Review (4/5): Desktop Pro 2019 works great; upgrading an existing payroll subscription is awful
Desktop Pro 2019 upgraded smoothly and easily with absolutely no issues. I began by backing up my QuickBooks desktop Pro 2018, and then began the installation process. It went smoothly and quickly and didn't take very long. I used the express installation which was recommended, and the whole thing was very easily done, retaining all of my previous settings and information.
The part that was awful was that I have an existing payroll subscription and had to call into tech-support to upgrade that portion of things. Luckily I was aware of this so when simply entering the information into QuickBooks didn't work, I knew that I was in for a phone call. About 45 minutes later of being on hold and trying to be up sold on QuickBooks online by an Indian tech-support person (hey guys, I just got desktop Pro 2019 upgraded, please don't sell me on QuickBooks online), I was good to go.
I think it's absolutely offensive that after you've purchased a software product like this they make you call in as a matter of course to activate. Anybody using this product is either being paid by the hour or runs a business and does not have that kind of spare time to sit around wasting on a process that should be 30 seconds of data entry.
I have multiple employees and so end up paying an additional 4 to 8 dollars per month for the subscription to add additional employees. It's another two dollars a month per employee after the first one. Also, be aware that the setting is set to subscribe you to an annual payroll subscription, which if done through QuickBooks will cost you about $420. Purchasing the new upgrade of desktop Pro 2019 with the payroll for a year costs less than that, so being automatically billed such a high amount for just the payroll is offensive and ridiculous.
I would really like QuickBooks as a company to reconsider how they deal with their payroll subscriptions and activation of payroll that has already been purchased, because this is a huge problem that is been garnering them poor reviews and lots of bad press for some time. I personally have considered many times changing to a more congenial company just to avoid this particular dance every single year. Do I pay $420 to avoid being on the phone for 45 minutes with somebody from India who act like I've done something terribly wrong by purchasing my payroll upgrade on Amazon along with the software upgrade? Or do I do as I have done most years and purchase the yearly upgrade that comes with the enhanced payroll.
As an FYI, the enhanced payroll really does make it very easy to run your quarterly reports and do your e-filing. I did it myself for many years, but now hand the file back and forth to my bookkeeper via email as a portable file.