Anyone have current experience with the use of Quickbooks Online?

As of April of 2011, it was horrible (I assume the Online is their SaaS product), but so were several of QB's competitors that I looked at... Zoho and one other whose name blissfully escapes me...

I won't even take on a client unless they are using Quickbooks online, are willing to be converted to Quickbooks online or are using some other online accounting solution like Xero or Financialforce.com. So all of my clients are either using Quickbooks online or are being converted to a "cloud" accounting solution. The only time I experience issues with Quickbooks online is when the internet connection is slow or weak, or when the app is opened in an older browser version, or in a "not fully supported" browser like Chrome. The biggest frustration with many SaaS apps right now - NOT just accounting apps but for any solution used by companies across many industries - is that developers have not yet figured out that massive numbers of people have moved to Chrome and are not using IE!

With regard to multi-tasking I would say that yes, it is still frustrating that a user needs to move completely out of bank recons to add transactions in the register and then go back to recons, for example, but the ease and convenience of being able to work from anywhere at any time in real time more than compensates for the single screen user experience while working in the app. My understanding is that multi-screen functionality is on the product roadmap soon in any case.

In summary my experience working with SaaS accounting solutions exclusively over the past 3 years has been such a profound game-changer for so many companies I would never go back to a desktop, client-server or non-mobile application environment again. Startups and SMBs in particular are putting themselves at a disadvantage these days if they don't look at cloud-based solutions first before any other options.

Loved the idea of cloud accounting, but it's an expensive, horrible mid-90's mess. Would love to find another solution. Dumped QBO for Mac Quickbooks, and it's also a mess. Why is accounting software so bad?

The functionality of QBO is not as robust as QB Pro used locally, however, I have been able to set up QB hosted elsewhere and I've had the best of both worlds that way. I used Right Networks and it worked out perfectly.

I have used both, and as Howard points out, QBO is not near as robust as QB Pro, what I currently work on. To get around the online availability issue, we have setup remote access. I can work from anywhere through my access without having to move to the online version. Working with your IT department, you could setup current employees as such if you are looking for that flexibility, however, the online version would be a better option if you have a 3rd party handling your bookkeeping, or if you can afford moving to cloud accounting.

It sucks! Stay away from it.

I'm belatedly noting this post and wanted to add my two cents here. After being a heavy QB desktop user for years, I have recently converted a couple of smaller clients to QBO. As a proficient user of shortcut keys with the desktop version, I have definitely found QBO to be slower to navigate as noted in other posts.

On the plus side, it is far better for multiple remote users. It also easily integrates with your bank/credit card activity and imports for easy posting to the journal. I also found one of the importer apps to be pretty easy for importing large amounts of data manually.

Finally, for those used to having many QB windows open in the desktop version, click on your browser tab in QBO and select the "duplicate tab" option. You can have many multiple QB tabs open at once just like multiple windows in desktop. Hit "control" + "page up/down" to quickly navigate between them.

I'm considering converting a larger client with extensive historical activity so would be curious to hear if any users have done the same and if all went fine or if they encountered any problems/challenges...

I'm always amazed how everyone takes one software product (and an accounting system at that) and fits every conceivable industry and/or company type into it, just because it is inexpensive.

There is something just wrong with that model. It's like making everyone right-handed, regardless of what is normal and comfortable for a person (and left handed people are still being discriminated; I'm ambidextrous and finding readily available left handed golf clubs or a baseball glove is not easy).

So why should everyone fit into QB?

Didn't find QBO to be that bad. Of course it is not the same as QB Enterprise! Haven't used the latest version, having moved to MS Great Plains.