Quickbooks Desktop, can I work remotely?

Hello nancy40,

I hope you were able to enjoy your month away amid what's happening around the world. I know navigating working in self-isolation when you're used to having an office or a designated work area can be complicated, and I want to do what I can to help.

As long as you have QuickBooks Desktop installed on a computer at your home, you should be good to work on you client's file. There are a few options.

The first option is to have them send you an Accountant's Copy. When you have QuickBooks Desktop Accountant, this lets you work on a client file while they also continue to work. I recommend taking a look at the following link, which goes into more details about how an Accountant's Copy works and how you can use it to work with your client and their file: Use the Accountant's Copy

The second option still requires a version of QuickBooks Desktop on your computer, but it can be a regular version. For this scenario, you would need to have your client send you their company file for you to work on and then you would send it back. In this scenario, your client wouldn't be able to work on the file at the same time as you since the information would not be the same between the two afterward. So the person who sends the file would have to pause working until they received the file back.

If you're considering emailing a file back and forth, check out the following article about creating a company file that works with emails: Create and open portable company files in QuickBooks Desktop

To give more details about what your setup is going to be like and your options for working with your client's file, I recommend reaching out to QuickBooks Desktop support. Because of the virus, support has been limited to chat support for QuickBooks Desktop Canada. You can reach out via this link: https://intuit.me/cachat

An agent will be able to learn more and get you on track with your options. Take care!

Hi Laura AB,

Thank you for getting back to me! It has been difficult trying to find answers today (understandably with what is going on) so I am very appreciative that you responded.

I only have Online Accountant, not Desktop Accountant, and I think the Desktop version costs a far amount of money so we will try the file transfer back and forth. Thank you also for providing the instructions on how to proceed with that. For some reason, the chat link keeps defaulting to Quickbooks Online Chat only?

Anyway, we will give it a try. Thanks again! Take care and stay healthy!

Sincerely,

Nancy

@nancy40 

Explore this remote desktop app

https://my.splashtop.com/splashtop_referral/AAHHq6GG344maw

You will need another solution to access the data file in multi-user mode.

Thanks for following up, Nancy! I want to make sure you have the information you need going forward. QuickBooks Desktop and QuickBooks Online don't have the ability to read each other's files and be passed back and forth. In light of that, you'll need a version of QuickBooks Desktop in order to work on your client's books from QuickBooks Desktop. I recommend speaking about this with the chat support to learn your options.

The chat link I gave should be for QuickBooks Desktop exclusively, so please follow that rather than going through any in-help options in QuickBooks Online Accountant. That would lead directly to agents who support QuickBooks Online. Let me know if you're still having issues with the chat for QuickBooks Desktop. It's important to me that you're able to reach the proper support/.

Hello,

I am an office manager working from home on my laptop and my boss wants me to be able to access her quick books desktop to input deposits.  How can I access her quick books desktop?

You will need to be able to get a remote connection to the computer you want to access.  That can be accomplished a number of ways, but you may need technical help to do it.

If you are on Windows Pro version, you can use the built-in RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), but without a VPN (Virtual Private Network) set-up to run the RDP through, security can be a concern.  If you do set-up RDP, just make sure that the host computer opens up a different port than 3389, as that is the one most people use for RDP and port sniffers know that.  Use an odd port number that is not normally used for anything else, and make sure the host computer has an extremely strong Windows user password.  Then you would set up the RDP client on your home computer by creating a connection.  Computer:  The public facing IP address of the host, i.e.. XX.XX.XX.XX:Port# (the port # has to be specified after the colon, otherwise it will automatically use 3389 and you won't get a connection), and User Name:  MachineName\UserName.  You can find out what the public IP of any computer is by going to any site where you query "what is my ip address'?

Once you're on the computer, you would have access to the Quickbooks Desktop file that resides there.  If it's someone's computer that they need to be on, then any version of RDP likely won't work.  As soon as you remote in that computer, the host screen goes black.  Only one person at a time. :)  It would be great if they could host the QB file on a server or a low-use computer in the office so you can work on the file as you need to.  If they have multi-user access, then someone else can be on it at the same time as you, just not on the same computer.  If they don't have multi-user, then anyone else would have to exit QB in order for you to access the file.

There are other options that don't require setting up the RDP on both ends; i.e. TeamViewer, SplashTop, LogMeIn, pcAnywhere, GoToMyPc, etc.  Some of these are very strict about personal vs. business use, and if they even sniff that you are using it for business, they will kick you off the free version and insist you pay.  Chrome has a remote desktop as well, and it's free, so that is another option.

Hope you find a solution!