Program Updates

Goodbye to QuickBooks 2007 Support

It’s that time of year – Intuit’s annual “Sunset” of older versions of QuickBooks. If you are using QuickBooks 2007 then you won’t be able to use certain services after May 31st. I won’t editorialize on why this is done or if it is a good practice or not, I’ll just discuss what the impact will be on your business.

What will you lose?

  • QuickBooks email services
  • QuickBooks Merchant Service
  • Online Banking services
  • Online Billing services
  • Intuit based Bill Pay services
  • QuickBooks Payroll support
  • Support Plans and Services (some may extend beyond the May 31st date depending on your contract type and date)
  • Employee Organizer services

If you want a bit more detail about what services are dropped and how this may impact you, see this QuickBooks Tips and Trips article by Ruth Perryman. My thanks to Ruth for pointing out that we need to get the word out about this issue so that people have a chance to look for a good price on an updated program.

Your data is still good, you can still use the basic QuickBooks features, you just can’t use any Intuit based services that depend on an Intuit server or on-line feature.

What can you do? Your options are to continue using what you have, but without those services, or to upgrade to the newest version of QuickBooks. Many bulk retailers run specials on Pro periodically, so keep an eye out for those.

If You Decide To Upgrade

There is some good news if you do upgrade:

  • All of your QuickBooks data should convert easily (but make backup copies first).
  • Any properly written third-party add-on program should continue to work without any changes needed (my CCRSoftware products all do).
  • There are a number of new features that you could find beneficial

In general, I usually recommend upgrading to a supported version. Be careful if you do upgrade – please consider the following points:

  1. Make a backup copy of your company file using your current version of QuickBooks before installing a new version.
  2. You may want to consider using the “rebuild” function in the File/Utilities menu of your older version, to clean up the database a bit.
  3. Print current financial statements.
  4. Install the new program in a separate folder than your older copy – so you still have the old copy available along with the new copy.
  5. When you open your company file with the new program it will convert it to the 2010 format. You cannot change this back to 2007 (or any version older than 2010), which is why I recommend a backup copy before converting.
  6. Use the Automatic Update feature to update to the most current revision – a very important step.
  7. Examine the company file with the new version to see that all features are working. You may find that you have to changes some settings relating to emailing of invoices (etc). Also, print another set of financial statements and compare them with the ones you printed before converting.

If you find any problems you still have your older installation, you can restore the backup copy and continue to work with that until you determine what the problems were with conversion.

PLEASE NOTE that I am a very cautious person – most people won’t have problems. But a few do, and you don’t want to be stuck in a corner if you don’t take proper precautions.

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11 Comments

  • Yes, sorry I didn’t make that clear. This applies to:
    -QuickBooks 2007 for Windows
    -QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 7.0
    -Credit Card Processing Kit version 2
    -Invoice Manager 2007
    -Point Of Sale 6.0

  • Charlie,
    I am trying to set up a different company and am wondering how to export all the Item List to the new company. With that said, if there was a way to export, how can I delete the unwanted items in that list. Thank you in advance for all your help

    • Valerie, that is a bit off topic for this discussion. In general, you can use the IIF format. File/Utilities/Export/Lists to IIF. Then in the other company File/Utilities/Import/IIF Files. You can edit the IIF file before importing. I recommend making a backup copy of the targe file BEFORE the import, as imports can’t be un-done.

  • Charlie-
    We were under maintenance for Quickbooks Enterprise through version 9 bot not version 10. So we have the software for version 9 and apparently are being forced to upgrade from version 7. Are we ok with skipping 8 and going directly from 7 to 9 or is it best practice to install each version?
    Thanks for a great blog!

    • Matt, no need to go through 8. You can go to 9 from 7. BUT, make a backup of your file in 7 BEFORE you install 9, and install 9 in parallel to 7 (don’t use the same program folder) and leave 7 installed until you know that you have successfully converted your file. Just in case. You may want to run a “rebuild” of your company file in 7 prior to converting, that sometimes helps.

  • Charlie,
    Can you tell me whether or not there are other places that would offer the merchant services that Intuit currently provides that would integrate and continue to work with QuickBooks 2007 after Intuit discontinues those services with that version?

    Thank you,
    Laurie
    Portland OR

    • Laurie, there is no inherent reason why any merchant service provider would HAVE to stop when Intuit sunsets – that is a policy issue with Intuit themselves, not necessarily a programming issue. Therefore any third party integrator that provides merchant services should continue to work (unless they also decide to discontinue support). There are several merchant services providers available. I haven’t used any of them myself (yet), so I can’t necessarily endorse any of them. However, you may want to look at Nelix Transax at http://www.quickbookscreditcards.com/Home/QuickBooks_Credit_Card.asp. Note that they are an advertiser on this blog.

  • Hi Charlie-

    Well, I found your page after loading but not opening the company file. (upgraded from version 7 to 10 from disc today.)I did restart.

    We have NOT printed prior financial reports, and only have a portable backup file created from the previous version of the company file.

    Can you swiftly advise what next step should be?

    Thanks,

    Zola
    for Everglo Natural Veterinary Services
    holisticvetpetcare.net

    • Did you uninstall the 2007 program?

      9 times out of 10 the conversion works smoothly and you won’t have problems. If you do have problems, it should be very obvious, such as an error message or the conversion doesn’t complete. You have your current company (QBW) file, I assume – make a backup copy of that by just copying the QBW file to a CD. Then go ahead and open the company file and see what happens.

      You have the backup QBW file that you can restore if you find that there are problems…

  • Hi Charlie,

    Thanks: I had already started the new install, but was able to open 2007, rebuilt 3 times (needed that before it finally said ‘successfully’ backed up.) Thus, I did finally do a QBW backup and printed financial statements. I always do the portable backup.

    Now, I guess I am safe to try this 2010 opening. Need to locate that info about 64 bit system- how to find it that’s what this XP older computer has.

    thanks,
    Zola