I used the term because it is what they call it. Have been a Chief Technology Officer for over 30 years. Not opposed to AI (I am actually a Technical Advisor to an AI company), and understand things can get too cluttered visually. Problem is they don't know what they are doing from a customer perspective.

What I hate and what I used to fire UX designers over is that they trained the AI and designed the UI with apparently little to no understanding how businesses operate and that the workflow efficiency is 10x more important than visual appeal. Operational costs is one of the few levers I have as a business owner to control expenses. They are taking that lever away without understanding what they are doing.

I've already moved invoicing, purchase orders, payroll and inventory off of QBO to another package that is more geared to my industry. As soon as they add in the banking transaction/reconciliation piece then I will kick this app to the curb. That's on schedule for Q1 2026, but I'll likely give them a quarter to iron out the bugs.

QBO is making the transition from a business asset to a maintenance liability.

Having dealt with web design, and numerous google algorithm changes since 1994, it is clear to me that Intuit uses paid subscribers as captive click drivers.  More clicks means more google love, means more new customers.

It is never about helping you be more productive.

You sound extremely knowledgeable on IT matters, and intimately aware of the directions software has followed over the years.

I am an old project engineer with a mechanical background who became self-employed some 14 years ago. I was tasked with being on the actual implementation of software packages over the years, the last real package being part of the Y2K fiasco.

Now, I am the sole owner & employee of a customer service business: In terms of how some describe it, I eat what I kill, so I have to find the work, do the work, and get paid for the work. I am the marketing manager, the IT Manager (with an outside support group), the purchasing manager, the office manager, bookkeeper, and I empty the garbage can. 

Some of my projects may go on for years, some for an hour. Transitioning to a new bookkeeping platform, which is really all Quickbooks provides, would mean hours of training, converting my files, etc. 

I do hope to do a partial retirement in about 2 years, at that point, I may transition my business to simply using a spreadsheet and a check register like Quicken. AT my size, paying over $100 per month for a software package that is non-responsive to the customer needs makes no sense. 

That seems like an accurate assessment.  If you do not have too many GL accounts (QBO stupidly calls them "categories") and run under 100 transactions per month, a spreadsheet system is completely feasible.  When I started accounting back in 1988 that is how we did it with a couple  hundred transactions per month.  Of course separate sheets would be necessary to manage A/P & A/R.

There a ton of free or inexpensive add-ins for Excel that can do the basic accounting items especially at that low volume. If all you want is your basic PnL and Balance sheets and maybe some check reconciliation that isn't hard to do. Shoot, companies went years with a paper journal book of green and white striped paper.

My largest issue is time tracking, I probably average 4-6 time inputs per day. The number of CATEGORIES is probably 10-15 at most. As a non-CPA guy, I always wondered why Quickbooks departed from typical accounting jargon. 

I probably should look at some Excel apps to help, but I tend to want to understand what the Great Oz is doing behind the curtain, and so I may just create my own. I can probably use Quicken to keep my CPA happy on one side, I may have to start running parallel bookkeeping scenarios next year and see if they match. 

There are free and inexpensive phone apps for that.  You should be able to download the info to a CSV for import to a spreadsheet.

I am on the lookout for any product that handles my simple needs: generating recurring monthly invoices, calculating sales tax, and treating me like a human being and not a number.  Intuit obviously is not concerned with how any of us feel about being spammed inside of the software we are paying for.  This is not free software - it is paid software (actually quite expensively paid software that does not hesitate to increase prices every single year without fail).  I am a computer technician and I will eventually find the solution I seek.  As soon as I do, I assure you I will notify each and every one of my clients.  The modern corporate policy of treating customer service as if it is some outdated idea is unacceptable.

What the marketing geniuses at Quickbooks fail to realize is the reach of their customers. Many of you are IT professionals and your customers ask you who they should choose for a vendor. Quickbooks doesn't make your list of recommendations. 

I do a lot of mentoring. I work with a lot of people in small businesses. In the mid 2010s, 2011 to 2016, with my Quickbooks 2014 Desktop, I would have suggested Quickbooks as an option. Now, I strongly urge people to look for other options. Quickbooks is too much of a liability to suggest people adopt it. 

You should be able to accomplish those things easily with any office program (Libre Office for instance) with simple table references for various state sales taxes and macros for the invoicing.  You may have to initiate the invoicing macro monthly, but you might be able to get it to trigger with an @Today formula. Or you could just create and invoice, copy it 12 times and change the dates.

Zoho looks cheaper too...

Well, this afternoon I had to click about 5 different business feed reminders in order to eliminate them from my screen and reduce the space the business feed was wasting on my screen down to about 1" rather than almost 3" of wasted space. 

Thanks to Quickbooks for all your help making me less efficient. 

Intuit's latest and greatest scam is the new "forced update."  They have used the same css names for their most annoying popups and important functionality.  I used to be able to block some of their garbage with AdBlock.  Now doing so will basically shut you down.

Another clear statement that sales and income are much more important to them than your ability to get work done on their platform.

I'm nearly done moving off of quickbooks altogether. I'm down to just using it for matching bank transactions to POs, invoices and bills I already handle in another system. Pretty much down to basic bookkeeping and as soon as I find something that will work with that other package (it's pretty industry specific) I am out.

I've completely lost faith and trust in Quickbooks managing my money.

I need to find some time to figure out how to escape Quickbooks. Right now, my business is too brisk to allocate time to other solutions. In 2 years, when I go into a partial retirement mode, I believe I will be able to make the transition. 

I use Quickbooks for a few functions, one of which is nothing more than a check register. I can move those functions over to Quicken pretty easily. It's the time tracking and invoicing function that I may force into a simple Excel spreadsheet. 

So, today, Quickbooks has the audacity to have a popup  ask me if I would recommend Quickbooks to other potential customers, and after having to click to close out that screen, I then have to click to close 4 different windows to minimize the business feed so I can see a little bit of actual data on the screen as opposed to advertisements and wasted space. 

I got the same thing and I picked a 0 and wrote a full paragraph on the or two on the why. I doubt seriously that they care. The business feed is just an ongoing commercial for other services I don't need (which is why you can't turn it off) and very little of their automation works well enough to be useful. But, in the event someone is actually responsible for their NPS score maybe they might see it.

No, Intuit doesn't care.  If you notice, the pages that they've "reimagined" don't include the feedback button anymore, probably because they haven't gotten the accolades they were hoping for.  If the changes they've made do nothing but add extra steps to everything you need to accomplish and every keystroke opens another ad for an intuit product I have no intention of using, why the hell would I want to use AI functions created by the same dimwits?   Using QuickBooks has become a frustrating chore that is anything but quick.

Agreed.  Perhaps Intuit will stop the bait and switch and change the name "QuickBooks" to "Quick Sand" to more accurately describe the new experience.