that start to come out.
I'm going to go ahead and share my screen over here and I've got the wrong thing. There we go. Okay. QuickBooks service discontinuation. This is a policy that happens [00:01:30] every May 31st. And typically what happens is QuickBooks has a policy. Which is the live support for the desktop versions is the current one, minus two.
So there's a little bit of a gap or a grace period, or overlap. There, that's the word that I'm looking for. An overlap, which is, they release new products in the fall of 2023, very similar to very [00:02:00] similar to the cars, right? Like car, new car models come out at the end of the prior year.
2023, 2024 comes out, right? When they launch 2023, that or launch 2024 in 2023 and then they don't discontinue the, 2020, 2023 comes out, right? When they launch 2022, that or launch 2024 in 2021 and then when they launch 2023 in 2022 they don't discontinue The older version the minus two years versions until the following May.
And the whole idea is that you're able to, wait until after tax season to, to [00:02:30] upgrade your QuickBooks desktop, right? What does service to continuation actually mean? There's a term called sunset, which is thrown out there in. In a banter back and forth between sunset and service discontinuation, I guess service discontinuation is the more technical term because sunset typically has this whole idea of, is going away right with QuickBooks.
2021 is it's interesting because this is the last year's version [00:03:00] that you could possibly be on QuickBooks desktop without a subscription. So there are some. Options there or differences there. But with 2022 and later, you're all on a, you're on a, an annual subscription for your desktop product.
So as long as you're with, you have an active subscription, you're entitled to the latest version. You just don't have to necessarily install it until that service [00:03:30] discontinuation actually happens in May 31st. So what does. It mean I have this article here. I'm going to share that as well in the chat, which I'll throw that in there.
Hi, Matt. Thanks for joining us today. Or as you are Facebook user but the service discontinuation policy is all around services, online services that are no longer going to be accessible in the oldest years version that is on the [00:04:00] discontinuation chopping block, right? The products that are affected here, we'll click and whoops, I'm on the wrong screen to make this bigger.
There we go. The products affected are Desktop Pro 2021 Premiere 2021 with all the industry specific versions, Enterprise Account Solutions 2021, the Premiere Accountant Edition 2021, Enterprise Accountant 2021, and Mac for desktop 2021. All of [00:04:30] these are on the service discontinuation as of may, May 31st, 2024.
Point of sale, we've talked about that in a prior workshop. As well as that's been October 3rd, 2024. This could actually be October 3rd, 2023, but I think that's a typo on their end. Because point of sale was discontinued last year, last October. Might be a typo there, but granted, two and, or three and four [00:05:00] are right next to each other.
And we are in the month of Chequuary, which is after the day, after the year flips over, you tend to write the wrong year. I'm certainly guilty of that as well. But what's really happening here is and there's some frequently asked questions here at the bottom of the article, but really what's the services that are going to be impacted here, right?
Assisted payroll, basic, standard, and enhanced payroll. So basically any payroll service after May [00:05:30] 31st of 2024, if you're using 2021's desktop version, you won't be able to get those payroll updates after that date. You can still run payroll, but it's only going to be on that tax table version that was the latest that was downloaded, right?
So until you get to the point of where you need to get a payroll update after that date, that's when it's going to conk on you. I guess it's the best way. Workers comp the payment service won't be available workforce the view my [00:06:00] paycheck you and your employees won't have access to QuickBooks workforce.
And then just basically payroll, you won't be able to automatically calculate your payroll taxes after that. Date credit card processing. So again another online service that's going to be tied to your quickbooks desktop Is payment processing won't work the merchant service deposit the reconciliation features of downloading those transactions inside a quickbook desktop recurring payments where you have to go online and set up [00:06:30] those recurring payments we'll download your recurring payments.
The payments will still happen. It just won't download them e invoices, so invoicing your invoices out of emailing your invoicing, yeah, can't say that, e mailing your invoices out of QuickBooks with a payment link on them won't be available. Other services your accountant copy transfer service, so if you're an accountant and you're using 2021, won't be able to send accountant [00:07:00] copies.
Do it using this service. You'll still be able to create an account and copy, but it will just have to be a file and you'll have to send that file to your account. Contributed reports. I don't know if anyone is using this, but you won't be able to use the feature of contributed reports. The multi currency exchange rate where you have to download the exchange rate if you're using multi the multi currency feature The other big one here is online banking you won't be able to download transactions send online [00:07:30] payments or online transfers inside of quickbooks 2021 and that also includes the qbo download the Being able to download a file from your bank the QBO or OFX file that you're downloading from your bank and then just clicking or opening that, importing that into QuickBooks, even though that's a file, it still has to go online to be able to validate the financial institution and that process won't [00:08:00] work.
Even if, if you're doing the bi directional of the Direct Connect. Or the web connect. Either one of those won't work. And then QuickBooks time, if you're using QuickBooks 2021 it won't be available. You can still synchronize with the web connector with regards to QuickBooks time.
So those are the features or those are the functions and services that are being discontinued. With that year's version of QuickBooks. Of course, there is a new year's version [00:08:30] every year. It remains to be seen what will happen this year, but history being what it is, hopefully is a predictor of the future, but we'll We shall see about that.
So with regards to QuickBooks 2024 there are some features to talk about when it comes to that. Your Pro and Plus, I'm sorry, your Pro and Premiere are not getting a whole lot of of new features in 2024, or haven't gotten a lot of new [00:09:00] features mostly this the online services that are available with regards to that.
If you look at this this article, which I'll post that in the comments as well. If I could do a little mouse surgery and copy and paste into the comments. There we go. You can take a look at that as well on the Firm of the Future blog. Security enhancements. They've gone from 1 28 encryption to 2 56 for all versions of QuickBooks.
So this [00:09:30] includes Pro Plus Premier, plus Accountant, plus and Enterprise. So all versions of QuickBooks Desktop 2024 have this security enhancements. Basically, if your if your file was was hijacked and somebody's got your QuickBooks company file it would take a lot to be able to hack into that file.
Now, of course, if they have your password, that's a different story, right? But if from the outside, without QuickBooks, without being able to log in, just [00:10:00] having the file itself, the. The file itself, the data encryption is virtually impenetrable with with 256. The download, I love this new buzzword that, that not just QuickBooks, but it seems like it's all around in QuickBooks this idea of seamless.
But they throw this word out a lot, right? It's seamless integration, seamless seamless. Updates in this particular case. So they've got background updates where all versions of [00:10:30] QuickBooks 2024 would present, previous releases, as it's saying here, would present interrupting pop up messages to update the software with no detailed information of what's been improved.
2024 still pops up with that message, but it actually tells you what's in the update, right? So you can find out there'll be a, there'll be a button in here, or let me see if I can make that a little bigger so we can see it. Again, you'll have a [00:11:00] link to find out what's in the update, but then you can also say, I'll do it later or install now right from there, which you can do today, but it's it's more of what's in the update.
You have to be in QuickBooks or be out of QuickBooks in order for the update to install. So the only time to really. Ask you about an update is when you're launching it Which is the last time that you as a desktop user probably want to install an update every desktop software gives you a little you know Hey, there's an update [00:11:30] and it's always at an inopportune time because hey I just want to open up to send an invoice or I just want to open up to Do my banking i'm going in to do a task.
I don't I didn't want to go into Update my QuickBooks. Trying to make it a little bit more forthcoming, right? And let, what did it, should you take that time to actually do that? Right now with Pro and Plus and Premier Plus and every version of QuickBooks you're going to get in the list search functionality enhancement which is these three lists, [00:12:00] Memorize Payroll, or Memorize Transactions Payroll Item List, and the Fixed Item List now have a search option.
Alright, so if I bring up my, I'm going to bring up my QuickBooks over here, which is on another machine you get this search for at the top. Now, in this is 2023, same list, Memorize Transaction List, I don't have a way to, to search for that, right? Now. In 2023, I have but [00:12:30] three Memorized Transactions as just a sample company, but if you have a list that has a lot of things in it, searching is super helpful.
The Payroll Item List, the Memorized Transaction List, and the Fixed Asset Item List will now have this search in front of it. Alright, so I'm going to turn that off and bring that back up. Alright. We talked about this before with Rachel on the prior workshop pre payment on sales orders. This is only in QuickBooks Enterprise.
Silver, [00:13:00] Gold, all the flavors and Accountant Edition will have this as an option. You can take those payments on sales orders. And and make those as a deposit. And then when you turn that sales order into an invoice, you can automatically apply the credit. And we walked through that with with Rachel a couple of weeks ago item category, I can't say it item categorization for multiple item types.
So before in QuickBooks enterprise, I [00:13:30] think it was only platinum edition. They, they had Item categories that you could associate with with your inventory items. Now it's to all types of items, right? You can categorize your items. Makes it a lot easier for things to or for you to find these items and you don't have to do this hierarchy of an item and then a sub item if you are trying to categorize your item list, right?
If you have a department like floor, flooring or Doors [00:14:00] or whatever you want to categorize, apparel, you've got different men's women's. So on and so forth. You can have up to 4 layers deep. I believe that yes, up to 4 levels. So you can categorize that way. But you'll also have the option to batch re categorize these things.
You can go through the, you'll have a categorization list, and I'll bring that up here, over here. [00:14:30] We've got, Category list now, and of course a little splash screen of what's new in the feature, but now when you get started, you can select all of these and you'll have a batch action of move to a different category, right?
So you can reclassify or categorize your item list. And you can see you can categorize services as well as inventory. Any item type is now eligible for categorization, and it doesn't have to [00:15:00] be on Enterprise Platinum Edition in order to do but it does need to be on Enterprise. So some flavor of Enterprise.
In order to have this item categorization feature. Alright, and then you can also do this from the add, edit, multiple list items being able to recategorize your items from there. Don't have to always do it from the category list, but there are some pretty nice features in here with the batch action, being able to do it right from here, you can create new [00:15:30] categories or just take that Take it over to the add edit multiple items add that category and just go down the list if you wanted to or do it in bulk, right?
It's very similar to Excel and then with enterprise I believe this is only going to be in platinum. They say it here silver gold and in platinum and diamond but lot number is an advanced inventory function. To be able to have a lot number [00:16:00] report is pretty challenging if you don't have advanced inventory turned on, right?
So it's super helpful to be able to track where your inventory is by lot number, right? So with that, I think I have, oh, I still have it. Oh, I'm showing it to you over here. See, this is why I needed another person, but. Here's the feature. Alright, got your inventory lot track [00:16:30] and reporting enhancements.
It says here in the article that it's silver, gold, platinum, but I believe it's only going to be a platinum. And it's really a report, a new report. So let me now turn it back on so I can show it to you. Over here on reports, in your inventory reports you now have this inventory stock status by lot number.
I went ahead and created a entered in a transaction by and chose the lot number. [00:17:00] This particular report does I got a little excited because it actually breaks down this particular item the windows, what is it? It's the brass hinges. Sorry. The brass hinges came in Cases, dozens, and eaches.
There's a multiple unit of measure set, and it shows all three of them here on this report. But I thought you'd be able to see related units on this report, which was, would be a really cool feature because it's something that QuickBooks Online or Desktop doesn't do.[00:17:30] If you buy something in but you're gonna be associating your base unit, all your reports are gonna show.
That item's quantity based off of the base unit. So in this case, it's each, right? So I have 240 eaches, which a case would be 24. That's the math that you tell it. And a dozen, of course, would be 12 of them. So it'd be cool to see your inventory in those related units. So you could say, Oh, I have 24 cases or [00:18:00] whatever the math is.
As opposed to the dozen, right? Or the each, showing it in your base unit of measure. But this report will show it by lot number. So it'll break down each of the each of your lots that you have and show the inventory stock status. Which is a really cool report to begin with.
You've got your quantity on hand, what's on sales order, what's available to sell. And what's promised for assembly. So you can see what the stock status [00:18:30] of that item is across the board there. And so now back to our other list here. The rest is all dealing with payroll. So they're not necessarily features of 2024.
But you are going to get them with with those features. You have to be using the payroll service in order to really take advantage of these as well. What this does here this employee center experience is very similar to something [00:19:00] in QuickBooks Online, where if you don't have, if you have something that's critically missing from the employee, you wouldn't know.
Until it comes to running payroll. Let's say you entered in an employee without a social security number, right? That's important to know and important to enter in inside of QuickBooks. So the center is going to warn you when some of those required or. Critical fields are missing.
So you'll have those little icons on the employee [00:19:30] center to be able to utilize that. Also, there is a integrated 401k for Enhanced Payroll Subscribers so of course, through guideline, I think it's the the 401k provider. A nice part about this is that it will allow you to schedule those payments to the to the 401k provider which typically is something that you would have to do manually, so if you have things like garnishments, other [00:20:00] liabilities that are being deducted from the employee's paycheck you still have to make those payments and initiate them manually and then tell QuickBooks about it.
If you're using the guideline 401k plan you can send those payments directly from within your QuickBooks. That's a new enhancement there and that's it, right? We get to the bottom of the, of this article and those are the features of this year's version of QuickBooks 2024.
Most of them are gonna be in [00:20:30] Enterprise because if you haven't noticed lately there has been a an alert which we talked about again when we, we did our deposit demo. We talked about that with with Rachel, that there is a stop selling date for U. S. subscribers for Pro and Premier, which is July 31st, 2024.
We'll set that article in here as well so that you have access to that. So basically this is a pretty interesting [00:21:00] year for QuickBooks Desktop as far as what is going to happen with QuickBooks. I am interested to see how this plays out. But it's it's definitely a nature or it is definitely intuitive is driving their own, steering their own ship in the direction that they want it to go with the encouragement of QuickBooks Online in the as their flagship product.
Now, desktop's not dead, yet but desktop isn't dead. At all, right? It's even if you're [00:21:30] still on Pro or Premiere, which the only way that you can get a new subscription of Pro and Premiere is call and talk to Intuit at the time, which of course is opening up the the door for a conversation about QuickBooks Online.
In the comparison, right? Which is is an interesting thing. But or to say the least, but QuickBooks Enterprises is not going anywhere. They've made no announcement about QuickBooks Enterprise. So that's going to be their flagship product. And in some cases that may be actually [00:22:00] be more.
cost effective than than Pro and Premier anyway. So it's always a good idea to evaluate all of your options when it comes to these triggering events of, oh gosh, I have to upgrade now because of service discontinuation or a stop sell announcement anything like that. But those are the enhancements in 2024.
And some announcements that have been made around the stop sell date and the service discontinuation. Thanks again for joining [00:22:30] us today on this this workshop Wednesday. And we appreciate you joining us and hopefully we'll see you again soon on the workshop.
