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Desktop Accounting API

Create a dedicated QuickBooks user for the connection

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When the Web Connector opens your company file by itself, it signs in as the QuickBooks user chosen under Login as during setup. If that is the same user a person in the office signs in with, the two can collide. QuickBooks lets each user sign in only once at a time, so either the person or the connection gets refused.

A QuickBooks user that only the connection uses avoids this. It also makes the QuickBooks audit trail clearer, because changes the app makes show up under their own user name.

Who needs this

Section titled “Who needs this”
  • Offices where several people work in the company file in multi-user mode.
  • Offices where the connection uses Admin and someone also signs in as Admin.
  • Anyone who wants app changes to be easy to spot in QuickBooks reports.

If one person uses QuickBooks on one computer and the connection runs on that same computer, the Admin user is usually fine.

Create the user

Section titled “Create the user”

You need to be signed in to the company file as Admin. Switch to single-user mode first with File › Switch to Single-user Mode if that option is shown.

QuickBooks Pro, Premier and Accountant

  1. Choose Company › Set Up Users and Passwords › Set Up Users.
  2. Click Add User.
  3. Enter a user name that says what it is for, for example the app’s name followed by “connection”.
  4. Enter a strong password and confirm it. Store it in your password manager. The connection does not need you to type it again, but you need it to change the user later.
  5. Choose the access level. Give the user access to every area the app reads or changes. If you are not sure which areas those are, choose All areas of QuickBooks.
  6. Finish the wizard.

QuickBooks Enterprise

  1. Choose Company › Users › Set Up Users and Roles.
  2. Click New.
  3. Enter a user name and a strong password.
  4. Under roles, assign a role that covers every area the app reads or changes. If you are not sure, assign Full Access.
  5. Click OK.

Point the connection at the new user

Section titled “Point the connection at the new user”

Creating the user does not change the connection by itself. Follow Change the QuickBooks user the connection uses and pick the new user under Login as.

Licenses

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QuickBooks counts users who are signed in at the same moment, not the number of user names you create. The dedicated user takes a seat only while the Web Connector has the file open with it. If your office uses every seat during the day, leave QuickBooks closed on the Web Connector computer when nobody works there, so the connection signs in only for its requests.

Check that it worked

Section titled “Check that it worked”
  1. Close QuickBooks on the Web Connector computer.
  2. Do something in the app that changes QuickBooks, such as creating a test record the app allows.
  3. Open QuickBooks and look at the record’s history, or run the Audit Trail report. The change shows the dedicated user’s name.

When to contact the app’s support team

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

Contact them if requests fail with a permission error after you switch users. Send the user’s access level, the time and exact message, and a screenshot of the app’s row in the Web Connector.

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