Intuit has announced that they will stop selling and supporting QuickBooks Desktop Point of Sale this year. It isn’t a surprise to me, as this product is over 20 years old and the product is built on some very, very old technology. In addition, I’m sure that modern point of sale systems from other providers have been overtaking this old, old product. It makes sense for Intuit, people looking for a point of sale system are unlikely to purchase this old style system, but I’m not sure if the change will be welcomed by existing users!
Discontinuing QuickBooks Point of Sale: Timeline
Here are some dates that Intuit has announced:
- Immediately: They don’t specifically say this, but I’m sure that they have already stopped development and bug fixes. In addition, I believe that they will no longer sell it to new customers, although that isn’t entirely clear when they will stop new sales, in the announcement. You can still purchase additional seats at this time, but why would you?
- February 28, 2023: Intuit will start announcing this decision to current users.
- October 3, 2023: Intuit will shut off all support and connected services
What this means is that in just over 7 months, the following services will stop working:
- QuickBooks Point of Sale Payments
- QuickBooks Point of Sale Gift Card Service
- Mobile Sync
- Store Exchange
- E-commerce integration with Webgility
- Support Plans including Live Support (phone, email, chat)
- Vendor Lookup Service
Note that since the QuickBooks Gift Card Service will be discontinued, after October 3 you cannot purchase additional cards. Any gift card used after that date would have to be manually redeemed, which sounds like a BIG hassle/problem to me.
What Can You Do?
What this means, for existing customers, is that you need to start planning on switching POS systems. This is a LOT of work, so you better start working on evaluating your options NOW. My apologies, I don’t have any recommendations, other than you should strongly consider working with a POS-knowledgeable business advisor who understands your particularly industry.
Intuit says that you can keep on using the program after October 3rd, but you won’t get any support after October 3, you won’t get any security updates, and all your payments/connected services and PIN Pad will stop working.
Intuit is referring customers to the Shopify Point of Sale solution, that integrates with QuickBooks Desktop. They refer to the integration with QuickBooks Desktop as an “early release”, which isn’t a term that gives me a lot of confidence (although Shopify itself is a well established system). There are tools available to move your data over to the Shopify system.
For more information, see the Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale Discontinuation page.