Most QuickBooks data is not backed up today, in part because Quickbooks' own backup options are limited, and expensive for smaller businesses.
MSP-focused cloud backup and data protection provider Redstor has moved into the QuickBooks market, announcing the availability of Backup for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop. Intuit’s QuickBooks is the market’s leading accounting software, with more than eight million users worldwide, but the most common backup, from QuickBooks itself, is available only with their top of the line subscription, and is out of the price range of many of their smaller customers. Redstor Backup for QuickBooks is being introduced to fill this gap, while also giving MSPs additional margins and the ability to sell the backup with complementary products like Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.
“Redstor Backup for QuickBooks is not just a backup product,” said Dan Boddington, Redstor Product Manager. “It actually can help in change management by lowering the cost and lowering the risk. It also backs up sandbox environment, so has the added functionality of allowing the customers to recover production data and sandbox data. It also provides very fast speed of recovery for critical data.” Redstor’s InstantData technology streams information in the most compatible form possible, so customers can recover and begin using their critical data in seconds versus hours or days, while less vital files restore behind the scenes.
Boddington said that most users have previously dealt with QuickBooks backup by not backing it up at all, especially in the small business part of the SMB space.
Dan Boddington, Redstor Product Manager
“The vast majority haven’t been backing it up at all, with the result that some have come unstuck in drastic ways if there is a problem, so it’s quite greenfield in that sense,” he noted. “There are already some QuickBooks backup providers out there, including QuickBooks themselves, although we believe that having backup done by a separate company is better.” SaaS backup company Rewind is one of their competitors.
Moreover, the backup that QuickBooks has available is comparatively expensive for their market.
“Quickbooks Desktop is based on your own server, but QuickBooks is now focusing on migrating people to their online platform,” Boddington stated. “They do have some backup capabilities there, but only in the top tier of subscriptions, and it costs $200 a month.”
Boddington said that a solution more appropriately priced for the small business market is essential, because it’s too dangerous not to back the data up.
“Accidental deletion or change of data is an issue,” he indicated. “So is corruption of data, which can happen without human input. Small businesses are not immune to malicious intent either.”
The target market for this is 100 seats or less, although they do sell above that.
“Most will go to small businesses with less than 100 employees, but we do have some in the 500 seat range,” Boddington said. “Organizations with north of 100 seats typically have some sort of IT function in house, so it’s a bit easier to have conversations with them. These are more likely to use a partner.”
Education, public sector [especially in the U.K] and market-based organizations are the primary vertical markets.
“Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace are logical drag-throughs for partners as well, especially Microsoft 365,” Boddington noted. “This gives our partners additional opportunity to add value, with the opportunity to have extended conversations around these products.”
Redstor Backup for QuickBooks uses a single interface to protect and manage all data sources, from native infrastructure [Azure and AWS] to major SaaS offerings like Microsoft 365 and Salesforce, to legacy backup such as on-premise servers. Redstor Backup for QuickBooks also meets regulatory compliance standards like IRS 4557 and SOC2.
