Introducing QuickBooks 2022 Desktop

Intuit has announced the QuickBooks 2022 desktop version (for the US). Here’s my quick impressions of what is new, and changed, for this year. This is just a quick summary with some opinion thrown in. I’ve not had a chance to actually play with all of these features in detail. Please note that I’m talking about the desktop versions for Microsoft Windows for most of this article – information on QuickBooks for Mac is found in a separate section below. None of this applies to QuickBooks Online.

If Intuit’s release schedule works as it has in the past, this might be released to the public in late October, or perhaps November.

QuickBooks 2022 Desktop Subscription Only!

One of the biggest changes this year is that Intuit is transitioning to a subscription-only model for QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, and Mac. I discussed this in my QuickBooks Desktop will be subscription only article earlier this month. In last year’s QuickBooks 2021 Desktop article I said that I thought it would be subscription-only very soon, based on what they did with that release. It also is something that I had predicted a number of years ago, although it took longer for them to get to this point than I expected.

From now on, the desktop versions will now be called Pro Plus, Premier Plus, and Mac Plus subscriptions. Add to that QuickBooks Accountant Plus, and of course QuickBooks Enterprise.

In a few years this will mean that I’ll be able to stop writing articles about versions of QuickBooks Desktop that are being retired! No more “sunset” woes after the 2021 product support is discontinued (probably in May 2024).

Another important change is that QuickBooks 2022 Desktop will only be available for 64 bit computers. That shouldn’t be a big issue, most people have moved to that kind of system (or should have). But you better check your hardware before you subscribe…

All QuickBooks 2022 Desktop Versions for Microsoft Windows

The following features will be available in all of the QuickBooks 2022 desktop versions for Microsoft Windows, including Pro, Premier, Accountant, and Enterprise.

New Features

• Upload vendor invoices via a mobile device: You can take a picture of a vendor bill with the QuickBooks Mobile app and it will create a vendor bill transaction in QuickBooks 2022 Desktop. You can also ask the vendor to email their invoices to your customized QuickBooks email account. I think that this can be useful if you get bills from smaller vendors, or lots of different vendors that you don’t work with regularly. The app has to decipher the picture to extract information – we’ll see how well it works. You’ll want to keep an eye on this if you use it, to make sure that they translate the scanned information correctly. Personally, I’m not sure how much of a time saver this will be, since I’m going to want to look at each imported bill to check translation accuracy. Perhaps, after auditing it for awhile, you may find that the accuracy is good enough for you to trust it. But I would still conduct spot-check audits! The photo is saved  in the “attach file” location, so it will be associated with the QuickBooks transaction, which helps. Note that this app won’t be available until October 12, 2021.
• Note that the ability to upload documents via QuickBooks Mobile to be stored in your QuickBooks file isn’t limited to vendor bills. You can upload any document that you take a picture of (see this video). Other than vendor bills, they won’t be scanned for content. This is just a convenient way to use QuickBooks to store documents captured on your smart phone.

Features for QuickBooks Payments

If you have a QuickBooks Payments account there are a couple of improvements that you might find useful. Keep in mind that this is an addon service that requires approval to use and that has associated fees.

• Request advance payments: For several years now we’ve had the ability to add a payment link to invoices, which allows customers to pay online using credit cards, ACH, and eChecks. Very useful! Now Intuit is adding the ability to send an advance request for money, which will come in as an unapplied customer credit in accounts receivable. This is a nice expansion of the QuickBooks Payments integration.
• Instant deposits: This actually isn’t a new feature, it was introduced in QuickBooks Desktop 2021 R5 (dang, I missed that!). If you are using QuickBooks Payments then your merchant payments can be instantly deposited into your business bank account. Unfortunately, there will be an additional fee for this, on top of your merchant account fees. For some people, speeding up cash flow can be vital. I’m just tired of all the fees that are involved with merchant accounts, which seem to be getting worse every year.

A side note on QuickBooks Payments – now that QuickBooks Desktop will be available by subscription only, you won’t lose your ability to use QuickBooks Payments when your QuickBooks product is retired! It won’t retire as long as you pay your subscription fee. That is one of the (few) pluses to the move to subscription, in my mind.

QuickBooks Assisted Payroll

I haven’t had to worry about payroll for a long, long time since I sold my prior software company, so I don’t have a strong opinion on these new features. Note that these changes apply only to QuickBooks Assisted Payroll subscriptions:

• Next Day Direct Deposit: This sounds interesting if you have a large payroll. You can process your payroll any time before 5:00 pm (PST) the day before payday. Funds will be debited from the bank account ON payday. This helps with cash flow. But make sure you read the disclaimers on the service before you decide to use it.
• Simplified Payroll Activation: Intuit has streamlined the setup process for QuickBooks Assisted Payroll. They say it takes fewer steps. Not a big deal, since you’ll only do this one time.

Improvements to Existing Features

• Customize Bill Payment Stubs: Intuit gives you a limited ability to edit the printed forms for some of the transactions in QuickBooks. Well, now they’ve gotten around to letting us edit bill payment stub templates, something that many people have been asking for. Finally! I’m not sure why this took so long. Consistent with other form templates in QuickBooks, you will find that this provides some simple modification, easy to do, but some folks will find that it doesn’t go far enough for their particular business. It is a good step forward.
• Send Forms to Multiple Contacts: A small improvement to the send forms feature. In a customer record you have the ability to add multiple email addresses, it has been there for many years. Now, in the Send Forms window, you have the ability to select any or all of these email addresses for the form you are sending. A small improvement but helpful. I wish they went further, though (as I often do). There should be a way to set a preference per customer as to which you would use, rather than having to set them customer by customer each time I send a form. Too easy to miss checking those boxes!

Worth Noting

• To improve security (so they say), Intuit has been requiring at least one log-in Intuit account to be able to access all features. This is not new with QuickBooks 2022, it is something that was released mid year with QuickBooks 2021. But if you are upgrading from an older version, don’t be surprised when you run into this. The Intuit account is free, it has been around for awhile, for most people it is just a minor annoyance. But, it is necessary to have this to use some of the special new features in QuickBooks 2022 Desktop, such as upload vendor invoices via a mobile device.
• QuickBooks Bill Pay powered by Melio: This really isn’t new in QuickBooks Desktop 2022, but Intuit always likes to announce these things when they release a new “year” of a product. They introduced this earlier this year in QuickBooks 2021. See my notes about it in my QuickBooks 2021 R6 post, and a video from Intuit.
• Webgility e-Commerce integration: I believe that the integration with Webgility has been available for awhile now, but the change in QuickBooks Desktop 2022 is that you can access this through the Company>My Company option in your QuickBooks menu bar (see Intuit’s web page on this). Webgility is a subscription based integration tool that will let you connect your QuickBooks file with online stores such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Big Commerce, Magneto, and others. It also will work with online marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, and Walmart.com. Add to that, it works with shipping providers such as UPS, FedEx, ShipStation, and Stamps.com. If you are selling online in several environments, but still using QuickBooks Desktop for your accounting, this is worth looking into. Just a note, though, pay attention to how many transactions these products actually post to your QuickBooks company file. If you sell a lot of items online, your QuickBooks file can become bloated with lots of transactions if you aren’t careful, and that can cause headaches. In addition, there will be an added fee to use this service.

QuickBooks Enterprise 22.0

It is no surprise that Intuit releases some features that are only found in the Enterprise product, usually in the Platinum and Diamond level subscriptions, as well as QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise Accountant 22.0.

New Features

• Accounts payable approval workflow: This new feature helps you define a bill approval workflow, something that is useful for the type of companies that would be using QuickBooks Enterprise. See this video overview from Intuit. It provides a dashboard that organizes vendor bills waiting for payment, and provides an email notification process to let people know that they have bills to approve. This is something that has been provided by a number of add-on software companies for an additional fee, such as Bill.com, for a number of years now. My first impression is that this is a lightweight feature when compared to the more comprehensive addon products, but on the other hand it is available at no additional cost. Interesting – this is the second improvement in QuickBooks Desktop 2022 that takes aim at those bill management addons…

What About QuickBooks Desktop Addon Programs?

Developers of third party addon programs(such as me) that use the QuickBooks SDK always hold our breath when a new release of QuickBooks Desktop comes out. Is this going to be the year where they break compatibility with QBSDK programs? It has happened in the past, at least for a short time, when bugs were introduced that affected our programs. But, with the move to 64-bit only, some of us were very worried that this would either be the end of QuickBooks Addons, or at the very least introduce a change that would force us to go through an expensive update.

This could be tricky! At the time I’m writing this, Intuit is saying that SOME addon products might not work with QuickBooks 2022 Desktop. The best I can say at this point is to check with the addon developer first, before installing QuickBooks 2022.

• Third party addons that are 32 bit apps (which should also be able to run on a 64 bit system in most cases) should be OK. For example, my own CCRSoftware addon products are running fine, based on a very quick test I performed.
• Third party addons that are 64 bit apps will, very possibly not work with QuickBooks 2022, at least not initially. Developers will need to reconfigure their program to either use a different programming approach (which could be complicated to switch to), or they will have to use an updated developer kit provided by Intuit. The problem is, at this moment, that developer kit has not been released by Intuit.

If you are technically inclined, here is a summary of how we believe things will work (until Intuit releases the update). This analysis is by Jeff Hamblin of Qtools Software:

• 32-bit QBXML Application: OK
• 32-bit QBFC Application: OK
• 64-bit QBXML Application: OK
• 64-bit QBFC Application: Not Yet

At this moment there is no word from Intuit about when that 64 bit developer kit will be available. But, note that some 64 bit apps may work without it. It all depends on how the third party app developer created their 64 bit program.

So, again, check with your third party addon developer on compatibility before you install QuickBooks 2022 Desktop

QuickBooks Desktop Mac Plus 2022

I don’t work with Mac products, so I can’t really say much about QuickBooks Desktop Mac Plus 2022. Here’s a short list of the new and/or improved features for that product, as I understand it:

• As with the Windows products, QuickBooks Desktop Mac Plus 2022 (phew, that it a long product title!) is now available only by subscription.
• Improved bank feeds.
• Receipt management, automating statement emails.
• Automatically send customer statements.
• Compatibility with legacy Intel processor based Macs, as well as the latest Apple Silicon processor based Macs.
• Create rule-based customer groups.
• Choose from multiple email contacts in the send email feature.
• Improved transaction management.
• Collapse report columns & rows.

For More Details…

For more detail on these new and improved features, along with some screen shots, I recommend that you see the Intuit product announcement. My friend Laura Madeira at ACS, Inc. has been writing these product announcements for Intuit for many years now, and I know that she spends a lot of time ferreting out the details of the new releases. Laura is one of the most outstanding QuickBooks training and troubleshooting experts in the USA!

What do YOU Think?

There was a time when the annual release of QuickBooks Desktop was a big thing, with lots of new features and improvements on existing ones. The list this year isn’t that big, which is the way that Intuit is going. Just a couple of new features in the desktop product itself, and a couple of improvements. Everything else revolves around fee-based Intuit services (Assisted Payroll, QuickBooks Payments) and integration with an third party online services (Melio, Webgility). This is the direction that Intuit said they would take several years ago, and they are being true to their word.

So, what do you think? Is this enough to keep you interested? Do you think that moving entirely to a subscription model in QuickBooks Pro and QuickBooks Premier makes sense? Are these new features and services something that you need? Leave a comment, let me know what you think!

Tags: Accountant Edition, Accounts Payable, ACH, Bill Payment, Melio, Payroll, QuickBooks 2022, QuickBooks Enterprise, QuickBooks for Mac, QuickBooks Mobile, QuickBooks Payments, SDK, Webgility

Category: QuickBooks 2022