To be clear, Intuit is still selling Quickbooks Desktop Pro and Premier and Enterprise. And those versions can still create an “Accountant Copy” (QBX file), but you can no longer get the Quickbooks accountant version that let’s you OPEN a QBX file.
Makes sense? 
johanus everything is going online and up in price these days
Well the explanation I got was the accountant version is still available as long as you were in the pro advisor program and are willing to pay the new price but no new pro advisor subscriptions will be sold.
I think Intuit is failing to realize just how much business was driven to them by the pro advisor program.
It is worth complaining about the increase to Intuit, instead of a 250% increase I had the increase reduced to 200%. Still not that happy but at least a bit better.
Yes, @jimt you are correct. But, if you were not in the ProAdvisor program, you could not have bought/licensed the accountant version. And, if you if you didn’t want/need the accountant version of the program, what point was there to BE in the ProAdvisor program? That’s why I stopped my ProAdvisor subscription years ago.
Now that they have stopped selling ProAdvisor subscriptions, there will be a limited number of accountants out there who can open a QBX file, and that number can only go down (not up).
Oh, well. I just have the one client whose bookkeeper keeps trying to send me a QBX file, so I’ll just keep telling her I can’t open it, and to send me a full backup.
The “subscription model” has made ALL software suppliers fat, and by corollary, lazy. Updates tend to be minimal, critical fixes ignored until they can’t hold the line any more. The problem, for “us” is that we NEED to be current, carry payroll and tax on a year-to-year basis and WE are a captive audience.
I spare my clients somewhat because we have generally done most of the bookkeeping, so that insulates them a bit from software (although not bookkeeping) costs.
Oh, I know. And it’s to our disadvantage. Web programming is still too limited to do everything we really need for excellent, high-level bookkeeping/accounting programs. It can’t even do many of the things that QB Desktop could do 10 years ago.