I have used QuickBooks Pro for about 8 years. The upgrade to the 2009 edition is the single worst upgrade ever. And trust me, I’ve submitted insane everyday-workflow bugs against the other older editions, so saying this is the worst is saying a lot.

Let’s articulate.

1) They have redesigned the transaction download screen. So far, I’ve yet to be able to find ANYONE who thinks it is an improvement. Read these three long forums and reviews for just a smattering of the loathing going on:
An Accountant’s Review, request for time-loss reimbursement
Intuit Community Post (got so long, they had to start a new one)
Intuit Community Posts about Online Banking feature destruction in 2009
And those are just the first Google Hits. There are hundreds.

2) So, an apology would be in order, right? And just restore the 2008 features, right? Nope. No can do according to “Greg Wright, the product manager for QuickBooks”.

“I care a lot about fixing the QuickBooks online banking feature so that it works as well as it used to. … I can’t go into details yet about what our plans are…”
You can find this quote in the forums.

3) The amazon.com rating has dropped so dramatically that Mr. Wright has reached out to customers, pleading for their patience in the form of a review.

4) I have sent Mr. Write a personal email outlining the 8 problems, including the ones in the Online Transactions window, in the latest R05 release. That’s right folks, there are 5 service releases for this 2009 app and we just rang in the new year 18 hours ago. And they still haven’t even addressed the bugs, and are still asking for our patience to get this screen back to it’s ’08 behavior. Wow.

I applaud Mr. Wright for replying, but he also better get the team coding/fixing/reverting. Mr. Wright noted “We have the developers working nights and weekends to fix this.” Maybe a quick subversion revert is all that’s needed guys.

Problem list, from 45 minutes of using it and 2 hours updating it:

1) A forced call in to activate? I am OK with DRM for licensing, but a forced call to try and be sold to all kinds of services that I don’t use feels very wrong. It took over 15 minutes of my very valuable time listening to a non-english speaking rep ask me non-sensical questions. I am patient with ESL folks, but one of the questions she kept repeating (I asked and wrote it down carefully so I could send it to you) was “And is role add what?” I tried three times, then eventually just replied, “None”. I have no idea what I was answering. She also kept asking me how my Christmas was. That’s nice once, but three times? Please, I am busy running a small business. Just give me my code and let me get on with business.

2) No way to disable Online services advertisement at login to the application. Only choices are Later and Sign Up. How about a Never button?

Online/Downloaded Transactions Screen–>

3) Can’t copy and paste between any text field in the transactions fields (with mouse right click or keyboard)

4) Billable — Can’t ever get it to stay checked. It flickers off a millisecond after I click it. It does this no matter how many times I click it.

5) Amount is not populated into the split. And I have to use split because that is the only way I can enter a Class. I have to tediously click the “Show Splits” option just to enter a class.

6) Can’t do a “Receive Payment from Customer” like I could in 2008. I have to go out and manually do that via the menus, then enter back in to the online transaction view (even worse since it requires all other screens to be closed)

7) Close all other windows? I’ve never had to do this in any previous version. This is an extremely odd step backwards, given that the new screen is otherwise a net loss of features. Perhaps I could have lived with this if the downloaded transactions screen was more feature-ful than ever before.

Have to click NOT AN EXPENSE to get the manual match screen? But it is an expense. So clicking on NOT AN EXPENSE makes no sense. I need a “Match Manually” link like we used to have in 2008.