Each year Intuit implements what they call a service discontinuation policy, commonly known as a ‘sunset policy’, impacting a version of QuickBooks Desktop, and for 2021 that will be the QuickBooks 2018 product line. This year’s sunset on May 31, 2021 applies to the following products:
- QuickBooks Desktop Pro 2018
- QuickBooks Desktop Premier 2018 (General Business, Contractor, Manufacturing & Wholesale, Nonprofit, Professional Services, and Retail)
- QuickBooks Desktop Accountant 2018
- QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions V18
After May 31, 2021, access to add-on services will be discontinued for these QuickBooks Desktop 2018 products. Your access to QuickBooks Desktop Payroll Services, Live Support, Online Backup, Online Banking, and other services through QuickBooks Desktop 2018 software will be discontinued after May 31, 2021. If you don't use any of the add-on services in QuickBooks Desktop 2018 the basic features and functions of your product should continue to work.
Please note that you will not have access to live technical support for any QuickBooks Desktop 2018 products or any other related Intuit services, which also means you'll no longer receive critical security updates starting June 1, 2021. So, if you receive any maintenance release or security updates prior to this date you should install them.
Intuit
Furthermore, any service associated with an Intuit server including license verification may not be functional for the QuickBooks 2018 product-line. Intuit does not guarantee that you can register products or retrieve product-license-codes or product-id-codes for these products after the sunset date.
In order to prevent problems associated with the loss of service from the sunset of these products or their associated service discontinuations you should consider either upgrade to a supported version of QuickBooks Desktop for which you have already acquired a license, secure licensing for the most current version of QuickBooks Desktop, or possibly migrate from QuickBooks Desktop to a QuickBooks Desktop 'Plus' Subscription which keeps you at the most current version at all times, or possibly consider transitioning to QuickBooks Online.
If other news impacting the sunset time-frame or options arise prior to May 31, 2021 Insightful Accountant will keep you informed.
Disclosure:
Content adapted from Intuit's 'QuickBooks Desktop service discontinuation policy and upgrade information' product support website.