Hosted vs Non-Hosted Quickbooks: What’s The Difference?
One of the most common questions first-time Quickbooks users ask is: what’s the difference between hosted and non-hosted Quickbooks? While they share some similarities, they are two very different types of services. Before you sign up for either hosted or non-hosted Quickbooks, you should first familiarize yourself with the features of each. Only then can you make an educated decision on which service is right for your business.
Hosted Quickbooks is a service offered through the Intuit Commercial Hosting Program that allows licensed third-party companies, such as MyVao.com, to host clients’ desktop Quickbooks. One the client has purchased a desktop version of Quickbooks, he or she can sign up for a professional hosting service through a company that participates in the Intuit Commercial Hosting Program.
Support
Non-hosted Quickbooks clients are limited strictly to Intuit for customer service inquiries. Intuit is known for offering a superior level of support, which is why so many accountants and business owners choose its products, but hosted Quickbooks offers another level of support through the third-party company. Whether need assistant with setup, maintenance, discrepancies or anything else, they’ll guide you through the process.
Performance
There’s also a noticeable difference in performance between hosted and non-hosted Quickbooks. With non-hosted Quickbooks, users are forced to rely on their computer’s processing power to perform Quickbooks-related tasks. Unfortunately, this may bog down the resources on some of the older computers, reducing their speed to a crawl. There’s nothing more frustrating that being forced to stare at a loading screen for 10 minutes.
Thankfully, hosted Quickbooks eliminates this problem by using the hosting company’s resources rather than the client’s. The client simply uses a remote desktop connection terminal to access his or her Quickbooks on the hosting company’s server. Since the actual files are installed on the server, all processes use its resources. This translates into faster speeds and better performance.
Security
Another area where hosted Quickbooks shines is security. A typical user’s Quickbooks account contains a plethora of sensitive financial data that must be kept secure at all times. Hosted Quickbooks tackles the problem of security by using advanced SSL encryption technology, preventing unwanted eyes from prying into clients’ accounts.
If your personal computer is damaged, destroyed or stolen, you can rest assured knowing that all of your sensitive Quickbooks data is stored on a third-party server. All you need to do is download a desktop connection terminal and log into the hosting company’s server.