What I am trying to determine is a bit of a multi-part question:If I have 1 PC, with the QuickBooks Desktop Application installed and a single company file being accessed, can I create multiple users, with different information access rights??1 user would handle basic AR/AP functions, view and access PO's and Sales Order's and mark bills and or customer invoices as paid - no payroll access, no company level profitability report access, etca 2nd user would have full company access, handle payroll, balance the overall company books, have actual bank account access, etc and would run and assess profitability reports, etc.the 2 users would not require concurrent access, they would operate the PC at different times for different purposes.Eventually there may be need for both users to access the system concurrently, which I believe is what Multi-User mode is designed for; can we simply maintain the same user profiles as above, with the same information access rights as above, but have 1 user access the information from 1 computer (a "remote workstation") and 1 user access the information logging into the original PC (it would also be the server for the "remote workstation")? I hope the above is fairly clear and easily understood. I look forward to a response. Unfortunately the documentation available on the Intuit web site, defining the capabilities afforded by Multi-User mode, are MUCH less than clear and concise and I have not been able to find much that helps clarify here in the community forum either. There are a number of discussion threads addressing "problems" but much fewer discussing capabilities, which surprises me considering the lack of in depth capability detailed on the product web site. Thanks in advance.

Question

1 PC with 1 company file, but multiple users/ logins with different information access rights

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
February 23, 2021
3 replies
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What I am trying to determine is a bit of a multi-part question:

If I have 1 PC, with the QuickBooks Desktop Application installed and a single company file being accessed, can I create multiple users, with different information access rights??
- 1 user would handle basic AR/AP functions, view and access PO's and Sales Order's and mark bills and or customer invoices as paid - no payroll access, no company level profitability report access, etc
- a 2nd user would have full company access, handle payroll, balance the overall company books, have actual bank account access, etc and would run and assess profitability reports, etc.
the 2 users would not require concurrent access, they would operate the PC at different times for different purposes.
Eventually there may be need for both users to access the system concurrently, which I believe is what Multi-User mode is designed for; can we simply maintain the same user profiles as above, with the same information access rights as above, but have 1 user access the information from 1 computer (a "remote workstation") and 1 user access the information logging into the original PC (it would also be the server for the "remote workstation")?

I hope the above is fairly clear and easily understood. I look forward to a response.

Unfortunately the documentation available on the Intuit web site, defining the capabilities afforded by Multi-User mode, are MUCH less than clear and concise and I have not been able to find much that helps clarify here in the community forum either. There are a number of discussion threads addressing "problems" but much fewer discussing capabilities, which surprises me considering the lack of in depth capability detailed on the product web site.

Thanks in advance.

QuickBooks Desktop

Fiat Lux - ASIA

You can create multi user profiles to access one company file on one computer in turns. Keep in mind, you can only have one Admin per company file. It is possible that one user may have more than one user profile to access one company file. Once you need more than one user working on the same file at the same time, you have to enable the multi user mode.

Rebecca R

Hi there ldjmcbain,

Thank you for your detailed question. Many businesses have more than one employee that needs to have access to the company's books for one reason or another, and it's important that you can assign that user access as necessary using QuickBooks Desktop. Let me give you a hand.

To address the first part of your question - yes! You can have QuickBooks Desktop installed on one PC with a single company file, and add multiple users with differing user accesses. Here's how:

Navigate to the Company menu and choose to Set Up Users and Password, then Set up Users.
Choose to Add User...
Enter the User Name and Password for the new user and hit Next.
You'll be brought to an Access for user: window where you can decide what this user has access to. Hit Next.
When you choose to give access to Selected areas of QuickBooks you'll have the ability to customize what they can access in the company file by choosing No Access, Full Access, or Selective Access for different areas.
Be sure to hit Finish when you're done.

If you want more information how to set up these additional users with differing accesses, and what those accesses mean, please refer to the articles below:

In regard to your second question, setting up a multi-user network will enable you to have multiple users accessing the same company file from different computers. One computer will act as the host or server computer, the others are called work stations. You'll be able to maintain the same user logins that you already set up, so long as the users that are accessing the work stations have admin access to those computers. You indicated that you couldn't find many resources on this topic, but I've got a few great articles to share below:

If after reading through these articles you're still unclear on how the multi-user capability works, don't hesitate to reply to this thread with further questions. You're also welcome to Contact Us outside of the Community in order to speak to an agent in real-time who can walk you through the process.

There are a few steps involved in these processes, but I'm confident that you'll get everything set up as required. Have a great day!

L

ldjmcbainAuthor

We have QB Desktop Premier installed - when adding Users to be used "in turn" (1 at a time) and still using QB entirely on a single PC, with no networking, do I require a license for each User Profile, just because I want to be able to have a couple of people be able to assist with data entry, but not have full access to some of the more sensitive financial information?

Fiat Lux - ASIA

You should be able creating multi user profiles with a single license seat.

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