QuickBooks 2012 Document Management is Changing Again!
Document Management has been an optional feature in QuickBooks since the 2010 release. The product has evolved over the past two years, and with QuickBooks 2012 we see not only some improvements, but also a dramatic change in how the product is offered. Local storage of documents is free. In addition, the ability to store your documents in the Cloud with Quickbooks Attached Documents is being phased out.
Document Management in its simplest form is the ability to store a document electronically in a way that is easy to retrieve. In the QuickBooks environment this usually revolves around “attaching” the document to a QuickBooks transaction or list record. For example, you may want to attach a scanned copy of a receipt to a QuickBooks check, drawings and specifications to an estimate, or a contract signature page to an invoice. There are many features that can be added, but that is the basic task.
There are two general ways that the storage of these documents can be implemented. You could store the attachments “in the cloud” on the servers of the company providing you with this service, or you could store the documents locally on your own computer or computer network.
The Evolving History of QuickBooks Document Management
Not many people will remember this, but back in 2008 there was the Intuit DMS product for QuickBooks, a desktop document management system, available for a one time fee of $299.00. I was pretty excited about this one, as it was my first exposure to this kind of document management. Unfortunately (or, maybe, fortunately?) Intuit dropped that product a few months after introduction, and gave me my money back.
Then with QuickBooks 2010 Intuit released QuickBooks Document Management as an integrated tool with QuickBooks (see this article). This was a subscription based online product through the Intuit App Center, storing your documents in the Intuit cloud servers. There was a fee for storing documents (unless you had a very low volume). People complained that you couldn’t store documents locally, and that there was a fee for a feature that they thought should be a part of their QuickBooks purchase price (as it was then in Quicken).
With the release of Quickbooks 2011 this evolved to QuickBooks Attached Documents (see this article). There was an option to store your documents locally (great!), but you still had to pay a fee even if you didn’t use the online storage (not great!). The free option for a small amount of online document storage went away. There were still lots of complaints from users.
So, here we are in the 2012 release, and we now have the Doc Center. What has changed this year?
- Local storage of your documents is free, everyone gets this feature as a part of QuickBooks.
- A drag and drop interface is added that is very convenient. Just drag a document from your Windows desktop, file system or an Outlook document and drop it on the product, the document will be imported.
- Additional information about the properties of the stored document is available.
- No more online document storage!
What is the Future of QuickBooks Attached Documents?
Things are a bit confusing, because this is a complicated situation. There were mixed messages prior to the official release of QuickBooks 2012. I’ve been working with Intuit staff to pin down all the details, and here is what I’ve found.
The short answer is that the QuickBooks Doc Center provides free local storage for QuickBooks 2012 and later, but no online storage option. For QuickBooks 2010 and 2011 users, online storage will continue if you have it, but you are eventually going to have to move away from that. Please note that I think that many of these changes won’t take place until September 26th.
So, digging in a bit deeper:
QuickBooks 2012
- local document storage is free
- You cannot sign up for the online version of document storage through Intuit directly.
QuickBooks 2011
- Existing customers with a paid QuickBooks Attached Documents service can continue to use the feature until your QuickBooks product is “retired” (see this article for details). That means that if you don’t upgrade to QuickBooks 2012 (or later), you will no longer be able to use QuickBooks Attached Documents after May 2014.
- QuickBooks 2011 users cannot sign up for a new QuickBooks Attached Documents subscription (after 9/26/2011). Not even for local storage! Your only option if you don’t have a subscription already is to upgrade to QuickBooks 2012. However, if you already have a subscription the pricing has changed. There will be a free online version limited to 100 MB of storage, a 500 MB storage option for $4.95 a month, and an unlimited storage option for $9.95 a month. They have removed the limits on the number of documents that you can attach (by count) and have lowered the pricing. If you are already subscribed you should have received an email notification about this.
QuickBooks 2010
- Existing customers of a paid QuickBooks Document Management service can continue to use the feature until your QuickBooks product is “retired” (see this article for details). That means that if you don’t upgrade to QuickBooks 2012 (or later), you will no longer be able to use QuickBooks Document Management after May 2013.
- QuickBooks 2010 users can still sign up for a free subscription to QuickBooks Document Management at the free level, which limits you to 100 MB of online storage (there is no local storage option). However, you can no longer sign up for one of the larger, paid subscriptions. Very limiting!
Why is this being done? According to Alex Blakey of Intuit: “We received feedback from our QuickBooks customers that they overwhelmingly preferred to have local storage versus online storage of documents. In response, we introduced free document storage right on the PC for QuickBooks 2012 users. We are committed to supporting QuickBooks Attached Docs for existing customers and are evaluating the best course of action for ongoing support based on customer demand.”
For many people, local storage of their documents is a good choice. However, I still have the same complaint about local storage with the Doc Center that I had for QuickBooks Attached Documents in 2011 – the documents are stored “in the clear” in a folder, so anyone can see and access them. Don’t use this feature to store documents that have sensitive information like Social Security Numbers or credit card numbers!
Online storage of documents is a good choice for many businesses. If you have been using QuickBooks Attached Documents for online storage I highly recommend looking at SmartVault, an excellent document management system that integrates very well with QuickBooks and provides many features that go beyond what Intuit offered. I would hope that Intuit will talk to SmartVault about collaborating, now that they have dropped QuickBooks Attached Documents!
Note that if you are using the online service and upgrade your older copy of QuickBooks to the 2012 release there should be an option to download your online documents to your local system, preserving the links in your QuickBooks file. I couldn’t test this as I haven’t been using QuickBooks Attached Documents myself.
Improved Features for QuickBooks 2012 – Doc Center
I’m happy that there are some improvements to the feature for QuickBooks 2012. If you only need a simple document management system, this could be very useful. Note that I’m assuming that you are familiar with the older version, I’m just going to point out the changes.
Drag and Drop Interface: You can drag a document from the your file system OR from Outlook, and drop it in the “drop zone” in the Doc Center. This is very cool. This will add the document to the general document area, where you can attach it to a particular transaction later. In the shot below I’m showing the Doc Center.
The same drag and drop capability is available if you click the paper clip icon to attach a document to a transaction or list item.
Scanning Improvements: If you want to scan a stack of documents at one time (stack them in the document feeder) but have them entered as separate documents, just place a blank page between each one. QuickBooks will load them as separate documents. I’m not sure how much of a time saver this is, as you have to do that collation.
Column sorting: You can click on any column heading in the Doc Center to sort by that column.
Document Details are available by selecting a document and clicking the “view details” button.
Search using the integrated QuickBooks Search Bar lets you locate documents by the document name and any of the fields in the Details window as shown above. Keep in mind that the Search feature only updates the index periodically, so you might not find documents that you have just added.
Switching to Free Local Storage
If you have a QuickBooks Attached Documents (or QuickBooks Document Management) account, when you open the Doc Center you will see a message, with a link, that asks you if you want to switch to local storage or keep your online storage. If you click that link you see this information.
I haven’t gone through this process past this screen, yet. If you select free local storage, your online documents should be downloaded to your computer. If I select to stay with online storage, will I have that option in the future? I believe so, although I can’t say for sure. I doubt that Intuit would prevent you from getting your documents at a later date, as long as you don’t wait until the online service is retired.
I Have Some Concerns With Doc Center and Local Storage…
The local storage in the Doc Center just keeps a copy of the document in a folder named Attach that is found in the location where your QuickBooks company file is stored. The file is stored “in the clear” – no security or encryption, so be careful about using this to store sensitive documents. If you have personal information, social security numbers or credit card information in the documents, there is NO security. Anyone can see this information.
This folder is not included in a backup, so you must be sure to make your own backup copy of the folder! This also means that if you transfer the file to your accountant that your accountant will NOT be able to see the attachments.
If a document is lost (erased by another user, or you restored a company file and didn’t restore your own backup copy of the folder) then it still shows in the Doc Center, but there is no way to retrieve the document. In addition, you cannot delete the reference to the document. It will always show in the Doc Center. There is a “remove” button, but if you try to remove the document you are told that the program is “Unable to download attachments” and the listing remains in the Doc Center. I’m hoping that they will fix this soon! Update 9/20/2011 – if the document is deleted from the folder on the computer, you CAN remove the reference from the Doc Center with the “remove” button. If the entire folder is missing, then you get the error – this is what you would run into if you restore a backup of your company file and didn’t have a copy of the document folder.
The Doc Center is “document management lite”, and it may be suitable for smaller businesses. You do have to be concerned about the backup issue – it isn’t taken care of for you. However, if you are serious about document management, if you have a larger firm, if security is a serious issue, if you are an accounting firm working with client files, I do NOT recommend that you use this. Instead, consider SmartVault, which is an excellent and very sophisticated product that has great interface with QuickBooks.
Category: QuickBooks Tips/Tricks, Software Updates
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He's been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70's, and remembers releasing his first commercial accounting software product when you had a one-floppy disk drive system, loading the program from one floppy and then replacing that with the other floppy to hold the data. He has a special interest in inventory and manufacturing software for small businesses. Charlie is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor with additional certifications for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Enterprise. He also is a Xero Certified Partner. Visit his CCRSoftware web site for information about his QuickBooks add-on products. Charlie can be reached at charlie.russell@sleeter.com He is also the author of the California Wildflower Hikes blog and a regular blog contributor to the Intuit Inner Circle. Connect with Charlie at GoogleSubscribe
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Sites That Link to this Post
- QuickBooks 2011 – QuickBooks Attached Documents (Document Management) : Practical QuickBooks | September 20, 2011
- QuickBooks 2010 Document Management : Practical QuickBooks | September 20, 2011
- QuickBooks 2012 Doc Center Problem Workaround : Practical QuickBooks | September 26, 2011
Well it is about time that it was free!!
Absolutely, Jeff. They have been hit hard on this one.
To me, though, the idea that they are giving up on the online storage concept is very important and intriguing. However, I think that SmartVault has been doing a better job there, I didn’t have any clients using the Intuit variation of this.
I currently use a program called Sourcelink to attached and to store my documents in QB. Anything that is sensitive, I turn it into a pdf, and passcode it.
While there are only two of us in the office who retrieve those kinds of documents, this works well.
I could see that in a larger office, with more people needing access to those documents, the use of passcodes could get a little difficult.
Just a thought
Thank you for the comment, Joslyn.
Sourcelink does store locally, as does PaperSave Plus (see my article at http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2009/08/review-papersave-plus-documentation-management-for-quickbooks/ ). I’ve not worked with Sourcelink myself, but I know people that like it, and I know some people who aren’t happy with the company for several reasons. I can’t give an opinion on that product.
There are a bunch of alternatives, you need to think about what your situation is and what features you need. I’ll be reviewing SmartVault sometime next month, most likely.
In the case of the missing document but an “abandoned” link record, could you run the Verify/Rebuild utilities to correct the problem?
Nope, that doesn’t work. Rebuild won’t change things.
However, there is a workaround. The problem occurs if the FOLDERS are missing (like when you restore a backup to a different location). So, if the problem occurs, add a new document to the Doc Center, and the folders are recreated. THEN you can use the “remove” button to delete the missing document without a problem.
Charlie – could you put security on the “Attach” folder through Windows to protect the documents?
Hard to say, in general. You can play with that, but (1) it is a lot of work to get right (if you can), (2) you really shouldn’t have to do this, if security is an issue then you need a different product.
I’m not sure which “user” saves the attached document there – the “qbdatauser” or the actual user. If it is the actual user, then if you put security there for one user, you may be preventing them from doing ANY document storage.
I’ve not played with that aspect of it. My opinion is that if you are using this for anything that needs to be secured, just get a better document management system that provides you with the proper features so you don’t have to monkey around with it.
I am a basic QB user on QB Pro 2008. I am confused with the documents storage, etc. All I do is create my invoice and send to customer via email using Microsoft Outlook. With the upgrade to 2011 [or now 2012] can I still do this? With 2008 a PDF is created and automatically attached as my Outlook opens. That is what I am hoping to do with the upgrade.
Thanks.
Tina, those are two separate issues. The feature you are talking about, sending a PDF copy of the invoice you create in QB via email, is still there. See this article for details:http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2011/07/quickbooks-email-options/
Document Storage is a different thing. It is storing something for your own retrieval – the “paperless office” concept. Let’s say that you pay a bill for something. You could scan the paper receipt and attach it to the bill, so that you can recover it later. Or, if you create an estimate, and there are technical documents that are associated with that, you can scan and attach them to the estimate so that you can call them up later very easily. Things of that sort.
This is great news for document management!! I currently was using paper save plus for my clients. I wish there was an easy conversion to get the paper save plus docs into quickbooks now that is set up for offline storage… Hopefully a geeky accountant will figure that out soon…. Otherwise looking at 2 places where my docs are stores in 2 file systems.
It is unlikely that there will be a way to do this, Joanne, as Intuit has not made the hooks for the Doc Center available to third party programmers. No way to get data in there in bulk…
I was looking at Bill.com because I want to be able to email of fax my bills to Quickbooks and then have them automatically show up in my Quickbooks as a bill to pay –
Not possible directly with Quickbooks/Quickpay right?
Is Bill.com the best way to accomplish my purpose as far as you know?
Tom,
Yes, Bill.com would be the way to go. However, you won’t “pay” youru bills from QB anymore. You will fax (or email pdfs of) your bills to a dedicated fax or email address at Bill.com. Then your bills will be there, and you can code them to the right vendor/account/job/item, and then schedule them to be paid from bill.com.
Bill.com syncs everything with QB, so you will NEVER need to enter or pay bills in QB. They’ll just show up when entered, and payments will show up when paid.
Bill.com uses an “escrow” account, similar to how payroll services work so they’ll connect to your bank and pull the necessary funds each day to cover whatever bill payments you’ve scheduled. The QB sync uses a clearing bank account so that your real bank account will only see a lump some credit for the total of the bill payments. This makes reconciling MUCH smoother for your bank account. But the bill payment transactions will show in detail in the bill.com clearing account.
Anyway, we use bill.com at The Sleeter Group, and we absolutly love it. More control, less time and hassle on entering/paying, no more paper checks/postage, and we now pay virtually EVERY vendor electronically, so vendors get funds in 2 days as opposed to waiting for checks in the mail. Also vendors can log into a secure portal (for free) and see all their billing history with us.
For more info, go to http://www.sleeter.com/partners/billdotcom.
Charlie,
Is the document linking referential? That is, if a QuickBooks file is transferred to a user on a different computer (such as an accountant or bookkeeper) and the “attach” folder is transferred as well (in the proper folder structure regardless of the drive letter), will the other user be able to view the documents?
Also, where are bank statements attached? I don’t see an attach button in the Reconcile screen.
Dustin, you ask two questions.
First, the documents are linked in a folder that is placed relative to the actual company file. QBB backups do NOT contain this folder, you have to manually back it up yourself. I’m very concerned with this. And, the documents are stored “in the clear” so that anyone who has access to that folder can see, delete or even change/replace the documents. No security. I wouldn’t use this feature for any but the smallest of offices (such as – a single person business).
Bank statements – good question. You could attach it to the bank account in the Chart of Accounts, which isn’t great. I’m not sure if there is an appropriate “transaction” to attach it to. I have to give that some thought…
Thanks for the reply Charlie. The intent of my question was not so much about security, but instead to find out what the process is to move the documents so that document management would work on another computer (for example, when it is given to an accountant).
You have to manually back up the folder and restore it to the proper place in the other system.
Far easier (although more expensive) to work with a tool like SmartVault (or others like it).
I’ve been wondering about bank statements too as well as the ability to move the documents with the file. I’m the treasurer for two organizations. I really hope someday to move those duties to another person so I have been shy about implementing something like this without the ability to migrate the files.
It sounds like with QB 2012 as long as I move the folder I could accomplish this. Great news!
Jeff, if you are the sole user of the system, then you are OK. That is, if the QBW file is stored on your local computer, so are the attached documents, and you can move the attachments along with the QBW file. If you are talking about a different situation then I’m not sure…
Dustin, I have the same question with the bank statement. What I did for January 2012 is this: I created a dummy transaction on the bank account called “Reconcile” dated 1/31/12 with a zero amount and attached the bank statement and the reconciliation reports. But this does seem to be super elegant.
I subscribed to online document management and it had become a very effective and affordable option to go with paperless files for our company. This is a terrible move by Intuit.
I came across the Document Management article for QuickBooks as we are looking to implement software that will allow us to go paperless. I have been looking at SmartVault as our option, but I would like to ask if anyone has had good luck with this software. Our company has multi-tier approval levels for invoices, so I need the ability to have invoices approved before entering them into QuickBooks. Does anyone have any recommendations for software, other than SmartVault, that would give us the multi-tier approval process in the invoice workflow?
Thank you,
Susan
Susan, while SmartVault is an excellent product, there are many other options. The more sophisticated the system the more expensive it gets. Another vendor worth looking at is eFileCabinet (http://www.efilecabinet.com/), which I hope to learn more about in the future. I talked with them quite awhile at The Sleeter Group’s Accounting Solutions Conference earlier this month. But I have not used their product yet.
I hated the online storage because we live in an area where internet access can often be limited. If I’m working in QB and can’t get online then I can’t see the document. I am happy that they have switched now to local storage. There are only two of us who have access to the books on a secured server, so I’m not too worried about security. It still sounds murky though. I do often take the files with me and will have to remember to back up the extra folder now. I use Quicken for my home accounts and it works very simply and has none of the associated problems you mention for QB. I don’t understand why Intuit seems to go out of their way sometimes to make things more difficult. If they can already do it seamlessly in Quicken, why not in QB?
I recently upgraded to 2012 after using 2010 with Document Management for the past two years. I was relieved to have Attached Documents because storing the attachments locally is FREE as opposed to the $15/month I’ve been paying to scan in documents for the past two years. That being said, I haven’t found a way to switch my old documents over from Document Management to be stored locally yet. When I open the Doc Center, there is nothing asking me if I want to switch to local storage or keep my storage online. Anyone have any thoughts on how I can work around this to get my old files back? New items I scan in are definitely being stored locally, but it will be devestating if I lose 2 years worth of scanned documents..
Jennifer, I can’t test this feature any more, as I no longer have a QuicKBooks Attached Documents account to test it with. When I originally tested the Doc Center I got the message that I show above. I haven’t heard anyone say that the download feature is no longer available. I also heard someone say in another forum that even though they could download their documents they came in “raw”, not attached to anything. I just can’t test it now.
Your best bet may be to work with a ProAdvisor who can contact Intuit support on your behalf to find out what is going on. The first thing that I would want to check is to see if your QuickBooks 2012 product is connected with the Sync Manager, which is how the system connects to your QuickBooks Attached Documents online account. You can also try logging in to the App Center to see your apps, to see if the document service is still active there.
It doesn’t help you, but this has been one of my criticisms of QuickBooks Attached Documents from the very beginning. I’ve never liked it, one big reason is the inability to get your documents out. Products like SmartVault don’t have that kind of problem.
What experience have you had with various scanners that work well with QB? I’m had the fujitsu S1500 recommended. Any advice?
Lowell, if you are talking about the Doc Center, note that this feature works only with TWAIN compliant scanners. Fujitsu ScanSnap scanners are not TWAIN compliant. What I do is to scan to my desktop and then drag/drop the scanned document into QB. If you don’t want to do that then you have to get a different scanner. Note that I use the S1500 and I love it (I’ll be writing an article about this in the future). If you use SmartVault, it works very well with that scanner. If you are using the check scanning utility, I believe that works with the scanner.
We are using document management for our office documents and want to know if we can “tell” QB to save the attachments to a file on our network, rather than the local C-drive of the computer we are working on. The network drives are backed up nightly, the local drives are backed up manually – when we remember! The scanner set up does not give us the option of a destination folder.
Kathie, the folder fhat the Doc Center uses will be in the same location as your QuickBooks company file. If the QBW file is on C:, then the documents will be on C:. Your only control is where the QBW file is located.
Question: Can you run a report that indicates which transactions have a doc attached to it and which ones don’t? it would be very handy to send a report to another individual, and ask them ot track down the “proof” for the transaction. I would expect ot see it as a configure option in report writer, but I don’t see it. Thanks.
No report like that in QuickBooks itself, and not an option to third-party report writer products because this information is not available in the programming interface.
This is a very limited feature.
Hello,
We’ve recently started using the attachments function to store spec/data sheets for our items, and everything was fine for a while. I was able to drag and drop, and then open and view the files. Now, however, after having attached several pdfs, I am no longer able to open them from the document center. I get an error message that says the file could not be opened because there was no program associated with the file, and that I need to select a Default Program from control center. That being said, I’ve already verified that Adobe is the default program, and a restart did not help at all. Other users on the company network are still able to open the files that I have attached, so I am at a loss as to what the problem may be. It’s as if QB is not seeing Adobe on my computer. Any suggestions?
Update: Problem Resolved. This turned out to be a file extension error. Something to do with capital letters.. had to save the file to desktopfrom windows, it would then not open, but a simple re-select of default “open-with” resolved the issue. Now they open correctly from Quickbooks Doc Center.
^ I have no idea what all that indicates, but if it helps anyone in the future…awesome!
Very odd, I’ve not seen that as an issue on my system. Thanks for coming back with the resolution!
Has anyone used SmartVault with Quickbooks Online? I was hoping that Quickbooks would integrate a minimum Document Management system into QB Online without having to pay an additional $19 (minimum) monthly fee for SmartVault.
I am looking for an inexpensive solution that will allow me to use QuickBooks with some basic Document Management features and will allow access for my accountant.
My options seem to be:
1) Quickbooks 2013 ($199) with built-in local document management with a remote connection solution like GoToMyPC ($9.99/mo)
2) Quickbooks Online ($13/mo if I share account with accountant) with SmartVault ($19/mo)
3) Hosted Quickbooks ($49/mo if I share account with accountant) with SmartVault ($19/mo)
Any advice would be appreciated.
Michael, I’ve used SmartVault for QuickBooks Online, and I’ll be publishing an article on this in the first week of January. It is great!
I wouldn’t use your first option if you want the Accountant to be able to work with documents. Mainly because I don’t like the free document attachment feature in QuickBooks very much, and it is going to be very complicated for the Accountant to use that smoothly via a remote connection. I would modify your first choice to suggest QuickBooks 2013 with SmartVault and a remote connection solution. You shouldn’t have to pay a monthly fee, you can get a free LogMeIn account (it has some limitations, but that might not be an issue), you can purchase a license to TeamViewer (a one time fee, no monthly fee), there are other options.
I can’t say which of the options make the most sense because I don’t know all of the details. I can’t say if QB Online would be better than QB Desktop, because those products are very different and are used in different situations. Also, it does depend on how much access the accountant needs – is it daily, every month, or just once in awhile? Remote connection makes the most sense for occasional access, hosted or QB Online would make more sense if remote access is frequent.