3 Great Reasons to Create Unique User Profiles In Your QuickBooks File

26 Mar 3 Great Reasons to Create Unique User Profiles In Your QuickBooks File

If your company has more than one person accessing accounting data multiple users are a must.  Many hands make light work, but they often can also make a mess of things.  One deleted transaction, or change to a closed period, and the finger pointing begins.  If you are an accountant, or bookkeeper, and your clients have access to their own QuickBooks files this can be a headache.  “Who changed that?” and “why is the trial balance off” are dreaded phrases.  The good news is the solution is easy.  Create unique users.  Each person that needs access to a QuickBooks file should be set up with their own user name and password.

• Unique user names make it possible for several people to work in a file at the same time.  When QuickBooks is in multi-user mode more than one user can log into the file and do work, but each must have a user name and password.  While in multi-user mode some functions are not possible such as making changes to the chart of accounts or setting a closing date password but most other ordinary functions are.
• The audit trail, which is always on in QuickBooks, tracks which users are entering, changing and deleting entries.  Nobody wants to have to prove someone wrong, or point a finger, but when push comes to shove being able to tell exactly whose fault it is can really help you out.  
• Having unique users limits access to sensitive information.  If your whole company is logging into the ADMIN user then everyone has top clearance.  Setting up users with levels of access in Pro and Premier versions of QuickBooks is fairly basic and limited in what you can turn on and off.  If you need more varied and specific levels and permissions for a larger group QuickBooks Enterprise Edition may be required.