Why I Wish I’d Chosen Anything Other Than QuickBooks

If you run a small business, you already know that managing your books can feel like juggling blindfolded while someone moves the furniture around every five minutes. It’s not fun. That’s exactly why I originally chose QuickBooks: I wanted something that would make bookkeeping simpler, faster, and less stressful.

Instead, I ended up with the software equivalent of that one gym membership you keep paying for but secretly resent.

After years of sticking with QuickBooks, I can honestly say: I wish I’d chosen anything else from day one. And if you’re a small business owner trying to decide on bookkeeping software, let me save you a mountain of frustration, time, and money by sharing the biggest reasons why.

1. QuickBooks Is Shockingly Expensive — and That’s Before They Nickel-and-Dime You for Everything

Most business owners sign up thinking, “Okay, the subscription is a little steep, but it’ll be worth it because everything is included.”

Oh, sweet summer child.

QuickBooks is like one of those restaurants where the entrée looks reasonably priced… until you realize you’re charged extra for sides, sauces, utensils, breathable air, and the chair you’re sitting on.

Here’s how it really works:

• You pay for the basic subscription.

• The price increases every year, whether or not they actually improve anything.

• Want to run payroll? Extra.

• Actually have employees? Extra per employee.

• Want to track employee time? Yep, extra for that too.

By the time you add up all the modules they claim are “optional” but are actually necessary for running a real business, QuickBooks becomes one of the most expensive software tools you’ll use — and not in the “luxury goods” kind of way.

It blows my mind that small businesses, the very people QuickBooks claims to serve, are the ones getting hit the hardest. A startup with a few employees shouldn’t be expected to pay enterprise-level prices just to cut a paycheque or track a couple hours of work.

2. The User Interface Changes Constantly — and Not in a “Fun Surprise!” Way

If QuickBooks were a person, it would be the kind who moves your fridge into the living room every couple of months and insists it’s for your convenience.

The user interface — the way the software looks, feels, and functions — changes constantly. And I don’t mean small, helpful updates. I mean entire menu relocations, workflow redesigns, button reshuffling, and rearranged dashboards.

You log in thinking, “I’m just going to send that one quick invoice,” and suddenly you’re on a scavenger hunt where the rules changed overnight.

Something that took five minutes last week? Now takes 20 while you dig around trying to figure out what they moved this time.

And the worst part? Users aren’t asking for these changes. No one I ever talked to has said, “You know what would make this better? If all the menus moved around again!”

It feels like developers learn a new coding trick and say, “Hey, let’s test this on millions of unsuspecting business owners!” Not exactly comforting when your financial records depend on consistency and reliability.

3. Spoiler Alert: It’s Not Easy, Intuitive, Fast, or Anything Danny DeVito Promised

You know those commercials where Danny DeVito confidently proclaims QuickBooks is easy, intuitive, and perfect for small business owners?

I love Danny, but no.

The QuickBooks marketing team deserves an award for “best fiction.” The reality is the opposite: it’s clunky, unintuitive, and anything but quick.

Here’s the truth no one puts in the commercials:

• The learning curve is steep.

• Even simple tasks require clicking through multiple screens.

• Nothing is where it logically should be.

• And every “update” seems to make things less intuitive, not more.

QuickBooks functions like software built by people who have never run a small business, but who have spent a lot of time theorizing what it might be like.

All I know is this: if your marketing slogan boasts about being easy, then your software shouldn’t require a YouTube tutorial for sending a basic invoice.

4. Their Knowledge Base and Support System Will Test Your Patience… and Probably Your Sanity

Picture this: it’s 11:47 p.m. You’re trying to finish your bookkeeping so you can actually sleep, and an error message pops up. You copy the error number, paste it into the QuickBooks Knowledge Base, hit search, and…

Nothing.

No article.

No explanation.

No solution.

So you try their AI support. A bold choice, but you’re desperate.

The AI pauses like it’s thinking deeply. Then it serves up a random, unrelated article you already read six minutes ago. Thanks, robot.

Fine. Time to call support.

If — and this is a big if — you manage to get through to a human, congratulations. That already puts you in the top 1% of QuickBooks users.

But here’s what you can expect next:

• Seven minutes of scripted niceties.

• Your issue repeated back to you five different ways.

• More scripted questions.

• The agent searching the same useless KB articles you already searched.

• A “helpful” suggestion to do a screen share.

• An hour of troubleshooting that ends with, “Unfortunately, we don’t have a solution for this issue yet.”

Meanwhile, you have Googled your way into finding your own workaround because you still need to get your books done.

When software support makes you feel like you’re the most qualified person in the room, something is fundamentally wrong.

5. Inconsistency Is the Only Thing You Can Count On

Bookkeeping software should be predictable. Reliable. Steady.

QuickBooks? It’s basically a roulette wheel.

Invoices scheduled for the 15th randomly go out on the 1st.

Recurring invoices “forget” to include taxes — sometimes.

Transactions appear and disappear like they’re in witness protection.

And none of it happens consistently enough to diagnose. It’s like the software occasionally gets bored and decides to spice things up.

When you’re trying to maintain accurate books, this kind of randomness is not quirky — it’s infuriating.

6. Essential Small-Business Features Are Shockingly Difficult — or Don’t Exist

One of the features small businesses desperately need is the ability for clients to keep a credit card on file and be billed automatically each month.

QuickBooks technically offers this, but let’s be honest: the process feels like it was designed by someone who thought, “Let’s make this as painful as legally allowed.”

Explaining the steps to clients feels embarrassing:

“Okay, you just need to follow these 27 steps, enter your info in three different screens, verify your email, confirm your bank, scroll down, click the tiny hidden link, and then hope QuickBooks doesn’t time out while you’re doing it.”

Clients give up halfway through, and honestly, who can blame them?

Plenty of other accounting systems make this feature easy — QuickBooks just… doesn’t.

7. The Auto-Logout Timer Is So Aggressive You Practically Need to Work With Your Eyes Open the Entire Time

Most software gives you a reasonable grace period before logging you out for inactivity. QuickBooks is the opposite. The moment you pause to breathe, think, sneeze, or blink for too long, boom: you’re logged out.

Then you have to log in again. And — because this is QuickBooks — sometimes logging in itself takes longer than the task you originally paused for.

It’s the kind of thing that seems small at first, but after the tenth time in one sitting, you want to throw your laptop into the nearest lake.

So… What’s the Alternative?

You might be thinking, “Okay, but what should I use instead?”

There are so many better options now — Wave, Xero, FreshBooks, Zoho Books — and most of them cost less, feel more intuitive, and actually listen to their users.

The point of this post isn’t to sell you on another platform. It’s to make one thing very clear:

If you’re choosing bookkeeping software and you’re on the fence, learn from my experience: QuickBooks is not the no-brainer solution it claims to be.

For many small businesses, it’s not just imperfect — it’s genuinely painful. And switching later is far more annoying than choosing better software from the start.

Final Thoughts

If I could go back, I’d skip QuickBooks entirely. The hidden costs, the constant UI changes, the frustrating support experience, the inconsistent behaviour, and the lack of truly small-business-friendly features all add up to a tool that causes more stress than it solves.

Your bookkeeping software should simplify your life, not make you question your life choices.

So if you’re standing at the crossroads of choosing accounting software — take this as your friendly heads-up from someone who’s lived the QuickBooks roller coaster for years:

You deserve software that works for you, not against you.