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QuickBooks Multi User Mode

Jenna Alcantara's Profile

quickbooks multi user modeMy family has a very small rental business and uses quickbooks 2015 for the bookkeeping. We have book keeper in one state, an a accountant in another. I'm wondering if the multi user will work for us or if we need the online package? Thank you.


Topic Expert
Jaime Campbell
Title: Chief Financial Officer
Company: Tier One Services, LLC
(Chief Financial Officer, Tier One Services, LLC) |

There are a lot of tools available, and multi-user is just one. You want the solution that is the cheapest, easiest, and best for you situation.

The muti-user will work for you as long as you have a server set up that everyone can access or if you want to use an online hosted environment such as Right Networks. If you don't have a server, then online hosting might make a lot of sense because it's a subscription instead of big upfront costs.

The Accountant's Copy might work for you instead of multi-user. It depends on a few things.

Bear in mind that the online package has different features and a different interface, and there are pros and cons of each package. It's really a different animal from QuickBooks desktop. The main similarity is the product name and a few of the terms in the software.

Topic Expert
Wayne Spivak
Title: President & CFO
LinkedIn Profile
(President & CFO, |


Can I make a small change to your first paragraph (I won't comment on the remainder as I am not a QB person).

You don't want the cheapest solution, you want the best solution. While you may have a budget, that budget may or may not be realistic.

You business survives (contrary to every non-accountant's belief) with providing accurate and up to date information on economic, management and financial events. These are for the most part recorded in your accounting system.

So you want the best system for you. The most productive. The easiest to use to capture the data you need for today and tomorrow and next year. And, this is a key point; you want to implement a system that will be able to scale as your company scales.

So cheap, may be the band aid for today, but isn't the answer in the mid-term.

Michael C
Title: Tax/Business Consultant
Company: Self
(Tax/Business Consultant, Self) |

Technically, QB is meant for 1 user unless you buy a multi-user license package. If more than 1 person actually uses QB, then the multi-user version is the correct package to use.

QB Online is an almost entirely different QB platform which is, for all intents and purposes, Not Fully compatible with the QB Desktop version (Intuit calls the CD version the "desktop" version which makes sense but the name still confuses people).

You can set up the QB desktop for multiusers and have the accountant/different users remote in via a 3rd party website or through VPN. Contact your computer tech people to assist you with those features esp. VPN.

Samuel Otijele
Title: Accountant
Company: Quanteq Technology Services, Ltd
(Accountant, Quanteq Technology Services, Ltd) |

As an internal auditor, what are the approaches to auditing quick-book accounting bookkeeping?

Ankit Tomar
Title: Pro Advisor
Company: Wizxpert
(Pro Advisor, Wizxpert) |

Yes, Multi-user function will surely work for you but it is possible that you might need to buy packages for using multi-user function.
However, we have seen that QuickBooks does run slow while using multi-user function.
But it is possible to get the speed back in by some ways mentioned at

Best of luck !!

(Agent, JKS Solutions, Inc.) |

The multi-user mode in QuickBooks Pro and Premier allows multiple users to collaborate on the same company file at the same time. All users must be networked and must each have their own QuickBooks license. For more information please visit:

Marry Maria
Title: Manager
Company: Ask for Accounting
(Manager, Ask for Accounting) |

Yes, as already been mentioned in the replies above you are able to use QuickBooks in a multi user mode. This adds multiple benefits for you being a user, one of the most important being that you are able to get things done at a much faster rate. Collaborating over a project becomes much more easy. But there is certain things that doesn't work when QuickBooks is in a multi user mode.
You can read more about them here at:


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