Australian small business owners are being forced to pay every month for accounting software they already own, as Reckon remotely deactivates old copies of QuickBooks and Reckon Accounts purchased outright.

The accounting software giant has long insisted that QuickBooks and Reckon Accounts customers regularly reactivate their desktop software, even when the software has been purchased outright rather than on a subscription. Otherwise, the software's key features are disabled, leaving customers unable to manage their finances until they call Reckon to obtain a free reactivation code.

Desktop installations of Reckon Accounts and QuickBooks are being shut down remotely in order to move customers to a subscription.

Reckon offers two years of technical support for copies of QuickBooks and Reckon Accounts purchased outright, with the terms and conditions originally offering users the right to continue using old versions of the software beyond this "indefinitely".

As of September, Reckon's call centre is refusing to provide Australian customers with reactivation codes for software which is more than two years old, and therefore no longer under technical support. The change affects all non-subscribing users of the desktop software (which was renamed from QuickBooks to Reckon Accounts in 2014), not just those attempting to reinstall an old version on a new computer.