Intuit has created a catch 22 that can only be resolved with professional help. The good news is they’ll help you. The bad news is you might have to pay for it.
Suppose you’ve been using Quickbooks Online and have decided that you would like to switch to the Desktop Edition for whatever reason. No problem. Just google how to export your Quickbooks Online data to the desktop edition. Google’s quick result article tells you just how to do it. Except the instructions don’t work. Bad Google.
So you go into Quickbooks Online and search “Export data to desktop” and you’ll find an article that has better instructions. You need Internet Explorer. But I’m on a Mac. <sigh>
So I find a Windows machine so I can run Internet Explorer. I get the login screen and I try to login. It just spins and spins. So I Google “can’t login to Quickbooks Online with Internet Explorer.” I find this:
Ugh. So I call tech support and ask them what to do. They recommend I install IE 10. You know, the version that was replaced over three years ago.
Except when i try to install IE 10 it says it won’t install. Maybe I need to uninstall 11 first, right? Well, it doesn’t show up in the “Uninstall Software” dialogue.
So they require me to use a piece of software then tell me that’s not the best software to use. Just wonderful.
I’m on hold right now. They tell me that because I’m in this catch 22, they’ll do the full service export for free. Except that now I’m being grilled and being told that it should work. Except it doesn’t. And your own site says it doesn’t.
So…
Written by W. Curtis Preston (@wcpreston), four-time O'Reilly author, and host of The Backup Wrap-up podcast. I am now the Technology Evangelist at Sullivan Strickler, which helps companies manage their legacy data
Over 15 months since your last blog post and I get a QuickBooks post! Boo.. Good to see you post again though!