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Desktop Accounting API

Help center

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This help center is for the people who run QuickBooks Desktop day to day. You might be a bookkeeper, an office manager or the IT person for a small business. An app you use sent you a setup link, and that app needs to read and update your QuickBooks Desktop company file. You do not need to write code to follow any page here.

If you work on an app’s support team and are diagnosing a customer’s connection, these are the same pages your customer sees. Send them the page that matches the message they reported.

How the connection works

Section titled “How the connection works”

QuickBooks Desktop runs on a Windows computer in your office or in a hosted desktop. Intuit’s free QuickBooks Web Connector runs next to it on the same computer. Every few seconds the Web Connector makes an outgoing HTTPS call to our server and asks whether the app has any work waiting. If it does, the Web Connector passes the request to QuickBooks and sends the answer back. Nothing on your network accepts incoming connections, and you do not open any firewall ports. The trade-off is that the computer has to be on and signed in to Windows, with the Web Connector running, for the app to reach your books.

Set up the connection

Section titled “Set up the connection”

Fix an error by the message you see

Section titled “Fix an error by the message you see”

Start with Connection not active. It covers the most common problem, a computer or Web Connector that stopped checking in.

The message mentions Go to
The computer is not reachable, or the Web Connector has not checked in Connection not active
QuickBooks could not start, or is still opening QuickBooks could not be started
A window open in QuickBooks, QBWC1053 A QuickBooks window is blocking the connection
A different company file is open, or the file does not match A different company file is open
QuickBooks could not find the company file The company file cannot be found
Single-user mode, or the file is in use Single-user or multi-user mode conflict
The company file cannot be closed because another application (… via Desktop Accounting API) is using it QuickBooks says the company file is being used by another application
QBWC1039, has not accessed this company file before Only the Admin can grant first access
QBWC1039, Unique OwnerID/FileID pair value required Unique OwnerID/FileID pair value required
QuickBooks has not allowed this connection QuickBooks denied access to the app
The QuickBooks user does not have permission The QuickBooks user lacks permission
Someone is editing this record A record is open or locked by another user
QBWC1012, authentication failed QBWC1012: Authentication failed
QBWC1048, server certificate QBWC1048: Could not verify the server certificate
QBWC1085, log file QBWC1085: Problem with the log file
Password not set, invalid password, QBWC1040, lost password Web Connector password problems
Another update is in progress Another update is in progress
QuickBooks version too old, or a non-US edition This QuickBooks version is not supported
Windows asks “Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?” Windows asks to allow this app to make changes
Unable to cast COM object Unable to cast COM object
A Microsoft .NET error window in the Web Connector, such as “Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero” The Web Connector shows an unhandled error

Common tasks

Section titled “Common tasks”

When to contact the app’s support team

Section titled “When to contact the app’s support team”

The app’s support team can see your connection status and the last time your Web Connector checked in, and they can create a new setup link for you. Contact them if a page here does not fix the problem. Include the time the problem happened, the exact message you saw and a screenshot of the app’s row in the Web Connector window.