Looking for a QuickBooks Practice Manager alternative?
Intuit has told QuickBooks Practice Manager customers that the product will close in February 2027. If you run your practice on it, you need somewhere to land — and enough time to land well. Here's an honest comparison to help you decide.
What's happening with QuickBooks Practice Manager
Intuit has notified QuickBooks Practice Manager customers that the product is being switched off in February 2027. That isn't a rebrand or a migration into a bigger platform — it's a closure, and it means every firm running its client records, tasks and workflows in Practice Manager has to move.
Confirm the dates and terms for your own account directly with Intuit. What matters for planning is that the decision is yours to make now rather than in January 2027, when everyone else is making it and the January filing season is on top of you.
Use the time you've been given
A forced move is genuinely disruptive, and there's no point pretending otherwise. But you have been handed something most firms never get: a deadline far enough out to choose properly, trial an alternative on real work, and move in your own quiet season instead of a scramble.
The firms that come out of this well tend to do three things — export their data early, trial one or two alternatives on a handful of live clients rather than evaluating from a feature list, and move before the autumn. The firms that struggle are the ones still deciding at Christmas.
Choosing without being tied to one ledger
Practice Manager was built around QuickBooks Online, and for practices with five or more active QuickBooks licences it was free. That coupling was the appeal — and it's worth thinking about as you choose again. Most UK practices carry a mix: some clients on QuickBooks, some on Xero, some on FreeAgent or Sage, and that mix changes as clients come and go.
Sodium connects to Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage, so which ledger a client uses is a detail rather than a dependency. It is UK-built practice management with workflows, recurring tasks, a client portal, proposals and engagement letters included, and Companies House built into the client record rather than bolted on.
It's founder-owned — Duane Jackson, previously KashFlow and Staffology — takes no external investment, and publishes its pricing: free up to 5 clients, from £25/month (+VAT), with up to 25 users included and no per-user charges.
Time, WIP and write-offs in the same system
Time tracking, WIP and billing aren’t among Practice Manager’s published features (checked 10 September 2026), so hourly work is recorded somewhere else and reconciled by hand.
Sodium records time against clients, tasks, workflow steps and services, with timers that can start and stop with a workflow step, and puts your whole unbilled position on one screen. Bill a fixed fee against the time logged and the shortfall is written off there and then with a reason attached, entry by entry — or left in WIP to bill later. Write-off analysis by reason, recovery rates and open WIP all come off those same entries. Read more about time tracking, WIP and write-offs.
Each person also carries a cost rate alongside their charge rate, so approved hours turn into contractor pay runs and you can see what a job cost next to what it recovered. It’s in the price of every package: no time add-on, and no per-user charge.
What QuickBooks Practice Manager did well
Practice Manager got some real things right, and firms are right to be frustrated at losing them. Its pricing was refreshingly simple — one flat fee whatever the size of your team, and free altogether for practices with five or more active QuickBooks Online licences. Very few practice management tools have ever been that straightforward about cost.
The QuickBooks integration was the tightest in the category, because it was built by the same company: client data synced across without any of the usual connector friction. And it brought sensible practice management — client records, task tracking, recurring work, document collection, reporting — within reach of firms that would never have paid for a standalone tool.
Side by side
| QuickBooks Practice Manager | Sodium | |
|---|---|---|
| Product status | Intuit has told customers the product will close in February 2027 | Standalone product, actively developed |
| Pricing model | Free with 5+ active QuickBooks Online licences, otherwise £69/month; flat fee regardless of team size | Tiered by client count — up to 25 users included, no per-user charges |
| Ledger independence | Built around QuickBooks Online | Connects to Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage — your practice management doesn't depend on one ledger |
| Free trial | — | Free one-month trial, no card required |
| Ownership | Intuit Inc. | Independent and founder-owned — no external investment |
| Proposals & engagement letters | — | Proposals and engagement letters included |
| Client portal | — | Client portal included |
| AI assistant access | — | Built-in MCP server — connect Claude and other AI assistants to your practice data |
| Companies House | — | Companies House built into the core client record |
| Time tracking and WIP | Not listed among Practice Manager’s published features | Six ways to log time — against clients, tasks, workflow steps and services — including timers that start and stop with a workflow step, calendar and timesheet views, and your whole unbilled position on one screen |
| Fee billing and write-offs | — | Bill a fixed fee against logged time and write off the shortfall with a reason, or leave it in WIP to bill later — with write-off, recovery and open-WIP reporting |
| Staff cost and profitability | — | A cost rate per person alongside their charge rate, contractor pay runs for approved hours, and cost against profit and recovery on the same entries |
Last checked 24 August 2026. QuickBooks Practice Manager pricing and features may have changed since — always confirm current details with the vendor. QuickBooks Practice Manager pricing and product details from quickbooks.intuit.com/uk/accountants/practice-manager. The February 2027 closure is per Intuit's notice to its customers; Intuit's public product pages carried no closure notice when we last checked, so confirm your own practice's position and dates directly with Intuit. Time and WIP rows describe what each vendor publishes on its own website as at 10 September 2026. A dash means the capability is not stated in the vendor's published material, not that it is unavailable — check with the vendor. A dash (—) means the item wasn't listed on the vendor's public site when we last checked.
Moving your data
This is the one part of the move that should be easy. Your client list already lives in QuickBooks Online, and Sodium connects to it directly — one-click OAuth, no API keys, no shared logins. Pull in your whole client list or pick exactly which clients to bring across; names, contact details and company information are mapped automatically. See accounting software connections for how it works.
Anything that doesn't come from the ledger — services, recurring work, custom fields — comes in by CSV using Sodium's import tools. Export what you can from Practice Manager while you still have access, map the columns, and most firms are up and running in an afternoon. Our step-by-step guide to migrating from QuickBooks Practice Manager walks through the whole process. If something doesn't map cleanly, email us — you'll get an answer from the people who built the importer.
One practical note: do the export before your access ends, not after. Take your client data, task history and stored documents out while the product is still live, even if you haven't decided where you're going yet.
Common questions
Is QuickBooks Practice Manager being discontinued?
Intuit has told QuickBooks Practice Manager customers that the product will close in February 2027. Intuit's public product pages had not been updated with a closure notice when we last checked on 24 August 2026, so confirm the exact dates and terms for your own account with Intuit directly.
Can I move my clients from QuickBooks Practice Manager into Sodium?
Yes, and it's more straightforward than most migrations. Sodium connects to QuickBooks Online by OAuth and imports your client list directly — names, contact details and company information are mapped automatically, with no CSV export needed. Services, recurring work and custom fields come across by CSV using Sodium's import tools.
How much does Sodium cost?
Sodium is free for up to 5 clients. Paid plans are tiered by client count from £25/month (+VAT) for up to 25 clients, and include up to 25 users with no per-user charges. Full pricing is public at sodiumhq.com/pricing, including a calculator.
Does Sodium only work with QuickBooks?
No. Sodium connects to Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage, so you can run a mixed client base without your practice management depending on which ledger any one client uses.
Does Sodium do accounts production or tax filing?
Not yet. Sodium is practice management — clients, workflows, tasks, documents, proposals, engagement letters, portal and reporting — and sits alongside whatever you use for accounts production and filing. If you need those in the same product, that's a genuine reason to look elsewhere.
How long should I allow for the move?
Most firms complete the data side in an afternoon. Allow longer for the part that actually takes time: rebuilding your workflows and templates the way your practice works. Starting well before the February 2027 deadline gives you the room to trial it on real clients first.
Is there a free trial?
Yes — one month free with no card details required, and the free tier for up to 5 clients has no time limit, so you can run a few clients in parallel while you decide.
“I've tried other practice management solutions but find they're always heavy work to get them set up - but yours feels a breeze!” — Anne Sievewright, charlesblack.co.uk
Ready to make the switch?
Sodium is free for up to 5 clients, with no card required. Turn off the features you don't need and it fits a practice with 5 clients or 5,000 — import your clients, contacts and services in minutes.