What happens to QuickBooks accounts when the owner dies

Through Intuit's Business Change Request form, reached from the "Request to be the primary admin or contact" help article. The executor signs in with their own Intuit account, creating one if needed, selects the company, and uploads proof: their driver's license, government-issued ID, or passport; a notarized document naming the executor of the deceased owner's estate, which Intuit says should state that it authorizes the requester to be the primary admin; and a document matching the business type, such as a business license for a sole proprietorship or articles of organization or an operating agreement for an LLC. Submitting the form emails any other owners or authorized parties, who have 14 business days to verify and upload before the system declines the request automatically. Intuit reviews the submission at its discretion and emails the result.

The primary admin is the person who controls the QuickBooks Online company, including its users, settings, and billing. If that person dies and nobody else holds equivalent access, the books and the subscription become hard to manage at exactly the point the estate needs them: the ledger supports a final business and personal return, the transaction history supports valuing or winding down the business, and the billing settings are what stops the recurring charge. Moving the primary admin role to a surviving co-owner, spouse, accountant, or the executor puts the records and the billing in reachable hands.

Yes. A QuickBooks Online subscription recurs and auto-bills until it is actively cancelled. For a subscription bought directly from Intuit, cancellation runs through the Intuit Account Manager: select Products & billing, select the company, then Cancel. A subscription bought through the Apple App Store or Google Play has to be cancelled in that store instead. Intuit also states that a declined card gives 14 days to update billing before the account is suspended, and that it cancels the subscription automatically after three failed attempts to charge the payment method. Export the records before cancelling, because after cancellation the data is read-only for one year (90 days for a trial).

While the subscription is active, go to Settings and, in the TOOLS column, select Export data to export the reports and lists as Excel files in one .zip. Several record types sit outside that archive and need their own export: estimates and purchase orders from the sales and expense transaction lists, customer statements, attachments (Settings, Attachments, Batch actions, Export), the recurring template list, the chart of accounts, and products and services. Intuit states that data can be exported to Excel or to a desktop version of QuickBooks for up to a year after cancellation, and within 90 days after cancelling a trial, but exporting before cancelling keeps a copy the estate controls outright.

Intuit reserves that discretion in writing. Section 5 of the QuickBooks Online Terms of Service says Intuit determines in its sole discretion whether a person requesting the Administrator role should be designated, including where the request follows the death of the registered Administrator, and that where several people dispute the role Intuit may be unable to resolve it. That section also reserves Intuit's right to suspend or terminate the account, or to require a court order to determine the rightful Administrator. In practice Intuit asks for documentation first, which its Terms list as potentially including government-issued photo identification, proof of payment of the subscription, an affidavit, a signed permission letter from the owner, and documents showing the successorship of the business. Nothing in the process guarantees an outcome, which is why an exported copy of the books made during the owner's lifetime matters.

Intuit states that when a QuickBooks Online subscription is cancelled you have read-only access to the data for one year, and that data from a cancelled or expired free trial is available for 90 days. Export to Excel or to a desktop version of QuickBooks is possible within that same window. Intuit adds that a customer holding multiple QuickBooks Online subscriptions who keeps at least one under the same login keeps read-only access indefinitely. After the window, resubscribing is required to reach the data.