Why does QB kick me out to the login screen while I am working? (This happens at least once a day while I am working, not while I am away and my machine is idle).

Hi kendal-evans-gma,

Allow me to chime in and provide some troubleshooting steps that could also be useful to help you get back on track. The article provided above by @Lourdes-Fernandez is a great step-by-step guide to enable you set-up your timeout duration in QuickBooks Online. If QuickBooks signs you out before the timeout duration in your settings, it could be due to a browser issue. Temporary internet files that accumulate in your browser can sometimes cause bugs in the software. Clearing the cache fixes this issue and ensures your app or browser is running the program as designed. Here's how: Clear cache and cookies to fix issues when using QuickBooks Online

Another great course of action to take to resolve these kinds of situations is to navigate in a private/incognito window or use a different browser compatible with QuickBooks Online. Here's an article with the list of supported browsers: System requirements for QuickBooks Online, Accountant, and QuickBooks Self-Employed

I hope this helps! Do not hesitate to reach out if you have more questions.

This happens to me quite frequently when working on estimates.  QBO thinks your idle even though you are actively working, when you try to save your work you get brought to the log in page and all is lost...the dollars spent on staff drawing up estimates is not easily replaced.  It would be nice if QBO would have an auto-save feature like most software that's been around for thirty plus years or at least be able to detect the activity that is going on to reset the time out.

Hello MGD Electric,

Thanks for joining in on this thread to share how the timeout feature and needing to manually save impact the workflow for you and your team in QuickBooks Online. I know that lost work means needing to put in more time to redo it, and I have a few suggestions for how to prevent that from happening.

You're right, even if you're actively working on entering a transaction with many lines, QuickBooks Online doesn't always catch that activity. Typically, this happens for users that tab through the fields instead of clicking. My biggest recommendation when working on transactions is to save as you go when possible. On transactions like estimates, you can click the Save button beside the green Save and close/new/send button, which will save the work done without closing out the transaction. This'll help the program recognize you're still working and also means less work lost if it happens to not catch it or you run into another issue along the way.

The next thing I recommend doing is submitting feedback about your wish for an auto-save feature. Our product development team takes feedback from users to heart and considers them as they continue to evolve the software. The more people contributing their voices, the better. Here's how you can leave feedback that our product development team will see: How do I submit feedback? The comments left through that feature are forwarded to the team. You can also keep track of new features on this page: QuickBooks Online Feature and Product Updates

I hope this has been helpful and that you have a great weekend.