Text 18272, 80 rader
Skriven 2007-05-29 21:05:48 av Rich Gauszka (1:379/45)
Ärende: Intuit Quickbooks forcing subscription
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From: "Rich Gauszka" <gauszka@dontspamhotmail.com>

EID paranoia or valid concern?

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/03/20/000320opfoster.html

Many QuickBooks 2000 customers have been upset that they are now required to
subscribe to Intuit's $72 per year Basic Payroll service if they want to use
the program's payroll calculation feature to figure deductions. Intuit's
revised policy concerns them on several counts. Those upgrading from previous
versions often could not tell the policy had changed from the somewhat cryptic
notice on the package, and many said they might have chosen not to upgrade had
they realized they would have to pay extra for the payroll feature. Of even
greater concern is the amount of personal information Intuit requires from
payroll subscribers and the requirement that they download new tax tables at
least every 45 days.

"The latest version of QuickBooks Pro [2000] will not let you use the payroll
tax table calculation feature until you sign up online for a year's
subscription to [Intuit's] payroll service, at $72 per year," wrote one reader.
"Not only that, but you must log on at least every 45 days and update it or it
will cease to work. In addition, you have to give [Intuit] (among other
information) your Employer Identification Number ... [previously] no private
information was required."

For some time Intuit has charged a subscription fee to those who wanted to
receive tax table updates, but many chose to use the original tax tables and
then calculate their own changes. As we noted last year, Intuit made this
tactic more difficult with QuickBooks 99, zeroing out all manual entries of
deductions after each payroll if you had not downloaded the new tax tables.
Then, as now, Intuit's justification for forcing non-subscribers to enter or
re-enter deductions manually for each payroll check they write has been to
ensure that customers stay in compliance with ever-changing federal and state
payroll tax regulations, citing statistics that 30 percent of small businesses
are penalized each year for inaccurate payroll filings.

This paternal concern for its customers might have more credibility if Intuit
were willing to take responsibility for inaccurate payroll filings by a Basic
Payroll subscriber due to an error in Intuit's tax table updates. But it's no
surprise that Intuit does not guarantee the accuracy of its tax table updates.

"The tax tables are accurate to the best of our knowledge, but we don't
guarantee that for users of the Basic Payroll service," says Jennifer Martin,
marketing manager of QuickBooks payroll services. "The Basic Payroll user is
still responsible for checking that information." Intuit will pay penalties for
inaccurate filings on its Deluxe Payroll service, according to Martin, as there
Intuit actually functions directly as a payroll service for the customer.

One has to suspect that Intuit's true motivation may have less to do with
making sure customers are in compliance and more to do with maximizing Intuit's
earnings. Even customers who willingly subscribed to the service have had their
suspicions raised by the personal information Intuit requires them to provide.
In particular, some readers were puzzled as to why Intuit requires their EID
(Employer Identification Number).

Accountants who use QuickBooks to do payroll for more than one client had real
concerns about the EID requirement. As the password a user receives to access
the tax table updates is tied to the EID, this means accountants would have to
purchase a separate subscription for each of their clients. By the time I spoke
to Intuit officials, however, they had already heard enough protests from such
customers that they had dropped the separate subscription fee for multiple
clients.

Although accountants don't have to pay for each subscription, they are still
required to provide the EID for each client. This leaves some feeling uneasy,
partly because they feel Intuit's Deluxe Payroll service is targeted at small
businesses of the same type as the accountants' clients, so how can they be
sure they aren't handing over their client list to a competitor? Given Intuit's
predilection to use every marketing angle it can, that might not be total
paranoia. But Martin and other Intuit officials insist Intuit is using EID
numbers only to provide a unique identifier for each account, and they stated
categorically that Intuit will not use the EID numbers for marketing.

Although we can therefore have a reasonable hope that Intuit won't try to steal
its customers' clients, one never knows what scheme its marketing troops might
come up with next. When it comes to creative new ways to tap its customers'
wallets, Intuit is an innovator with few, if any, peers.

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