Episode 10: QuickBooks Accountant’s Copy
As I mentioned last week, the Accountant’s Copy feature of QuickBooks is very useful and is very different than a regular backup. It allows you to keep working in your QuickBooks data file while your accountant has a copy to work on also. Then your accountant can export the changes they have made and you can merge those changes back into your data file. This is the first recording since installing Windows 7 and I think my microphone level was a little too high so I apologize if the audio is a little off.
If you have any questions about this episode please leave them in the comments section below the video. Thanks!
Hi there! I'm Mike. I am a CPA and an Advanced Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor. I teach QuickBooks locally in classrooms and do one-on-one training sessions. I created this site so I could extend my teaching to more people and offer them the best support possible.
Thank you for Episode 10 – Accountant’s copy. Learned the value of such a process and will use it at my next year end. Great work. If I haven’t made an accountant’s copy, and I make the changes from the accountants manually, can I still put in a Closing date Password?
Hi Lorraine,
Yes, you can put in a closing date and/or password at any time. It’s not related to the Accountant’s Copy feature at all. It’s a great way to keep the client from making changes in the prior period and messing up the books.
Is it possible to reconcile checking accounts that are earlier than the dividing date? I gave my accountant an accoutant copy with a dividing date on the 9th of the month, and now want to reconcile a checking account.
Sorry for the delay in responding! As you have probably learned by now, you can’t reconcile a bank account earlier than the dividing date. The act of marking a transaction “cleared” is considered a change to the transaction and that’s exactly what the dividing date tries to prevent from happening.
I am an accountant and am using QB 2009. Will the Accountant’s Copy work with 2009? I believe my client has QB 2010. My client sent the Accountant’s Copy via the internet. I really like this feature and think it will be very helpful – when I can get it working!!!
Thanks for your help.
Hi Nicole. If your client gave you a QB 2010 file you will need to have QB 2010 installed to be able to work with it. The data files are not backwards compatible. That’s one of the downfalls of Intuit releasing a new version every year – when the clients upgrade it forces you to upgrade too! I currently have 13 years of QuickBooks programs installed on my computer (from version 6 through 2010) plus several versions of QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions. It makes it a challenge to track which client is on which version!
Well, I was mistaken. My client has QB 2009 also. But,I am still not having any luck getting it to open! I can get it to open when I go to “File/Utilities/Convert Accountant’s Copy to Company File – QBW” but that gives me a message that we will not be able to work in the file concurrently. Any suggestions?
Sorry to be such a pain!
A-ha! I think I see where you’re going wrong. You don’t want to convert it to a QBW file, that would totally negate the accountant’s copy feature. You want to go to “File/Accountant’s Copy/Open & Convert Transfer File”. Your client should have sent you a .QBX file. This process will in turn create a .QBA file. This is the file that you will work in and make your adjustments. When you are done you will go to “File/Accountant’s Copy/View & Export Changes For Client”. This will create a .QBY file that will only contain the entries that you have made. So many different file types!!! Please let me know if it works out for you!
Me again! Man, you didn’t know I was going to be such a pain!
When I go to “File/Accountant’s Copy” the following are my only options and they are all greyed out:
Well, don’t know what I did but I know I didn’t mean to post that, I wasn’t finished!
They are:
Save File
Send to Accountant
Import Accountant’s changes
Remove Restrictions
Do I have a setting marked incorrectly somewhere that it is not giving me the option you mention above? I really appreicate your time and help. I like to make tax time as painless for my clients as possible. This will certainly help if we can get it going.
It’s no problem at all Nicole. What you are seeing is what it should look like to your client so I am confused. Let’s start from the beginning. What type of file did your client send you and how did they send it? If you hover your mouse over the file in Windows a little pop-up should tell you what the file type is and what year of QuickBooks created it.
Thank you.
It is a “QuickBooks Accountant Transfer File”. It was created in QB 2009. He sent it via the internet. The email address it came from is “Accountantscopy@intuit.com (via Quickbase)”.
OK, now that you’ve confirmed that it is indeed the correct type of file you should be able to convert that into an Accountant’s Copy. Go to the “File” menu, then “Accountant’s Copy”, then “Open & Convert Transfer File”. After clicking “Next” a couple of times you will browse to choose the file that your client sent to you. After clicking “Next” a couple more times you will be asked to “Save As Accountant’s Copy” where you can choose the location to save the file and give it a name. After the conversion is done it should open the company and let you begin working. Please let me know how you make out with these steps.
Still going to be a pain. I don’t have that option under “File”. I only have the ones listed in my previous posting. I do not have a company open. What am I missing? It just seems like it isn’t complete. I do not have the items on my menu that you have above.
I think I just realized what is going on here. Are you using QuickBooks Pro? You can only create an accountant’s copy if you are using QuickBooks Premiere Accountant Edition. I took it for granted that you were using that version. I’m sorry for the confusion!
Well, it all comes together! I am using QB Pro. At least I am not blind – just dumb!
Any way we can do something similiar with just QB Pro?
I’m sure you’re not dumb! I’m wondering if I even pointed that out in the video or not. I’ll have to go back and watch it. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any way to replicate that functionality without having QB Premiere. There are some third-party utilities that allow you to export and import transactions that could allow you to do it, but by the time you buy those you might as well have purchased QB Premiere.
Well, once again, I thank you for your time and patience.
What would happen if you sent a accountants copy with a dividing date of course. Now your accountant was in a accident and unable to move ahead with any changes or return a qby file to you. How would you remove the accountants changes pending. Thanks!
No problem! Just go to the File menu, click Accountant’s Copy, and then click Remove Restrictions. It will then be as if you never made the Accountant’s Copy and you can use QuickBooks normally. You will not be able to import any changes from your accountant at this point, but if they were in an accident you probably wouldn’t care about that! You always have the option of manually entering the adjustments anyway.
(In some older versions of QuickBooks, the menu option was called “Cancel Accountant’s Copy”, I think. It does the same thing.)