QuickBooks Point-of-Sale V18 Has Arrived

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You probably know that a primary focus of my practice has been in the retail space and our "go-to" product during the last 10 years has been QuickBooks Point-of-Sale (Desktop) [QBPOS]. We've been installing QBPOS since version 2.1. 

Not only was this a workhorse of a product, but it had both a price and feature set that was hard to beat during most of that time.

But a few years back, when Intuit saw cloud-based products like Clover and Square emerging within the Point-of-Sale market, it entered into a sales and marketing agreement with Revel to offer an iPad-based Point-of-sale system under the name "QuickBooks Point-of-Sale powered by Revel." In contrast to QBPOS, the Revel-based product had the hospitality arena as its core strength.

When customers who had been using QBPOS (Desktop) were introduced to Revel, it became clear there were gaps between the two systems. Simultaneously, Revel was working to introduce its product to the Enterprise market and closed deals with Cinnabon and Shell. 

As a result, Intuit and Revel dissolved almost all aspects of their relationship when it seemed their interests no longer were aligned. Intuit then set out on a path to reintroduce QuickBooks Point-of-Sale (Desktop) to new retailers, as well as let the community know it was still in the Point-of-Sale business.

With this brief history behind us, I'm energized to say at long last that a new Desktop version of QuickBooks Point-of-Sale has arrived.

Not a lot has changed in light of the development time-frame, but Intuit seems committed to continue to improve upon the performance and reliability of the QuickBooks Point-of-Sale workhorse. What it has changed or added to the product is very nice and much welcomed from my perspective.

I find it curious that it decided to name the product V18. But perhaps it didn't want to use V13. I personally prefer the new moniker to it calling it 2018 – like it did with V11.

Let's look at a few of the changes. Murph stole a bit of my thunder by pushing out a brief article already, but I will do my best to fill you in on some of the things that I believe my own, and many other QBPOS, users will find beneficial.

If your QBPOS installations make use of the customer account feature that works with QuickBooks (financial), you'll really appreciate the enhancements to the customer information screen on the sales receipt. 

In V12 (shown below), if you wanted to know how much a customer owed you, you had to click on the sales receipt's hourglass to be taken to the customer information screen, where you had to hunt for the information. That was very time consuming for a busy retailer.

V18 has made significant enhancements in this functionality. The customer screen has been given a facelift that provides the most important information at the retailer's fingertips. Notice (in the screen shot below) that the customer's balance and credit limit are displayed in plain sight. 

To get to the complete customer record, simply click on the blue "More Info" button and QBPOS takes you to where you need to be. This is a great improvement for busy retailers who rely on customer accounts.

Speaking of customers, Intuit is making a lot out of the customer loyalty related features of QuickBooks Point-of-Sale. 

One of the V18 improvements is the addition of hover-over boxes for both the customer rewards program, as well as the account balance. Since the account balances are displayed on-screen, I personally see this change as being mostly of benefit to merchants who use Customer Rewards. 

After entering the customer’s name, simply hover over the little certificate and QBPOS will display their reward value. This enables you to tell the customer, even before ringing up their purchase, how much they have to spend to get to the next reward. For retailers, this can drive additional sales. 

The new "hover-over" display makes the Rewards program that much easier to use. Now if Intuit would only allow different rewards for different customers then we would really have something. I keep this future enhancement on my running wish list, which I give Intuit every time I visit with its people.

As I mentioned earlier, Murph stole a bit of my thunder, but I still have a bit to say about the new optimization of QuickBooks Point-of-Sale V18 for the Microsoft1 Surface Pro 4. While QuickBooks Point-of-Sale has always been able to run on a laptop that met the equipment specifications of the software, features specific to the Surface Pro like the ability to use the on-screen keyboard simply didn’t work.

But in trying out QBPOS V18 with my Surface Pro, if I use it in tablet mode (shown below). I can key information from the on-screen keyboard into the fields of any data entry screen.  But keep in mind that this functionality is at present only available for landscape mode. It doesn't work in portrait mode. 

I look forward to Intuit continuing to enhance this functionality, perhaps by adding the ability to take a payment allowing the tablet to be used for line busting, etc. As it is, the ability to walk around and check stock, place Purchase Orders and even take a sale to be finalized at the counter, is a great addition.

V18 has also added support for a new Physical Inventory Scanner. The Metrologic (Optimus) scanners previously used were discontinued a few years back, and people couldn't purchase inventory scanners to work with QBPOS. 

This new version of  QuickBooks Point-of-Sale is certified for use with Cipherlab's 8001 and 8001 physical inventory scanners. The scanners work essentially in the same way as the Metrologic units. They upload a copy of your inventory, allowing you to conduct counts and then batch upload those counts back into QBPOS.

In discussing this functionality with Murph, he didn't understand why Intuit had not chosen to support Cipherlabs' products that worked either via blue-tooth or the local-area-network. Those products could have been used not only for physical inventory counts, but also as barcode readers for mobile sales receipt scanning and product receiving.

I agree that such multi-function capabilities for an otherwise expensive physical inventory scanner would be nice. We can only hope that Intuit recognizes the need and potential for such enhancements in the future.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the new version. I certainly wish it had included some more new features and fixed a few of the pesky workflow issues. But hopefully, it will get them resolved sooner rather than later.  As for now, the fact that we have a new desktop version of QuickBooks Point-of-Sale makes me very happy.

If you're a retailer or a ProAdvisor who supports QBPOS, you're probably asking what you should do in regard to QBPOS V12. There is some good news here. If the V12 purchased took place after Feb. 1 (2017), customers will receive a free upgrade to V18. Unlike in the past, when you only had 60 days of version protection and you needed to claim it, Intuit proactively communications with its newer customers, so those customers should receive and email providing instructions on how to download their new license. 

But that brings up the issue of QBPOS V12 installations purchased prior to Feb. 1 (2017), especially if they are not tracking customer accounts, but using QuickBooks Merchant Services. In these cases, Intuit will continue to support V12 installations after May 2018, so long as the customer continues to use QuickBooks Merchant Services.

For customers using QBPOS V12 who are not using QuickBooks Merchant Services, V12 will be sunset in May 2018. Intuit will no longer support it. Since I always recommend that a customer run only a supported product, those not using QuickBooks Merchant Services should upgrade to QBPOS V18. 

To help with the cost of upgrading and attract new clients, Intuit has reduced the price of QBPOS V18 by at least $500. It also has (at least temporarily) some additional discounting involving hardware and merchant service bundles.  And it has reduced the price of additional (two to 20) licenses by another $200. 

Those of us who actively promote this product have been asking for pricing reductions, and finally Intuit has agreed. The table below not only outlines the MSRP pricing (as of the time of this publication), but provides a comparison of the various product types (Basic, Pro and Multi-Store). Remember, all licenses must be of the same product type. You can't use mixed product license types within an installation.

To recap, Intuit is back in the Point-of-Sale business in a big way with this new release. It is offering a feature rich product at a very competitive price. And it is looking to bring new business into the franchise, while at the same time honoring all those customers who have been with it.

As far as I'm concerned, "Hats off to Intuit for a job well done."

About the Author:

William English is president of English Management Solutions, Inc. of San Diego, CA.  Will's company has been serving clients across the United States, including Hawaii, since 2002.  

He was one of the first employees Intuit hired when they released the very first version of QuickBooks which was then a DOS-based product. 

William is considered one of the leading experts in QuickBooks Point-of-Sale (Desktop) and QuickBooks Point-of-Sale powered by Revel Systems.

Disclaimer - Pricing and comparison information contained in the graphic within this story was current as of the time of publication. Insightful Accountant assume no responsibility for any information reflected within the source graphic, and all pricing is subject to change without notice by Intuit.

1- Microsoft, and Microsoft Surface Pro 4, are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.