QuickBooks 2004 users need to be aware of the upcoming sunset of their product. Intuit sunsets certain products every year, usually in the spring. The term sunset refers to the fact that Intuit will no longer offer support for the product, and electronic features, such as QuickBooks Bill Pay, Online Banking, etc., will no longer be available from within that product.

QuickBooks 2004 will officially sunset on May 31, 2007, as per Intuit’s sunset policy. On Intuit’s Sunset Policy web page, no reason is given for sunsetting their products, although it stands to reason that the company cannot afford to support each version of QuickBooks without end.

QuickBooks 2004 users, who use the electronic features or who need support from Intuit, should seriously consider upgrading to QuickBooks 2007 now, rather than waiting until closer to the sunset date. The reason is that Microsoft will release its new Internet Explorer 7 before the end of 2006, and it’s not compatible with QuickBooks 2004, or any version of QuickBooks prior to 2004. Intuit has stated that it will not update QuickBooks 2004 in order to make it compatible with IE7. Since QuickBooks 2004 uses Internet Explorer 6 for certain functions, users are forced to make a decision: either upgrade to QuickBooks 2007 and download IE7 when prompted, or don’t upgrade QuickBooks 2004 and decline the upgrade to IE7 when prompted.

QuickBooks 2004 users, who do not need support from Intuit and who do not use any of the electronic services, may choose to decline the upgrade of IE7. These users may continue using their product after the May 31, 2007 sunset date without any problems, since the software will still continue to function normally.

Users of QuickBooks prior to 2004 should decline the upgrade to IE7 when prompted, since those products are no longer supported and will not be updated by Intuit for any reason.

Intuit has announced that it will update QuickBooks 2005 & QuickBooks 2006 to make them compatible with IE7, so users of those products do not need to take any special action at this time. QuickBooks 2007 is already compatible with either Internet Explorer 6 or 7.

Visit the Intuit sunset policy page for more information about Intuit's product discontinuation policy.