The "Quickbooks Team" response is unacceptable.  I agree with the other responses that Quickbooks is trying to get something they are not entitled to for their sole benefit.  I have used the edit suggestion to stop this popup.  Earlier, I right clicked on the title bar and selected "close" and the popup disappeared.  But I had to do this every time.  Now I do not have to do anything.

You can close this stupid popup:
At the top of the popup there is a dark colored bar that says "Intuit Account"

Right click on it and select "close"

Then another message will pop up asking if you're sure. Hit "cancel".

I have QuickBooks 2021 desktop. As of 2/2023, "Don't allow any applications to access this company file" is under Edit, Preferences, My Preferences, Integrated Applications. Unfortunately, having it checked hasn't done me any good. It still prompts for me to login to my Intuit account frequently - feels like every time I open my company file.

I am yet again angered by QuickBooks Desktop 2019 requirement to "sign in to your Intuit Account". My usual gripe is that such action provides ZERO benefit to me and I totally reject the cover-up claim that it provides "Better control and protection of data".

My specific complaint this time is with yet another instance of the sign-in dialogue being non-functional. After filling in my account ID (because I am forced to do so), I clicked the Continue button . . . and nothing happens. I can see the button depressing when I press the mouse button, but the screen does not change.

The dialog offers only two other controls. One is a grayed-out Cancel button which also does nothing. The other is a link to "Why do you need an Intuit Account?". At least the latter does something, although it's laughably useless. Clicking the link opens Internet Explorer. Yes, you got it: IE 11 which Microsoft "retired and is officially out of support" as of June 15, 2022. Intuit even acknowledges this fact; the screen that was supposed to tell me why I needed an account reads "For Security, Intuit does not support this browser".

I am familiar with this nonesense as a result of my first joining this robust and on-going complaint thread several years ago. At that time and after MUCH nonsensical, misdirective, and patronizing advice from The Intuit Team, I learned that the problem could be resolved by clearing the IE cache. This was the only useful response I received from the corporate experts.

Returning to now a because this sign-in dialog is modal, the only recourse I have at this point is to kill QuicBooks with Task Manager. (Oh, yeah, while QuickBooks is sitting there with its login screen open, Task Manager reports that it's consuming 75 - 100% of my CPU!!)

Upon restarting QuickBooks, it puts up a dialog titled "Internet Security Levels Are Set Too High" -- there's that IE thing again -- and opens an IE dialog to manage Inernet Properties. I reset the properties to Default and QuickBooks eventually allowed me to open the company file with no further incident.

After two hours of aggravation and stomach acid, I have three requests of Intuit:

1. Completely remove from QuickBooks 2019 any usages or references to Internet Explorer. (And don't give me any crap about buying a current version.)

2. Remove the requirement for logging into my Intuit Account. Because I make no use of ANY Internet services, it provides me no benefit and only serves to allow Intuit to monitor my activity, which is none of its goddam business.

3. Cease with the "I'm here to help" attitude of your online response team. Whenever I see that, I conclude immediately that the responder is completely lacking in knowledge of how to help with my problem.

I would close with "thank you very much", but I have no confidence that Intuit will pursue any of these requests.

HELLO QB management!  What do you have to say about this reoccurring problem?  Any "advice" I get from Intuit is is useless.  

You are absolutely correct! It's becoming ridiculous! 

Oh mercy! QuickBooks asked me to do a survey and offer feed back!!! They picked the WRONG person.  I used block caps and was QUITE blunt about it. 

I am Tbone and have tried many ways to get around this issue. Next time it pops up, click on the option that you are NOT the administrator and it will then say it will remind you in 14 days and let you go on about your business.

The other thing you can do is make sure you are not connected to the internet when you open the file. It doesn't usually ask for anything if it doesn't see a connection. I just do the previous thing now and so far so good.

I thought I posted this already but then it made me sign in.

I am Tbone from the original post. I found that if when the pop up shows itself, pick the side that says you are NOT the administrator and it will then say it will remind you in 14 days and let you go about your business.

I found that if you disconnect from the internet when you open the program that it seems not to pop up because it senses the lack of a connection.

I have the Premier Accountant's Edition so that's what I always do, but I'm just tired of even having to do that.  It doesn't wait 14 days, though. It asks me every time I open it, but you're right, it's one way of dealing with it. 

I was so excited to see a possible solution, but it isn't working for me.  When I follow those steps and then reopen the internet connection setup, it keeps defaulting back to use my computer's internet connection settings to establish a connection. 

I'm unable to have the no internet connection checked box save. 

Wonder if they've already figured out how to block this workaround?

BEWARE of the New Update for Quickbooks 2020. 

Quickbooks 2020 Update Page 

Do you mean the end of life warning messages? Or what is the warning?
If you do not update... will those features stop anyway?

/Mike

I know I'm not updating.

I tried to avoid the update, even though I know the program will stop updating payroll tax tables, but after the fifth time of opening the program, I HAD to install the update or it wouldn't open QB 2020.  I have 2022 and 2021 and haven't downloaded 2023 yet.  I really hate this update every rotten year crap. 

We all so need another program to replace QB.  When a company fills that niche QB will be left wondering why they no longer have customers!  They are IDIOTS!

I have a customer switching to Microsoft Business Central. So this IS affecting Intuit sales. They are not the only option available.  I hope someone is actually listening.

I HATE this option! We are adults, stop treating us like children! We already have security by logging in, we don't want to go to INTUIT!

Now I can't get into my account, and I'm extremely frustrated. 

I hate this about QuickBooks. Remove this stupid option, we'll go to our intuit accounts when and if we need to, please stop treating us like children.

A question often asked on this thread is whether there is an alternative to Quickbooks. As far as I can tell there are alternatives, but only if one is willing to go to a cloud based alternative. In fact the reason that Intuit snuck in the onerous "log into Intuit" in the desktop apps is to force users to upgrade to their cloud based subscription service. It's not hard to understand given that many of us paid once for the desktop version and can use it forever at no additional cost. In the past my approach was to only upgrade my desktop version every 3 years. I did that primarily to be sure that the new version could import the files created in the old version. The principals of accounting haven't changed for a hundred years so the only reason to do annual updates, and thus providing Intuit with a continued revenue stream was if one was using the payroll function and needed to have that latest tax tables. The format for 1099's also changed from time to time but unless one had a large number of those there was little reason to upgrade QB just for that. 

Fortunately I'm soon to be preparing the final files for my several companies and retiring so I don't really care much what Intuit does. But, for those looking for a replacement, albiet one that is cloud based, I came across Freshbooks which seems to be a decent replacement and in the same cost range as a QB cloud subscription. Not a stand alone, but the momentum is shifting to subscription based systems anyway.

Just a semi-final thought. Good luck to all!

I've stuck with Quickbooks Desktop (in my case, for Mac) mostly because I enjoy the speed of it compared to internet-based offerings. I've tested out Quickbooks Online (and Xero - another popular alternative) a few times over the past ten years, but just don't like browser-based interfaces.

But I've upgraded pretty much every year to the new Quickbooks for Mac - mostly because the OS of our office machines is also constantly being upgraded (which all else being equal is a good thing security-wise) and older versions of QB stop working so well under newer OS updates...

LLuck2,

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement.  You have been doing what many of us have been doing.  I still use a 2016 desktop version because I don't need bank feeds or payroll.

I had a friend ask me the other day to come over and give him some tips on Q Books.  He was using Q Books Online.  It is soooo different than the desktop version.  It was almost like re-learning a whole new software.  It about drove me nuts.  Fortunately, all the basic principles and functions are there, so one could get used to it if they haven't grown up on the much more familiar desktop version.

The reality is that even if someone developed a new software today to compete with QB, they would most likely do the same thing as every else and offer cloud based subscription only.  I get the feeling that stand alone software, like many other things, will soon become extinct as our generation eventually slips away to various happy hunting grounds.

Museum Guide: "And over here, young students, you can see a piece of software that you could actually run and use without ever needing to hook up to the web!"

Students: "Wow, they used to run a computer without the web?  All by itself?"

Museum Guide: "Yes, they really used to have such a thing!  I remember my grandparents thought it was the greatest thing ever.  They couldn't ever get used to this 'internet' thing.  We had to actually go to their house and talk to them face to face to show them how to do anything.  Just imagine...."

I just wanted to thank you for your post:)  It's important for all of us small businesses to figure out how to absorb the growing number of online services we have to pay for.

We need to find ways to bring in more business!

Good Luck to you too, and enjoy retirement:)

As a (mostly ex) software developer... the 'software as a service' (SAAS) model has been inevitable for a long time.  Nobody can blame developers for moving to subscriptions in an age where quality, security and regulatory compliance require nearly constant code management and updates.  The problem is nobody running Quickbooks Desktop signed up for SAAS and it was scummy for Intuit to use underhanded methods to drag resistant customers to the new model while repeatedly and blatantly lying about the reason. 

For whatever it's worth, I have been looking at GnuCash(.org), a volunteer maintained, "freely licensed" accounting package that is bold enough to make its source code publicly available. Originally developed to offer features similar to Quicken, it has grown to support a number of commercial accounting requirements. Available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. All data are stored locally, no cloud nonsense (or exposure). Must be doing something right because they've been around since 1998.

My primary reservation concerns the transition. I could take the cold-turkey approach and begin afresh with 1/1/2023, re-entering transactions to reconstruct the year to date. But being a data junkie, I'm reluctant to give up all that juicy past history. Haven't found a slam-dunk way to export data from QuickBooks in a manner that I could import into GnuCash. Thus, my hesitancy. Thanks, Intuit . . . for nothing.