Intuit Statement Writer Unprotect Password

I appreciate the detailed information you've shared, @Charper1841.

Since you won't be able to use the old password to open the Statement Writer, let's refresh the access permission from your QuickBooks Desktop. Let me guide you through the process.

First off, you'll want to make sure that your QBDT is updated to the latest release. Then, download the latest version of QuickBooks Statement Writer.

Once done, let's now refresh the Statement Writer access permission. Here's how:

1. Go to the Edit menu, then select Preferences.
2. Select Integrated Applications and go to the Company Preferences tab.
3. Click QuickBooks Statement Writer, then select Remove.
4. Choose QuickBooks Statement Writer, then select Remove.
5. Open the Statement Writer.

If you encounter the same issue, feel free to check out this article for more troubleshooting steps: Fix problems with Statement Writer.

You might also want to read this article to learn more about QuickBooks Statement Writer (QSW): Use and navigate QuickBooks Statement Writer (QSW).

I'm always here to listen if you have additional questions regarding Intuit Statement Writer. You're welcome to post again or leave a reply below. Have a good one.

We have this exact same problem.

I completely understand the original question, but I'm not sure that others do (including QB Employees) as I have seen other comments about this with the response always being something related to Quickbooks Statement Writer from WITHIN Quickbooks and it's not that we can't use the Statement Writer, it's that the automatic password QSW is generating/assigning now when finishing the report and pushing it out to Excel is NOT the same as it has been for years and years.

I would appreciate it if someone from Intuit would actually look into this problem as it has been documented by others as well.  It has been terribly frustrating to try to find workarounds and the lack of knowledge about this by the support staff just shows me that they lack experts in this area of the product (QSW).  Seriously, QB, the constant pasting of steps that have nothing to do with the actual issue or repeated misunderstanding of the question is really disappointing and just shows a lack of knowledge of the product.

So, here it is, spelled out:

1. When you finish designing a report in Quickbooks Statement Writer, the final step is to "finish" which then exports that report to Excel.  You can then save that report, open the Excel and run it when needed, and normally you should be able to make some additional customization if needed.  No problem so far. 

2.  For some reason, Quickbooks Statement Writer "password protects" the Excel workbook/worksheet when it is exported.   I have no idea WHY that is, but it's not the user applying a password.  This has been the case for YEARS (even back when it was Intuit Statement Writer).

3.  Normally, you should be able to open this Excel report over and over, change the date range through the QSW add-in, and pull the refreshed data.  Good so far, until you need to make a change in the report that uses a basic Excel function but the password protect has those "locked out" (these functions are grayed out in Excel since the report was password protected by QSW.

4. In order to be able to make certain changes in the report, you had to annoyingly "unprotect" the workbook/worksheet repeatedly depending on what changes you were trying to make.

5.  The password to unprotect the Excel workbook/worksheet was documented by Quickbooks and shared by Quickbooks and has ALWAYS been: AABBABAABBBI  It has been this password for years!

6. Now, as Quickbooks and Office have incrementally launched new versions, this password NO LONGER WORKS!  I can't tell you at which point the disconnect started, but it has and it's a huge problem.

7.  Quickbooks either needs to tell us what the NEW password it that Quickbooks Statement Writer is using when it generates that final version of the report in Excel, or figure out what the problem is.  When you enter the old psssword in Excel  to unprotect it, it just simply says the password is incorrect and will not unlock the spreadsheet.

8.  This password is CLEARLY generated by Quickbooks Statement Writer as this is not set by the user anywhere in the report designing process.  And as I said, Quickbooks has always provided that password and it never varied for all the years and years I've used the product.

9.  The old password appears to only work with "stale" versions of Excel (if you really look at QSW documentation, they stop saying that it's officially compatible with any version of Excel after 2013, but that has nothing to do with Quickbooks, but rather Quickbooks Statement Writer.  And that's another topic.

10.  We need the NEW password that QSW is generating when it "finishes" the report and then opens it in Excel.  The old password does not work.

Is that clear enough?

So, Intuit/Quickbooks, we would encourage you to look into the auto-generated password issue that continues to plague reports built in Quickbooks Statement Writer whenever a report is "finished" and then saved to the final Excel report.

If anybody else has managed to get this new password out of them, please pass it on and post it here.  We're limping along using some tricks that are not going to be easy to keep doing.  But, if we can't get those Excel spreadsheets unprotected with the password provided by Quickbooks that actually works, it will render Quickbooks Statement Writer pretty much useless. 

If you have a dedicated team just for Quickbooks Statement Writer, it would be great to fold them into this conversation.

Hopefully that helps make this specific situation clear.

I look forward to a reply from someone at Intuit/Quickbooks that actually knows what they're talking about when it comes to QSW and how it's actually used with Excel.  You must have them both to make this product work.

-LW

Hi Lorin W,

I appreciate the information you've shared in this thread. I'd recommend getting in touch with our specialist to check the QSW components and report about the password that generating in QSW. They can escalate the automatic password assigning in QSW using their tools. Here's how to connect with them:

1. Go to the Help menu once you open QuickBooks.
2. Click QuickBooks Desktop Help or press F1 on your keyboard.
3. Select Contact us button. 
4. Enter a short description of your concern in the Tell us more about your question box. 
5. Hit Search. Select Start a message.

Visit again if you have questions. Stay.

WORKAROUND – Not the easiest, but it will work

(and Quickbooks support is providing no real answers.  Sorry, just stating a fact.)

The short answer:  If you happen to still have a copy of Office 2010/Excel 2010, the old password to unlock a report designed in Quickbooks Statement Writer and finished and saved to Excel) will ONLY work in that version (2010).  (We did not test any further back than 2010).  This is true on both Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 (yes, Office 2010 will actually still run on Windows 10).

*Note- You can design a report in QSW and the version of Excel you’re using will launch and allow you to save that report - this is true in Excel 2010, 2013 and 2016 in all of our scenarios.  So, let's say you were working in QB/QSW 2020, with Excel 2016, all good. What you CAN’T do is unprotect that workbook in Excel 2016 and modify those reports.  But you CAN open it in Excel 2010 and it will unlock with the old/standard password.)

Old password: AABBABAABBBI

Here’s the short update:

Windows 7 Pro or Windows 10

Product                                            Old Password WILL work    Old password will NOT work

QB Enterprise 2016/QSW           Office/Excel 2010                 Office/Excel 2013 or 2016

QB Enterprise 2018/QSW           Office/Excel 2010                 Office/Excel 2013 or 2016

QB Enterprise 2020/QSW           Office/Excel 2010                 Office/Excel 2013 or 2016

(We also did not test Office/Excel 2019 for two reasons:  1.) It’s not officially supported (according to Intuit) for use with Quickbooks Statement Writer.  2.) Intuit has a notorious reputation for always being a version behind in their support and integration with the current version of office. Sorry, but it’s just the truth.  We always tend to rely more on a year back on both QB Enterprise and Office in order to make sure that they “play” nicely together.  Just stating a fact here and I’ve been using QB in every version since the mid 90’s).

I have been in touch with tech support and shared my information with them but they are ALWAYS focused on the wrong thing.  QSW works fine.  It's opens correctly.  It’s configured correctly.  It loads correctly.   You can design and build reports.  You can save those reports as they’re opened up in Excel (2010, 2013 or 2016) at the completion of the design process.  The password unprotect issue for completed reports is not occurring as any part of those steps for QSW.

What you CANNOT do, is use the standard password to unprotect the Excel worksheet in the finished/saved report if you are opening that report in Office/Excel 2013 or 2016.

So, all of this focus on QSW and if it’s installed and configured correctly is not where the issue is.  But that's what tech support is focused on and they simply do not have enough hands on use with the product and using Excel with it for them to do anything except respond with some list of canned steps that are not for this issues.

Intuit/Quickbooks did admit that QSW is only officially supported for Office/Excel 2007, 2010 and 2013.  I have NO idea why they abandoned official support for it being used with 2016 or 2019, but there it is.  This is terribly misleading because it’s almost like QSW has been abandoned in the process and yet when people are purchasing QB and QSW as part of that product, the expectation is that it would be supported fully the same way the QB product is.  But this is not the case.

So, there it is.  If you happen to have Office 2010 around, you can open up those QSW reports that we’ve all designed (even those saved in 2013 and 2016 but opened in 2010) and when you need to modify them you can unprotect the worksheet with the old password stated above.  If you open them in Office/Excel 2013 and 2016 it simply states that the password is incorrect and the Excel workbooks/worksheet will not unlock.

I’m hoping to get connected with a team that actually knows the QSW product in the way that those of us that have used it for years and years are, so we can address two things:

                Figure out why the standard worksheet unprotect password doesn’t at least work in Office 2013 (which they say is officially the last one supported for QSW).

                Find out why they are abandoning this integral part of the product and forcing us to rely on legacy versions of Office/Excel to be able to use all the features that we paid for when we purchased QB Enterprise (or any version with QSW) in the first place.

We’ll see how it goes.

It's now 6 months later (February 3, 2021) and I have this same problem.

I just contacted Intuit technical support and they have NO SOLUTION WHATSOEVER.

They're passing the buck claiming it's a Microsoft problem and I need to contact Microsoft for a solution.

Basically statement writer is USELESS.

We use a hosted version of Quickbooks, so I performed this workaround on personal C drive using a local installation of Excel 2010.  The following additional steps appeared to work (although somewhat clunky):

1)  Save a version of the problematic statement writer file on a local drive with the regular file extension of .qsm.

2)  In Windows Explorer, manually change file extension from .qsm to .xls

3)  Open the file in Excel 2010 and ignore any error messages that Excel cannot find the Intuit statement writer program

4) Use above mentioned password to unprotect the file

5) Fix any errors (ours primarily related to incorrect ranges in standard Excel sum formulas)

6) Save the file in the same .xls format.

7) Use Windows Explorer to manually change the file extension back to .qsm.

8) Open the revised file using the Statement Writer (save on hosted desktop)

9) Save as a new .qsm file when the Statement Writer is finished (using regular Statement Writer commands).

RE:

@Charper1841  "Ever since I updated my computer from Windows 7 to Windows 10, I cannot use the old password of AABBABAABBBI to unprotect a workbook/Excel sheet in Intuit Statement Writer. This is so frustrating because I can't make a change to my report. "

@Lorin W"The password to unprotect the Excel workbook/worksheet was documented by Quickbooks and shared by Quickbooks and has ALWAYS been: AABBABAABBBI It has been this password for years!

6. Now, as Quickbooks and Office have incrementally launched new versions, this password NO LONGER WORKS! ...7. Quickbooks either needs to tell us what the NEW password it that Quickbooks Statement Writer is using when it generates that final version of the report in Excel, or figure out what the problem is."

"So, let's say you were working in QB/QSW 2020, with Excel 2016, all good. What you CAN’T do is unprotect that workbook in Excel 2016 and modify those reports. But you CAN open it in Excel 2010 and it will unlock with the old/standard password.) Old password: AABBABAABBBI"

@Geoffrey5  "We use a hosted version of Quickbooks, so I performed this workaround on personal C drive using a local installation of Excel 2010. The following additional steps appeared to work (although somewhat clunky):"

I wasn't that familiar with the Statement Writer and so I though I'd check it out. I got it to work on one computer. It's well.... rather clunky. However, I see the issue you're seeing, as after the report is created you can't do much to it. It seems this is another case of Intuit trying to save you from yourself, which they seem to think is their job.

The basic issue, hinted at in your posts, is two part:

1) The password you were using in older Excel versions wasn't really the password. It turns out the old versions worked in such an insecure way that it was easy to guess a password that worked - that many passwords would actually work, even though different than the original. That password, AABBABAABBBI, came from a hacker, not officially Intuit (though it may have been an Intuit employee).

2) Somehow, starting with Excel ~2013, Microsoft changed Excel to require the use of the actual password, even though the Excel workbook is backwards compatible to older Excel versions that don't require it. The implication is that the password was actually stored in such a way that they could have done this all along.

I could build a little utility that would completely remove the worksheet protection from Statement Writer reports. Would anyone be interested in that?

Yes, please build a little utility that would completely remove the worksheet protection from Statement Writer reports. I need something. Thanks

Yes, please build a little utility that would completely remove the worksheet protection from Statement Writer reports.  I would really appreciate that.  Thanks

I would absolutely welcome a utility that would remove any password from the Excel workbook created through building a report with QSW.  **We continue to have a standalone workstation that's pretty much only for unprotecting reports built in QSW using an old version of Excel (2010).  But, some of our reports are custom built to comply with GAAP presentation and are quite complicated so QSW is still an important add-on tool for us.

Just an update that I should have posted long ago - After many, many frustrating calls with QB, I finally spoke to someone at length who had been there for a long time and in multiple positions.  She said that she's under the impression that the original password was never to have been shared in the first place, but it was out and for several years it was never changed.  Eventually they changed that and they have no intention of sharing what the new password is as she claimed that was the original intent: to block modification in Excel and outside of QSW.  As someone commented here, another example of Intuit thinking they need to protect us from ourselves.  So, unless people can crack the password or get a utility to remove it, the only option is running some sort of legacy version of Excel with a version of QB with QSW.  Or you have to return within QSW and redesign/modify the report which sometimes gives you mixed results.

Did anyone write a program to remove the password?  I would love to use it!

I do wonder just what kind of idiots Intuit thinks we CPAs are that they feel that statement writer has to be password protected.  It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't so buggy.   It is really frustrating.