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.)
Hello,
Do you have to the Premier Accountants Version to use the Accountants Copy application? Or just QuickBooks Premier?
I believe it only works in QuickBooks Premier Accountant’s Edition. As far as I know none of the other editions have this feature.
Hi Mike,
This is for my own use at home where I do not have internet (downloading at friends home). Is there any download restriction on the flash videos 11-15? Thanks.
Thanks for the tutorials! I downloaded episodes 1-9 (with Orbit downloader) but cannot download the rest
I’m not familiar with Orbit downloader but it looks like it’s designed to save flash videos to your computer? A much easier way to get the videos would be to download them in iTunes or visit this page: http://www.fullcontactaccounting.com/feed/podcast and you will see a link for each episode that you can use to download the video file directly to your computer. Please let me know if one of these methods work for you.
Thanks for watching!
THANK YOU!!! Yes, the link directed me to a page where all the episodes are accurately listed. The video files have an m4v extension (look unfamiliar to me) but I will look for a player that can play those files.
P.S. I paid 300 CAD for Quickbooks 9 course, but now learning more from your free tutorials
I am grateful to you indeed. Thanks!
…and the m4v seems to be Apples’s mp4. Watching episode 11 now
let me start by saying, I am very novice user of my qb. I antered all my 2009 info, created an accountant copy, sent that copy to our accountant. She made changes, filed our taxes & sent me back the file.
I opened my company file (qb pro 2008), file, accountant copy, all options are greyed out???? I want to import her changes, it warns me that an accountant file exists & the header states that as well.
HELP?
Are you logged in as an admin user? And is it in single-user mode? Just a couple of quick, easy things to check on. Also, make sure all other windows within QB are closed. Please check on these things and let me know if any of them were the problem.
Thanks!
Hi Mike, I have QB premier accountant 2009 and 2010. One of my clients has QB pro 2009. Can I work on their file in 2010? I wasn’t sure if 2010 is backwards compatible. Or if 2009 accountants copy can be converted and than still work in my clients program. 2010 has features I like better for reconciliations and that’s the only reason I would want to work on it in 2010.
Hi Sharon,
Yes, you can take their accountant’s copy from QB Pro 2009 and use it in your QB Premier 2010. They will be able to import your changes even though you are using a higher version. That is one of the improvements that came with the 2010 program. I agree with you that I like to work in 2010 for bank reconciliations because of the line shading and column sorting features.
Good luck!
HI! Mike,
One of my client removed the dividing line after I worked on the Accountants copy that they had sent me.
My question is, Can she give me another copy of QB file that she restored on the date that she originally gave me the Accountant’s copy? can she then import the changes I made on the Accountants copy I have to send her supposedly if she did not remove the dividing line.
What I am saying is for example she removed the dividing line just last week but she gave me the Accountant’s copy last May 1. She can restore her QB files for May 1 and set the dividing line again of 12/31/2009. CAN SHE DO THAT? and import the changes I made. I did the 2008 & 2009. The QB wasn’t reconciled and its a big account. I will appreciate if you can help, thank you.
If the backup she has was made AFTER she made the accountant’s copy and set the dividing date, then yes she would be able to restore that backup and import your changes.
If the backup she made was BEFORE she made the accountant’s copy, then you are out of luck. Each accountant’s copy is uniquely identified and QuickBooks knows if you are trying to import changes from a differnt accountant’s copy.
Good luck with it! I hope it works out for you.
Hello,
I am updating a years worth of trx’s for my client. They sent me an Accountants Copy and as requested by my client, I completed the first 6 months of trx’s for them. I sent the QBY back to them – but she didn’t have time to import the changes – so to keep the ball rolling, we agreed that I should continue entering the next 6 months of transactions in the same Accountants Copy. I have finished entering all trx’s – but now QB just gets hung up when I try to export changes to my client. I called QB support and they told me that they think that the problem is because I had already created an export file, but then my client didn’t import it. So QB will not allow me to make another export file from the same Accountants copy, even though 6 more months of transactions were added to it. QB has suggested that I turn my Accountants Copy into a QBW and send it to my client – but that will overide all of the 2010 entries that they have made on their end in their existing QBW. (I completed their 2009 y/e in the Accountants Copy). Have you encountered this problem and if so, do you have any suggestions? My client uses QB Pro 2009, but I completed the work in QB Premier 2009. QB support said that Pro would still accept the export file (if we weren’t having any issues with a previous export file being sent). I would hate for my client to lose all of their 2010 entries.
Yikes, that is a tough situation! The only thing I can think of for you to try is to make sure you and your client are using the latest QB updates. I have had the accountant’s copy feature fail a couple of times, but most of the time it works like it is supposed to.
If you can’t get it to work, the only other thing I can think of is to use something like the Transaction Copier for QuickBooks from Big Red Consulting. It allows you to copy transactions from one QB company to another. It costs $79 but might be worth it in your case.
Another third-party solution would be the Data Transfer Utility from Karl Irvin. I’ve used his stuff before too and it works wonders.
I wish I had a better answer for you, but I don’t know of any magic tricks to get this to work for you. It’s one of those things that if it doesn’t work right, you’re out of luck.
Good luck and let me know how you make out with it!
Hi Mike,
I just started running the Quickbooks for my company and sent a backup copy to someone who updated accounts information. I just learned about the Accountants Copy from this podcast, can
I convert the backup copy I have received into a Accountants Copy and merge it with my current
Quickbooks to maintain the changes I have made? For a novice I am learning quite alot from your podcast…Thanks