Intuit has told add-on software developers that they are discontinuing Intuit Sync Manager and services that support it on March 1st of 2016. Yes, a year and a half from now. Let’s look at what this means to users and software developers?
What Is Intuit Sync Manager?
To be more accurate, Intuit said they are planning on retiring the QuickBooks Desktop REST API - Sync Manager is a part of how that is implemented.
Intuit Sync Manager is the utility for US versions of
There aren’t many apps that actually use this to get to your desktop data since Intuit announced last November that they were not allowing any new applications to be developed using this API.
What Does This Mean for QuickBooks Users?
If you are using one of the apps that use Intuit Sync Manager then by March 1st 2016 you will no longer be able to use that app. It is hard to tell how many apps this will affect, but it isn’t many. If you look at Intuit’s list of apps that work with QuickBooks desktop products there are only 49 apps at this time. I’ve not double checked that these all use Sync Manager, but that sounds like the right number.
One example is ReceiptMatch with QuickBooks by American Express, that I wrote about last year. This is an example of a web app that relies on Intuit Sync Manager to access your desktop data, that won’t work after that date. Another example is the integration between QuickBooks desktop and Square Register.
One interesting side note is that the QuickBooks Client Collaborator feature uses Intuit Sync Manager to establish the initial connection between the client and the
QBSDK based apps are not affected by this – the majority of the applications that people use that work with QuickBooks on the desktop use the QuickBooks SDK, which has nothing to do with Sync Manager.
QuickBooks Online is not affected by this – QuickBooks Online doesn’t use Sync Manager for product integration.
Again, the impact of losing these apps is relatively small, since so few use this method of integrating.
However, another impact is that you will no longer find Intuit Sync Manager installed on your system, stealing processor cycles and slowing your system. There have been a lot of complaints over the past few years about this utility, which most people aren’t using. We will finally (eventually) be rid of it!
What Does This Mean for Add-On Developers?
It is only going to affect that small number of developers. Most are either already using the QuickBooks SDK (the desktop programming toolkit), or have never developed an app using the QuickBooks API for the desktop. As I said, Intuit already announced that no new apps could be developed using the QuickBooks API / Intuit Sync Manager in November 2013, so this new announcement shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.
Note that as a part of this, Intuit will stop allowing developers from adding new users for these existing products on March 1st, 2015. A year ahead of the ending of the service.
If any developer has one of these apps they either have to abandon the desktop users or modify their app to use the QuickBooks SDK and possibly the Web Connector, and I don’t expect anyone to do that because the technologies are so very different.
Why Is Intuit Doing This?
I’m actually surprised that they took this long to make this decision. The writing has been on the wall since last November. Intuit only kept Intuit Sync Manager around after that announcement because there were some apps developed using it already on the marketplace. The trigger, according to Intuit, is that Intuit now has more new users signing up for QuickBooks Online than they have purchasing QuickBooks Desktop, so they see that the trend is away from the desktop and towards the cloud.
This is a logical step for Intuit given their focus on the cloud and away from the desktop, and how they have throttled this programming tool for the desktop already. In fact, they have finally come around to the realization of what I’ve been saying from the beginning, it was a mistake for them to try to closely integrate a desktop
I applaud Intuit for announcing this so far in advance. They have been criticized for making these kind of developer announcements with too short of a lead time in the recent past, and they’ve learned from that mistake.