Читать книгу QuickBooks Online For Dummies - Elaine Marmel, David H. Ringstrom - Страница 22

QBO and QBOA fall into the category of Software as a Service (SaaS). As such, you don’t buy the software. Instead, you rent it; that is, you buy a subscription to use the software for a time period specified by the seller.

Traditionally, you buy a license to use software that you install on your computer, and typically, that license permits you to install the software on only one computer.

And, of course, a QBO user can pay varying amounts for a subscription, depending on the subscription level purchased.

QBO is available at five different subscription levels, and each subsequent subscription level costs more and contains more functionality. The QBO subscriptions available at this writing are

 Self-Employed

 Simple Start

 Essentials

 Plus

 Advanced

All versions of QBO share three attributes in common. First, you can use a tablet, Android or iOS smartphone, or desktop computer to access your data. Second, your data is automatically backed-up online. And third, all versions of QBO use 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), the same security and encryption used by banks to secure data sent over the Internet.

After you assess your needs as described in Chapter 1, use the following information to identify the lowest subscription level that will meet your requirements. At this point in time, you can upgrade to a higher level, but you cannot downgrade to a lower level.

Accounting professionals signing up clients for QBO and creating client companies originally couldn’t switch client companies from one version of QBO to another if the accounting professional created the client as part of the Intuit Wholesale Pricing program. However, except for the Self-Employed version, that’s no longer true. So, you no longer need to anticipate your client’s requirements for more advanced features like the ability to track inventory or employing class tracking.