Dan DeLong

QuickBooks Online Tags Retiring May 15: How to Migrate Your Data Now

Earmark Team · April 24, 2025 ·

QuickBooks Online users who rely on the Tags feature are facing a critical deadline. After May 15th, 2025, you’ll no longer be able to add new tags to transactions. This underused but flexible feature is being replaced by a modified Custom Fields alternative that comes with both benefits and limitations.

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong discussed this major transition and explained what you need to know and do before the deadline.

Why Tags Are Going Away (And Why Some Users Will Miss Them)

According to Alicia and Dan, about three-quarters of QuickBooks users never used Tags at all. As Dan explains, “When they roll out a new feature, if it doesn’t get used, it could stand to be discontinued. When I worked there, typically we wouldn’t find out who used it until we stopped it… and then people would call in droves, like, ‘What are you doing? I was using that!’

But for those who discovered Tags’ flexibility, this retirement is a significant loss. Alicia shares several creative ways professionals used Tags:

Marking transactions that needed review: “I would use a tag that said ‘for review.’ And then I could pull up all the transactions that needed review, and boom, they were all right there.”
Weather tracking at a gas station: “They used tags to say what the weather was… Is it sunny? Is it raining? Because their business is lower on rainy days, and that helped them filter out weather anomalies.”
Animal categorization at a veterinary practice: “They would tag transactions with cats, dogs, birds, rodents and reptiles and then they could see who they were providing their services for.”

Tags were particularly valuable for users on lower-tier QuickBooks plans who didn’t have access to Classes or Locations features. “If you didn’t need any of the other features in Plus,” Alicia explains, “Tags allowed you to get flexible about it.”

The Migration Timeline: Act Now

The retirement process follows this timeline:

March 17, 2025: Custom Fields was expanded across all QuickBooks Online subscription levels
May 15, 2025: CRITICAL DEADLINE – After this date, Tags become read-only
May 16, 2025 – May 14, 2028: During this period, you can view historical Tags and run reports but can’t add new tags
May 15, 2028: Complete removal of Tags functionality and all historical data

How to Migrate Your Tags to Custom Fields

If you’re using Tags, here’s what you need to do before May 15th:

Step 1: Make sure all your transactions are properly tagged. Go to the gear icon, select Tags, and click “see all untagged transactions” to catch any missed items.

Step 2: Click the “migrate tags to custom fields” button in the Tags section.

Step 3: During migration, you’ll need to:

Choose which tags to include (uncheck any you don’t want to migrate)
Name your new Custom Field (it defaults to “Tags”)
Specify that the field applies to transactions (recommended)
Select which transaction types should display the field
Decide whether the field should print on customer-facing forms

Step 4: Complete the migration. Your Tags will convert to a dropdown Custom Field with up to 100 options. If you have grouped tags, they’ll appear as “Group Name: Tag Name” in the dropdown list.

Dan notes an important distinction: “The historical transactions still have the tags on them. The new transactions won’t have the tag field – they will have the custom field available to choose.”

Critical Step: Preserve Your Historical Data

This migration doesn’t transfer your historical tag data to the new Custom Field – it only creates the structure for future transactions. Your 2025 reports will be split between the two systems.

“Run your reports on all of your tags so that you have that history permanently,” Alicia emphasizes. “When you’re looking at the Tags list, every single tag group or ungroup tag has a ‘run report’ link to the right of it.”

Save these reports as PDFs with multiple date ranges. “This is the very last time you are ever going to see a P&L related to this data,” Alicia warns.

What’s Better and What’s Worse in the New System

Improvements:

Universal Availability: Custom Fields are now available across all subscription tiers.
Increased Fields: Simple Start and Essentials now have one custom field, Plus gets four, and Advanced continues with twelve.
Dropdown Functionality: The new custom field is a dropdown, which “helps eliminate data entry errors,” as Dan points out.
Form Flexibility: Unlike standard custom fields, this new one works on both sales forms AND expense forms.
Printing Options: You can choose whether to display the field on customer-facing documents.

Limitations:

No P&L Reporting: “The big heartache is that you cannot do a profit and loss report by custom field,” Alicia explains. This is a major functional loss for many users.
Banking Feed Limitations: “You cannot apply this new custom field from the banking feed,” notes Alicia. You’ll need to edit transactions after they’re created.
No Multiple Values: Unlike Tags, you can only select one value per Custom Field on a transaction.
No Bulk Assignment: Currently, there’s no way to apply Custom Fields to multiple transactions at once, though Intuit has said this feature is coming.

Recommendations for Moving Forward

If the Custom Fields approach doesn’t meet your needs, consider these options:

Consider Upgrading: “If you’re angry because your tags are gone, you probably need to be using the right tool for the job anyway,” suggests Alicia. “Classes are way more reportable… It might be worth upgrading to Plus.”

Use Multiple Custom Fields: If you’re on Plus or Advanced, you have access to more custom fields and can create separate fields for different tracking needs.

Spreadsheet Sync: Advanced users can leverage Spreadsheet Sync to manage custom field data, including retroactively applying values to past transactions.

Stay Alert for Improvements: Intuit has already announced that bulk assignment and adding Custom Fields to deposits are on their roadmap.

The Reality Check

As Dan puts it, “If you don’t use something, it is in jeopardy of going away,” bringing new meaning to “use it or lose it” in the software world.

For many users, Tags weren’t even on their radar. But for those who built creative workflows around them, this transition requires immediate action to preserve historical data and adapt to the new system.

If you need help with the migration process or want to discuss this change, you can reach out to Alicia and Dan at unofficialquickbookspodcast@gmail.com.

Listen to the full episode for more details and insights about this important transition in QuickBooks Online.

Alicia Katz Pollock’s Royalwise OWLS (On-Demand Web-based Learning Solutions) is the industry’s premier portal for top-notch QuickBooks Online training with CPE for accounting firms, bookkeepers, and small business owners. Visit Royalwise OWLS, where learning QBO is a HOOT!

Mastering Intuit Account Management: Essential Security for QuickBooks Professionals

Earmark Team · April 8, 2025 ·

Imagine waking up one day and discovering that you can’t access any of your QuickBooks clients’ data. That’s exactly what happened to one bookkeeper who found themselves locked out of their QuickBooks Online account, with no quick fix in sight. Suddenly, they were left in a lurch and unable to help their clients—a true nightmare scenario!

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong dove into the important but often overlooked topic of Intuit account management. This article breaks down the key takeaways from their discussion, equipping you with tips on how to:

secure your QuickBooks account,
set up reliable backup access methods, and
manage client relationships effectively using Intuit’s management portals.

Exploring accounts.intuit.com: Your Personal Command Center

Many accounting professionals use QuickBooks every day, but not everyone takes the time to explore the powerful management tools that are often overlooked. One of these gems is accounts.intuit.com, which acts like your personal command center within the Intuit ecosystem.

When you navigate to accounts.intuit.com (using the same credentials you use for QuickBooks Online), you’ll find a comprehensive dashboard that organizes your entire Intuit footprint. It’s a centralized hub where you can manage everything from security settings to document access.

The Sign-in and Security section represents your first line of defense against unauthorized access. Here, you can:

Update your user ID
Change your email address
Modify your password
Enable two-step verification (critical for security)
Set up authenticator apps
Use biometric security (fingerprints, facial recognition)
Monitor account activity across all devices

As Dan emphasized in the podcast, “Turn on your 2-Factor Authentication. Do it. Especially for accountants and ProAdvisors in the accounting community, your login is potentially connected to a lot of sensitive information—social security numbers, credit card information, EINs, a lot of personally identifiable information is there.”

The Activity Log displays every login attempt and includes details about the device, location, browser, and timestamp used, making it easy to spot any unauthorized access.

The Business Profile section shows a complete history of every QuickBooks client you’ve ever worked with.

For those concerned about privacy, the Data and Privacy section allows you to download your personal data, delete information if desired, and correct any errors in your profile.

The Products and Billing section displays all QuickBooks packages and services you subscribe to—including Online, Payments, Payroll, and more. What makes this view powerful is that it consolidates information from across multiple QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) logins.

The Documents section provides access to attachments across all your client files. Rather than logging into individual client accounts to retrieve documents, you can access, download, and add new files directly through this centralized hub.

Leveraging camps.intuit.com for Product-Based Management

While accounts.intuit.com organizes your Intuit ecosystem from a user perspective, camps.intuit.com (Customer Account Management Portal System) provides a different view—one organized by product rather than by user profile. This portal serves as the external-facing view of Intuit’s customer relationship management system.

When you log into camps.intuit.com, you’ll see tabs organizing your Intuit ecosystem by product type: QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Online for Accountants, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Payments, and Intuit Online Payroll. This organization makes CAMPS valuable when you need information about specific services rather than specific clients.

For QuickBooks Desktop users, CAMPS reveals all versions you’ve used over time, including those purchased for clients. “I see all of the different QuickBooks desktop accounts that I’ve had,” Alicia notes during her exploration of the portal.

Creating a Backup Access Method: Your Emergency Entry Point

Understanding these portals is important, but equally crucial is ensuring you always have access to your clients’ data. During the podcast, Alicia shared a concerning story about a bookkeeper who completely lost access to QuickBooks Online.

“I was on a call with Roundtable Labs, and Alexis Sadler was telling us a story about how one of her bookkeepers lost complete access to their QBO. They would go to log in to QBO, and it was just flat out not working. And they were completely locked out. My blood ran cold because it was like, well, shoot, if I get locked out, I literally can’t do my job.”

The solution? Create a backup access method that functions as your emergency entrance when the front door is locked. Alicia recommends: “Go add yourself as a different email address to your teams inside QBO. So when you’re in your QuickBooks Online for Accountants and you look on the left-hand side, it says team. Add yourself as a team member, give yourself full access to your books.”

This simple step ensures that even if your primary login becomes locked, you still have a way to access your clients’ data and continue providing services without interruption.

Understanding the Primary Admin Role: Who Should Control the Account?

Equally important is understanding the Primary Admin role—the person with ultimate control over a QuickBooks account. When creating a new QuickBooks file for a client, should you designate yourself or your client as the Primary Admin?

Alicia takes a clear position: “Your primary admin is the person who is responsible for the account… some bookkeeping firms will say, well, I’m the one who’s doing all the work, I’m the one paying for the subscription. Therefore I am the primary admin. But really, Intuit’s platform is that the primary admin should be the business owner, even if they’re not the main user.”

Alicia continues, “You’re the person who’s creating the data, but you don’t own the file. They own the file.”

Dan explains the technical reality: “The Intuit definition of who the primary admin is, is, in reality, the first person to touch that service.” This means whoever initially set up the QuickBooks account automatically becomes the Primary Admin unless changed.

There are limited exceptions to this best practice. Alicia notes: “I do have one exception to my rule about the business owner being the primary admin. And that’s if they’re working with QuickBooks Commerce, because QuickBooks Commerce integrations can only be set up by the primary admin.”

When client relationships end, the question of Primary Admin status becomes especially sensitive. Some accounting professionals resist transferring Primary Admin status, believing they “own” the file they’ve built. Alicia says, “Don’t be that person. That’s petty. You’re burning bridges. It’s the client’s data. They paid for it. They didn’t just pay for the service. They paid for the results. And the results are the data.”

Dan reinforces this point: “Intuit will side on the business owners side… provided they provide the legal documents that are necessary. So it is a losing battle when it comes to that.”

Only the Primary Admin can transfer this status to another user. If the original Primary Admin is unavailable, Intuit has a legal process requiring proof of business ownership—but this takes time (typically 7-10 business days) and requires documentation.

Master Your Intuit Ecosystem Today

Navigating Intuit’s account management options goes beyond the QuickBooks interface, offering essential tools for security and data management that many accounting professionals overlook. By visiting accounts.intuit.com and camps.intuit.com, you can manage your entire Intuit footprint and implement important security measures to safeguard your clients’ data.

Take some time to log into accounts.intuit.com and camps.intuit.com. Set up two-factor authentication, create backup access, and make sure each client’s Primary Admin status aligns with your relationship. These simple steps can help you avoid stress and business disruptions down the line.

For a deeper dive into these topics and more QuickBooks insights, listen to the full episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast.

7 Game-Changing Features in QuickBooks Modern Invoices That Save You Time

Earmark Team · March 21, 2025 ·

For accounting professionals who rely on QuickBooks, the invoice is arguably your most essential tool. QuickBooks’ modern invoice redesign represents one of the most significant overhauls in years, changing how you’ll create, send, and manage client billing.

In a recent episode of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, hosts Alicia Katz Pollock and Dan DeLong explore these new modern invoices, which have been in development for about a year. Alicia says, “They originally drove us crazy, and now I’ve actually become quite fond of them”—a journey many accountants can relate to when facing significant software changes.

Getting Started with Modern Invoices

If you haven’t switched to modern invoices yet, you’ll need to take that first step manually. When viewing a standard invoice, look for the “Update Layout” button in the upper right corner. Clicking this will convert the invoice to the modern experience.

The new interface might initially seem to take up more screen space (Alicia notes her screenshot size has doubled), but the extra real estate serves a purpose. Let’s explore what’s changed and why it matters to your practice.

Smarter Customer Insights Without Switching Screens

One of the biggest improvements is accessing client information without leaving your invoice. Next to the customer’s name, you’ll find a small Intuit Assist icon that provides valuable context with one click.

“It actually does have contextual information about the customer that’s there,” explains Dan. “So it’s nice to have it all in one place. And you don’t have to navigate and look in the customer section to see those types of insights.”

This panel shows:

Payment history by method (credit card, bank transfer, PayPal)
Number of open invoices
Number of overdue invoices
Customer relationship length

Alicia appreciates this feature: “I’m kind of used to having to have multiple tabs open where one I’m doing my invoicing and in one I’ve got the customers open… now I can see my customer information without having to navigate away.”

You can also edit customer information directly from the invoice screen by clicking the “edit customer” link. This allows you to update addresses and contact details without interrupting your workflow, a significant time saver.

Better Communication Tools for You and Your Clients

The modern invoice includes four different communication fields, each serving a specific purpose:

Customer payment options: Instructions about how to pay that appear on the invoice
Note to customer: General communication that appears on the invoice
Internal customer notes (hidden): Team communications that clients can’t see
Memo on statement: Text that appears only on customer statements

The internal notes feature is especially valuable for team collaboration. As Alicia explains, you can use it to record important details like “Customer got a PITA discount”—information your team needs but clients shouldn’t see.

Sales Tax Management Made Easier

According to Alicia, address management in the modern invoice is “mission critical” for those working in states with complex sales tax rules.

The system now clearly shows whether sales tax is calculated based on your business location or the customer’s location. By toggling the “add shipping info” link, you control which address determines the tax calculation:

When shipping information is collapsed, tax is calculated based on your business location
When shipping information is shown, tax is calculated based on the ship-to-address

“For those of you who are having trouble with sales tax calculating incorrectly, this is your game changer,” emphasizes Alicia. “Pay attention to the bill to, the ship to, and the ship from boxes and make sure that you have the right addresses in the right places.”

Expanded Payment Options and Strategic Fee Management

The modern invoice significantly expands payment options through QuickBooks Payments. Beyond standard credit cards, your clients can now use:

Apple Pay
Bank transfers (ACH/EFT)
PayPal
Venmo

What makes this integration powerful is that all these payment methods work through QuickBooks Payments—no separate PayPal or Venmo business accounts are required. This means all payments are processed with the same automatic recording, fee allocation, and deposit reconciliation that QuickBooks Payments provides.

“All of the automagic things that QuickBooks payments does—like recording the payments, recording the deposits, allocating the fees, making the deposit reconciled in the bank feed—all of those things are done for you,” explains Dan.

Perhaps most interesting is the new option to have customers pay the processing fees. By turning off all standard payment methods, you’ll see a new option labeled “your customer pays the fees.” When selected, this gives clients the option to pay via ACH while covering the associated costs.

Alicia shared a practical application: When clients’ credit cards expired, she sent invoices with the “customer pays fees” option enabled. In her email, she wrote: “You’re welcome to pay this yourself. If you want to save on the fees, give us a call with your new payment information so that we can update our systems. And then you won’t have to pay the fees; we’ll pay the fees.”

The result? Three phone calls with updated card information—problem solved.

Recurring Payments Without PCI Compliance Concerns

The modern invoice also introduces an improved approach to recurring payments that addresses security concerns. Instead of storing client credit card information (which creates potential PCI compliance issues), the system now allows clients to approve automatic future payments while maintaining control of their payment details.

“This is really replacing scheduled sales receipts,” explains Alicia. “Now you can make a recurring invoice, and the customer approves it to auto pay it in the future. So it’s kind of the best of both worlds.”

Dan adds that the system “automatically checks the auto-pay functionality so that they don’t have to find it. You don’t have to tell them where it is. It’s just preselecting that option.”

Customizing Your Invoice Experience

Nearly all customization options for the modern invoice are found in the Manage panel and can be accessed via the gear icon at the top right. These settings allow you to control what appears on your invoice without changing default settings for all clients.

Through this panel, you can:

Turn specific fields on or off (shipping information, service date, SKU column)
Manage custom fields
Configure payment options and tips functionality
Add discounts (percentage or dollar amount)
Control whether discounts apply before or after sales tax
Set up recurring invoices or payments
Access client reports directly from the invoice

For those who want to see exactly what clients experience, three view options are available after selecting the “modern” template:

Email View: How the email appears in a client’s inbox
Payer View: What clients see in the payment portal
PDF View: How the invoice looks when printed

“Rather than sending a CC or BCC to yourself to see what the customer sees, it’s nice to see it all in one place,” notes Dan.

Current Limitations and Future Development

While the modern invoice offers many improvements, some limitations exist in the current version:

Design customization is limited to colors and fonts when using the modern template. To access all the modern features, you must use the standard modern layout rather than your custom templates. Intuit has indicated enhanced customization is on their roadmap.

Reminders cannot be set on an invoice-by-invoice basis yet. Both hosts expressed a strong desire for this feature: “Intuit, if you’re listening, we desperately want reminders to be set up on an invoice by invoice basis. Desperately.”

The Intuit Assist autofill feature is still in beta. This feature aims to create invoices automatically from files, images, or text, but accuracy varies, especially with line items. The hosts encourage users to try it despite limitations, as user feedback will help improve it.

Why These Changes Matter for Your Practice

These invoice improvements represent more than just interface changes—they’re part of a complete rewrite of QuickBooks Online’s underlying code.

“One of the things that’s really happening is they’re actually rewriting the entire code base underpinning all of QuickBooks Online because it originally started back almost 20 years ago,” explains Alicia. “The code that it was written on 20 years ago was modern back then. But things have changed on the programming side.”

This approach sometimes requires what Dan calls a “take a step back to move forward type of thing,” where short-term limitations enable long-term improvements. “They’re basically recreating the foundation so that new and cool features can actually take place,” he notes.

For accounting professionals, these changes deliver practical benefits:

Time savings from not switching between screens
Improved client experience with flexible payment options
Better security compliance through modern payment handling
Real-time visibility into invoice status, from creation through payment
Strategic tools for managing fees and client relationships

Most importantly, Intuit is actively seeking feedback. A prominent feedback link appears on each invoice, providing a direct channel to the development team.

“If you have a good idea, please go up to feedback and flood that feedback and let them know what you want to change,” encourages Alicia. “They are actively listening.”

Dan confirms: “Now they can act on the flood of feedback that has been coming in. They’ve been taking care of some of the more mission-critical issues. Now they’ll be able to further enhance this experience.”

Next Steps: Making the Most of Modern Invoices

To maximize the benefits of these changes, consider these practical steps:

Explore the Manage panel thoroughly to understand all available customization options
Try the Intuit Assist features even while in beta
Review your sales tax settings in light of the new address field controls
Use the view options to understand your clients’ experience
Provide feedback to help shape future development

By mastering these new capabilities, you can transform what might initially seem like disruptive changes into meaningful practice advantages—delivering better client experiences while saving valuable time.

For a comprehensive demonstration of all these features, listen to Episode 80 of The Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, “Everything You Need to Know About Modern Invoices.”