Is QuickBooks desktop 2019 compatible with Sequoia?

Big Thank you to Kurt Lang and his response. I upgraded today to Sequoia 15.2 from QB desktop 2019 without any problems. Note: I did upgrade to Sonoma 14.7.2 before I did the Sequoia upgrade. I am in agreement, I do not want to use an online storage for security and privacy issues. I will keep using the QB desktop version and pray it continues to work another year. Thanks again.

Yes. I'm using QB 2019 in Sequoia without issue.

There were issues in the initial release of Sonoma that affected QB and other apps that contained only Intel code. That was fixed in the 14.1 update.

If/when Apple drops Rosetta 2, you could still use the free version of VMware to install an older/last version of macOS capable of running QB 2019 within that.

Building upon a previous posting

A Comparative Analysis of Apple’s Transitional Strategies

Apple’s transition from Motorola PPC CPUs to Intel CPUs serves as a pertinent example.

Developers were informed and advised to develop their applications to run on Intel CPUs. This transition provided developers with time to rewrite their software.

The original Rosetta was included in the operating system up to macOS 10.6 Snow Leopard.

Similarly, Apple initiated the transition from Intel CPUs to its in-house ARM-based CPUs in 2020. To accommodate developers, Apple provided Rosetta 2 for Apple Silicon computers.

It is possible that Apple has completed the transition for all new Apple computers, which now run M1, M2, M3, M4, and are projected to release M5 Silicon machines some time in the future.

This transition has spanned five years, allowing developers ample time to rewrite their software.

However, only Apple can determine whether or not they will continue to accommodate software that requires Rosetta 2 to interface with older software.

It is prudent for developers to begin exploring alternative options now rather than later, as they may face limited choices in the future. 

When QB 2019 (and any other of the last desktop versions) tanked with the initial release of Sonoma, I started looking for alternatives. Mainly free ones since we had closed the business and I was very recently retired, but still needed accounting software for post retirement work I still occasionally do.

They are very few and far between.

GnuCash is a free, open-source choice, but to say it looks and behaves like an app from the 1980's is being generous. You can't import your QB data, so everything would have to be setup from scratch. I tried working with it for almost a week. It is the most confusing, and difficult to set up accounting software you've ever seen.

There are a number of online accounting choices, but like QB, they're not cheap, and I've never liked the idea of personal data on someone else's server. There's always the possibility of breaches. And being located wherever, any power outage there, or between you and their servers and you have no access at all to your data until it gets fixed.

AccountEdge Pro is supposed to be good. I think that was one where they would import your QB data to work in their software, but it was so much per record. For my small in-home business, my data would be considered miniscule. But when I calculated the cost for them to transfer my data, it was well over $1,200 dollars. Not a chance.

Zoho and Zipbooks are free, but again are online only with no way to transfer in your QB data.

This is a common theme. Free or cost, but requires setting up your entire business data from scratch. It's really no wonder after testing a good dozen free or cost alternatives why QB is the 800 pound gorilla of accounting software.

Apple should accommodate old software as a matter of principle.

They did, and are. They went out of their way to ensure the thousands of Intel only apps would run on the M architecture versions of macOS.

It doesn't take any imagination by anyone to know the screaming would have been heard around the world from users if when the M1 Macs came out they only ran Apple Silicon native apps.

I personally don't expect Apple to drop their Rosetta 2 support for a while, but they eventually will. It's up to third party vendors to update their apps to work in the OS they're intended for. Not the other way around. Apple can't be expected to test literally hundreds of thousands apps to make sure nothing broke. They don't have the source code for them, and the cost and time necessary would be insane to even try to make sure nothing broke.

As one example, X-Rite is always way behind where they should be. It took them until right before Apple dropped PowerPC support with Rosetta 1 to release an Intel native version of their apps. They're still all Intel only. I'm assuming they'll wait until Apple tells vendors Intel support is being dropped in whatever future macOS release before they finally make them Universal apps.

On my system, Epson's software for my V850 scanner are still Intel only. As is Toast Titanium 20, and ON1's NoNoise 2024 app. Yes, a 2024 release that's still Intel only code. There's really no excuse for any third party vendor to still be Intel only for apps they still maintain and update/upgrade. What are they waiting for? The first M1 Mac was released 4 years ago!

Kurt Lang wrote:

Apple should accommodate old software as a matter of principle.

They did, and are. They went out of their way to ensure the thousands of Intel only apps would run on the M architecture versions of macOS.

It doesn't take any imagination by anyone to know the screaming would have been heard around the world from users if when the M1 Macs came out they only ran Apple Silicon native apps.

I personally don't expect Apple to drop their Rosetta 2 support for a while, but they eventually will. It's up to third party vendors to update their apps to work in the OS they're intended for. Not the other way around. Apple can't be expected to test literally hundreds of thousands apps to make sure nothing broke. They don't have the source code for them, and the cost and time necessary would be insane to even try to make sure nothing broke.

As one example, X-Rite is always way behind where they should be. It took them until right before Apple dropped PowerPC support with Rosetta 1 to release an Intel native version of their apps. They're still all Intel only. I'm assuming they'll wait until Apple tells vendors Intel support is being dropped in whatever future macOS release before they finally make them Universal apps.

On my system, Epson's software for my V850 scanner are still Intel only. As is Toast Titanium 20, and ON1's NoNoise 2024 app. Yes, a 2024 release that's still Intel only code. There's really no excuse for any third party vendor to still be Intel only for apps they still maintain and update/upgrade. What are they waiting for? The first M1 Mac was released 4 years ago!

I could not have been as thorough. 👍 😎

However, only Apple can determine whether or not they will continue to accommodate software that requires Rosetta 2 to interface with older software.

The good news there is Apple is under no one else's thumb this time. The original Rosetta was licensed from a different vendor. It must have been pretty expensive to have it only in Leopard and Snow Leopard.

Apple completely wrote and developed Rosetta 2. So they aren't beholding to anyone for fees or anything else. i.e., there's no rush to drop it.

How long ago did you do this? I too am using QB 2019 and have been afraid to upgrade to Sequoia from Sonoma 14.7. Did you have any issues. You helped me in the past when upgrading to Sonoma and am very grateful your help. Would be interested if any one has found any other software program. I will not do QB online version.

QuickBooks seems to have moved from an Installation of their software onto the computer to a Subscription Model

Where all transactions are performed online and in the cloud, per se

You're welcome. 🙂