Hi - been digesting the change to you charging for Quickfile, and whilst I appreciate the charge is small, it does go against the grain rather, as I have recommended the software to so many people on the basis that it is free. This does make me feel rather stupid now.
I think you should have gone about it in a different way personally, how, I’m not too sure.
The one problem I have is that previously, I used Quickbooks, I purchased the software once and installed it on my computer. This allowed me to use on as many companies as I wanted. However, so far I’ve had to pay this fee three times, so this is when it starts to leave a bad taste in the mouth for me. If you had allowed a charge to an overall user to have multiple accounts, that would have been better.
The one thing that I let you guys off for was when your whole database was deleted and we lost all our invoices we had uploaded and attached to bills on the system. We never pushed to get this sorted out, as the service was free, but now I feel that should we continue with using the software, that this is sorted out.
However, it might be too late, as my finance director is now looking at other software for my larger business.
Thank you for your feedback. We do listen to the community, and we take everything say on board.
As explained by @Glenn in previous threads, the cost of running and maintaining QuickFile has increased year on year due to the increase in a growing user base. It’s not a change we made lightly, but unfortunately something we had to implement for the software to keep going.
I can’t comment on other accounting software such as Quickbooks, but I appreciate your concern with us. Perhaps the Affinity platform would have been better suited to you? I know that several people have taken this approach as sometimes the charge can work out smaller and more manageable. This allows you to have one Affinity account and manage other QuickFile accounts from there. These QuickFile accounts wouldn’t need to pay the Power User Subscription charge, as it would come under the Affinity charge.
There’s no escaping the file incident, but changes have been put in place to prevent things like this happening again. Unfortunately, these things do happen in many businesses, but we have worked hard to ensure these things don’t happen again.
I’d recommend looking at the Affinity option - I’m happy for you to ask questions, or even send me a PM on here if you want to discuss it further. If you wish, you could even PM me your account numbers, and I’ll suggest the most cost effective way of managing your accounts for you?
We appreciate your honesty - we’re an open forum, and we improve thanks to feedback on these forums. It’s because of the feedback that many of the changes in the software have become to exist.
I hope that clears a few things up, but anything else - please feel free to ask.
I appreciate your feedback, although we have left a completely free tier for lower volume users
The simple fact is that running a service like QuickFile is complicated and expensive, we have managed to keep this service completely free for 5 years which was no easy task. The problem you mentioned regarding the file attachments from a couple of years back highlights some of the challenges of trying to do too much with too few resources. As @QFMathew mentions we have done a great deal since than to implement far more robust systems.
I still wholeheartedly believe that introducing a subscription was the only sensible way forward in terms of us sustaining and developing this product. The annual charge of £45 + vat per year is almost a 3rd of what our competitors charge for a similar service but it will allow us to focus on developing the product over the next 5-10 years. There’s also generous discounts available for charities and multi-users (see Affinity).
Comparing a hosted solution like QuickFile with a desktop application is not entirely fair given that there are ongoing costs involved in hosting client data. Furthermore users benefit from having the software updated almost on a daily basis, not to mention the support we provide here day in, day out, evenings, weekends etc.
I don’t think I can really add much more, other than what I’ve mentioned here and on the original thread stickied to our forum since August.