Accessing Quickbooks from VPN

Hey there, @PineMech2020.

Let's go over the VPN connection and what it means exactly. A VPN is a virtual private network which gives you the ability to connect to a business network from home. With that being said, you stated that you're unable to access QuickBooks while connected to the VPN. Are you sure you're connected to the right VPN? 

May I offer a solution to try here if you're connected to the correct VPN? 

You stated you're getting a message "No company file can be found." Let's get back to the basics by connecting to a company file to open it for the first time. You're getting this error message due to when you click on the company file name and hit Open, it doesn't have a location associated with it. 

This can sometimes happen due to the company file being moved, or the network is down. What you'll want to do is locate the company file, and then sign in to the company file to remember the location again. I've covered the basic steps for locating a company file below. However, if you're having issues, I recommend reaching out to your IT professional to help locate the file for you, or you can contact support, so an agent can remote into your computer securely and help you locate the file. 

1. Click Open or restore an existing company. 

2. Ensure to select Open a company file, then Next. 

3. Locate your company file and hit Open.

Please let me know if you find you have further questions or concerns. I'll be here every step of the way of getting you back to business. You can always count on us here in the Community to be your helping hand. Take care! 

@PineMech2020 

Just want to clarifiy, did you already setup a VPN or do want to setup one? 

Hello,

Anybody trying to use Quickbooks over a VPN is well and scr**ed, because the systems design of Quickbooks utilizes a phenomenal number of read/writes across the network. Most other network applications work fine across VPN connections, because they are designed for network bandwidth economy.

People talk about how slow VPN connections are, but when you can't reduce it to numbers, it's just whining. It really comes down to what the underlying communications performance is, at the server and remote sites.

If they both have an upload speed that is 1/4 of the download, then the Quickbooks conversation is operating at 60% (rough efficiency of a VPN incorporating the security overhead of the connection) of the upload speed (sloooow). So if you want to operate over a VPN, then you need to shell out the bucks for high-speed symmetric internet service at both ends. If you've got a lot going besides the bean-counting, it might be the overall most-cost effective solution.

This isn't a slam on Intuit. It is not in Intuit's best interest to completely redesign Quickbooks Desktop to operate efficiently across VPN's and very secure firewalls, as it's a cash cow for them.

The typically discussed alternative is to set up a remote desktop server (additional license cost per seat) on the Window 10 server that you're running Quickbooks on. If you don't know how to, then doing a little homework on that topic will allow you to find an appropriate Windows 10 network and server specialist to help. IT professional is such a broad and useless term, that it invites spending a lot of money on somebody else to do that homework (a daisy chain of gig workers connected end to end, circling the world).

Another alternative is to go with Quickbooks Online and not have to deal with servers, etc... But then you're completely dependent on internet access for both on-site and remote Quickbooks users. If that works for you (stable internet access and no outages or degradation due to the wind, rain, and squirrels), then it's all good.

Nothing is free, so figuring out what you need from a network architecture and finding what fits will probably keep the coinage in line.

So I upgraded to QB 2020 yesterday and Have struggled to open my file.  I am trying to access the file on the server via VPN.  I called support today and "Florence" informed me that the QB file could not be access via VPN; the file must reside on the local computer.  And since QB was installed...this was not an installation issue so need to get a support plan for $199 to receive further help.    Really, Intuit??  After that call, I really need to hear from support to restore my faith in the company!

As noted in another reply, QuickBooks is extremely inefficient about using network connections even on internal LANS. Most VPN's do not correctly provide bi-directional name resolution which makes connecting by name of system difficult. Typically, once the VPN is up, you can open QuickBooks on your remote system, and browse the server by IP address of the form 192.168.1.10 (or whatever the server's actual IP address is). Once you manage to open the company file, it will be slow.

Our recommendation for customers is to remote desktop into a system co-located with the server (or the server itself) and use QuickBooks there. Remote desktop is built into Windows operating systems and supports remote printing to the remote system's computer (it is an option when you connect to the server). You are thus using your existing QuickBooks license on the PC co-located with the server and do not need an additional license.

If you can get a business class VPN like AT&T's Ethernet Private Line Service - WAN with full bi-directional connectivity, you can attempt the remote system directly connecting to the QuickBooks database server. QuickBooks will function if your VPN is running in "Bridge" mode, assigning IP addresses within the same subnet as your local clients. You would have usable performance, but you pay for it. This requires a series of settings that the network provider has to help with and possibly different network hardware. The speed issue is combination of every network packet being encrypted/decrypted and the use of the SMB protocol by QuickBooks.