"A mere 30 days notice via email is not enough time for small business owners to evaluate rival accounting software and make the switch, so it's either pay up now or watch your business suffer."Ī range of software makers are pushing hard to move customers onto subscription services - such as Microsoft's Office 365 or Adobe's Creative Cloud - rather than sell one-off copies, but Gnieslaw says "not even Microsoft has the gall to remotely kill everyone's old outright copy of Word, so they're forced to hand over more money.
"This customer was forced to upgrade under duress to keep their business running, as once deactivated the software is in an unusable state to actually run a business until the ransom is paid," Gnieslaw says.
One small business customer purchased QuickBooks Pro outright for $735 in 2014, but is now expected to pay $710 per year with - "after much haggling" - a 50 per cent discount for the first three years.Īs the "Pro" version has been discontinued, the customer was forced to upgrade to the more expensive "Premier" subscription, rather than being permitted to downgrade to the cheaper "Accounting" subscription which would have met their needs. Like Holden coming around to your house and ripping the engine out of your perfectly good car, just because it's out of warranty. Simon Gnieslaw, a Melbourne-based IT consultant who assists small businesses with their accounting software, says his customers have been caught out by Reckon's changes. Rival accounting software maker MYOB also recently ceased support for some older versions of its software, but has not taken away the right for customers to continue using the software.
By "discontinue", Reckon means deactivate.
Reckon has updated its terms and conditions for long-time QuickBooks and Reckon Accounts users to give it the right to "discontinue the software upon giving you at least 30 days' prior written notice, in which event Reckon will offer you an alternative version of the software on commercial terms". Once warned their accounting software is set to be crippled in weeks, these business owners are forced to upgrade - or abandon Reckon in favour of a rival - in order to keep running their business.