Free QuickBooks Online: Illegal Competition, Very Stupid, Damaging Professional Accountants?

Let's Check in on Mike Block @ Quickbooks-Xero Blog.  Once again it appears Mr. Block is not pleased with Intuit as he writes:   Why pay for QuickBooks Online?

The best QuickBooks Online (QBO) is QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA), which is  free. In theory, it is free for accountants, who will bring in QBO clients at 50% off. However, you need not be a professional accountant, pass a test or have clients to get the best QBO free. Anyone can simply sign up for

Free QuickBooks Online Accountant here

According to Intuit, QBO Accountant is simple, intuitive and lightning fast (discover the power in real time client collaboration and anytime, anywhere access). You even get free tech support, which is how I know Intuit does not check to see if you are an accountant. Instead of giving friends 50% discounts, on only new QBO subscriptions, help them get their own forever-free QBO Accountant copy.

That is, get a free QBO if you want to waste your time and your friend’s time, while making it likely you will lose a friend. After all, we heard about the same QBO crap since 2005, and prior QBO versions made many prefer a root canal without anesthetic.

How do I know it is free?

I can give you three EXTRA free copies of QuickBooks Online Accountant, but you will want to change user names. I had a friend get them using these ridiculous names:

1. My 60 year-old dead dog

2. The words Very Stupid in his language

3. His four-year-old son

He also used a foreign address, from across the world, to get U.S. versions of QBO when QBO does not do foreign currency conversion. Did Intuit think he needed three QBO copies to track corruption, in U.S. dollars?

So, is this:

1. Illegal Predatory pricing?

2. Very stupid?

3. Damaging to professional accountants?

4. All the above?

Here is why we all should vote for All OF THE ABOVE.

1. Predatory pricing ”..may result in antitrust claims of monopolization… Businesses with dominant or substantial market shares are more vulnerable to antitrust claims.” Intuit repeatedly violates antitrust laws, as it did this with  Microsoft Accounting. It suddenly had free QuickBooks desktop Simple Start (until Microsoft gave up). It is hard to imagine a Microsoft making an antitrust claim against someone else,  but Intuit is now doing it AGAIN with Xero and Wave. Therefore, I will file an antitrust complaint. Intuit also has a new “exclusive Amex agreement,” so Amex entry tags also tag QBO entries. That will let me add Amex to the suit and give us local jurisdiction. Wanted: ONE south Florida Amex Open customer (free).

2. This is, of course, very stupid. Hundreds of thousands of QBO users can now get the best QBO for nothing. This could cost Intuit $100 million a year. You actually must be rather foolish to pay for a less capable version of QBO, if the best version is free.

3. This is also very damaging to professional accountants. Why should users go to accountants that want to give them 50% QBO discounts, when they can save 100% without the accountant.  After all, if a four-year old, a dead dog or very stupid person can save you money, then those charging more must be stealing from you. Therefore, why should users ever want accounting professionals if Intuit repeatedly severely damages and disregards them like this?

4. I recently listed 17 other ways that Intuit has been severely damages and disregarding users andprofessional accountants, which is something Xero never does. It is why professional accountants are now responsible for more than 2/3 of new Xero sales, cutting Xero marketing costs. It also is why Xero is growing about 3x faster than QuickBooks.

It took Intuit years of crooked stupid acts to antagonize so many of its friends, and to lose a near 95% monopoly, with two products, after 40 years. However, it is now very sad to see a company, which I once loved, act this way. Of course, Intuit is not really the same company, because its top people keep dumping good people in favor of cheaper ones.

That is why Intuit is still acts like it has yet to learn anything.