QBOA ability to mutually restrict QBO Primary Admin and Admin role

Hi there, HAM9.

I understand the importance of having this option available to you and your business. I'm here to assist you and ensure that this matter is taken care of.

While you have the ability to designate yourself as the Primary Admin when adding clients to your QuickBooks Online Accountant (QBOA) account, it is currently not possible to mutually restrict the QuickBooks Online (QBO) Admin/Admin role from performing tasks within QBOA.

We'd recommend sending a feature request to our Product Development Team. This way, they'll be able to look at your suggestion and evaluate it so they can consider adding the feature to future program updates:

1. Click the Gear icon at the top right.
2. Select Feedback and then enter your comments or product suggestions.
3. Once ready, click Next to submit feedback.

You can track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

I'm also adding these articles that tackle managing and adding clients to your QBOA for future reference:

• Add clients to QuickBooks Online Accountant.
• Transfer primary admin access back to your QuickBooks Online client.

Please let me know if you have more questions about this or anything else QuickBooks, HAM9. I'll be here ready to assist. Keep safe.

@FritzF That being the case, it becomes tricky for QBOA to sell their services and QuickBooks Online to prospective clients. There are a number of ramifications here.

For effective control and to ensure the Integrity of work performed by QBOA inside QBO companies, the QBOA would have to make themselves Primary Admin in QBO organizations. However this would work well for a new QBO client onboarded by the QBOA in it's wholesale account. For existing QBO companies who are inviting QBOA, they would already have their own Primary Admin and hence they would own the QBO licence.

If QBOA take the Primary Admin role for new QuickBooks clients or existing clients to maintain Integrity of their work, the issue of ownership of the QBO licence and how clients perceive that would become an issue.

Obviously clients would not get ownership of their licence which they pay for (either directly to Intuit or indirectly to QBOA in case they are in latter's wholesale account).

Furthermore, if QBOA had the Primary Admin role, the clients would not get the ability to kick out or hire new QBOA accountant.

The clients would perceive this as a walled garden. If in future both parted ways then either the QBOA, if he or she wanted, passes on the Primary Admin role to the organization owner, or alternatively deny the organization ownership rights in cases especially where there is disgruntlement. In latter's case, the QBOA can claim that he/she (the QBOA) owned the QuickBooks licence and they were merely providing a service to the client.

The client would obviously live with this prospect that they could loose all their data if they parted ways with the QBOA. They would then have to engage a new QBOA setting up a fresh, or go for another product.

By having the feature I described earlier could potentially eliminate these issues allowing the QBOA to maintain control and Integrity of their work and also for QBO organizations to have and maintain ownership of their set of Books.

@FritzF  I was just going through the article on how to transfer Primary Admin to the client from QBOA and noted the excerpt below:

"When a client invites you to be their accountant, or you start a company file for them, you can also become their primary admin..."

For my knowledge, how can the QBOA become the Primary Admin in each of the above 2 cases (1. when QBOA is invited by the client to become the accountant and scenario 2. when the QBOA starts a company file for client)?

Thanks.

Let me chime in and provide some information about this, HAM9. 

Yes, you can become the primary admin if you start or create a company file for your client. Upon generating a new company, you can become the primary admin. By default, the primary admin is the person who set up the account. 

However, when your client invites you to become their accountant from an existing company, you have to generally ask permission from the primary admin to transfer the role to you. Then, you can ask your client to add you as a regular user and change your access to the primary admin.   

I'll add these articles for more information about organizing admin roles in your company file in QuickBooks:

• Change the primary admin user in QuickBooks Online
• Transfer primary admin access back to your QuickBooks Online client 

Please do leave a comment if you have further clarifications about managing user roles in QuickBooks. I'll be here to lend a hand. Have a good one!

I did not understand the part where the client invites the Accountant nor does the article explain. How do you get the Primary Admin role from the client when the client invites you to become the QBOA?

Allow me to join this conversation and provide further clarification about the user role in QuickBooks, HAM9.

The primary admin is the main user who has access to every part of the QuickBooks account and is the person who set up the account.

When your client invites you to become their accountant from their existing QuickBooks Online account, you'll not be getting the Primary Admin role. Thus, the only way to become their primary admin is by starting a company file or adding them from your firm. It means you're the one who starts and subscribes to QuickBooks on their behalf. 

I suggest visiting this article: Add clients to QuickBooks Online Accountant. Go to the To pay for their own QuickBooks subscription section for information. 

I see that this article leads you to understand differently on how primary admin work: Transfer primary admin access back to your QuickBooks Online client. Here's how you can send feedback for this article:

1. Open the article.
2. Scroll down and click No under Was this helpful?.
3. Select It's Confusing or other preferred options to report.
   

Please inform me if you have further concerns regarding managing clients and QuickBooks roles. We are here to assist you in any way we can.

@SarahannC  So if I understand it correct, to get the Primary Admin role once client has invited Accountant, it is a separate process independent of QBOA file; it is just as if you are adding an independent user in clients books, then make the user admin and then client transfers Primary Admin role to the newly created user who happens to be the QBOA Accountant but he would log in with separate newly created and accepted (Primary Admin) credentials directly in clients books without logging into QBOA. 

@SarahannC Further to my last post, I think you are wrong in saying that when the Accountant creates a new client file inside QBOA then he becomes the Primary Admin for the client file. As far as I remember, when you create a new client inside QBOA you are supposed to indicate the name and email of the client. That email becomes the Primary Admin of the QBO client file. The Accountant does not become the Primary Admin of the Client Books upon creation of the new client file inside of QBOA. There are lots of nuances here and there that sometimes people forget what happens..