*A few years ago when Intuit presented an opportunity to host QuickBooks Desktop editions on third-party infrastructure and servers, companies like Apps4Rent hopped on to the bandwagon to add value to businesses by offering services like QuickBooks Enterprise hosting.
This gives businesses unparalleled mobility, security, disaster management capabilities, and remote access that was thus far restricted to the cloud computing model. The improvement in software capability and delivery technology has resulted in the rise of subscription service models. This, in turn, has changed the way QuickBooks is delivered and used. Yet, one thing has remained constant. QuickBooks Desktop is best used in combination with Microsoft Office. Indeed, many hosted QuickBooks users also opt for Office 365 migration.
While QuickBooks handles a range of business applications smoothly, it works better to simplify tasks like reporting when used with other software like Excel that is available in plans like Office 365 ProPlus. While Excel can handle reporting, Word can be used for customizing letters and outlook for emailing invoices. QuickBooks users certainly have a fair degree of dependence on MS Office products. The degree of dependence and compatibility also depends on versions such as QuickBooks Pro vs Premier vs Enterprise. The applications must be installed on the same computer to work together. In other words, if QuickBooks is hosted on the cloud, Office 365 applications must be installed in such a way that they can communicate with QuickBooks.
While it is possible to send QuickBooks data to applications like Word, Excel, and Outlook with APIs, there is no direct method to use Office 365 and QuickBooks on the same virtual machine. There are permissions required for installing Office 365 on hosted environments. This could entail additional licensing fees for hosting Office apps apart from Office 365 subscription.
There are other ways for small businesses to access QuickBooks Desktop remotely. This could require third-party tools for accessing local PCs remotely and publishing the data to QuickBooks. Such a method would involve the integration of QuickBooks in such a way that QuickBooks Desktop is installed on the virtual machine and the other applications are on the local machine.
It is a given that most problems don’t have a singular solution and QuickBooks and Office 365 integration is one such problem. There are several challenges and an equal number of solutions for them. As the models of licensing and delivery continue to change and evolve, perhaps users can directly use Office 365 and QuickBooks hosted services frictionlessly. Until then it might be sensible to depend on a hosting service provider like Apps4Rent to optimize solutions for businesses.
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