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Multiple People Needing Access from Multiple Computers

dwenzlick

Hello,
I am a brand new user to the Quicken software. Currently, I have Quicken installed on my mac computer but there are two other individuals who need access to our accounting from different computers. Until now, the two individuals who did our accounting would meet and sync their Quicken file. Can we back up our file to the cloud and all have access to the same information? Also, I have a mac and the others have Windows.

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Accepted answers

NotACPA

There is NO "Quicken on the web" that's a full-featured application. Q on the Web is a browser based adjunct to Q on your desktop.

I agree with the suggestion that you need Quickbooks.

smayer97

First, you need to understand that Quicken is not designed for multi-user usage, so, the options to "share" a data file are work-arounds. Mentioned was Quickbooks as an alternative. It is designed to be multi-user, is 100% web-based but it is a true accounting package with all the overhead and knowledge needed to use it. If you want to use Quicken here are a number of options:

the first option is to move the data back and forth between users. In your case, you could move a copy of the data to a shared location, e.g. Drop Box, and each take turns updating the data. You would have to develop a sign-out process to make sure you do not both update a copy and overwrite each other's work. However, do not store and use the data file stored online directly. This often leads to a corrupted data file. Best practice is to compress the data file before moving it to a cloud based storage to prevent problems with file permissions.
if users are have access to the same computer, you can create a new user on your computer and use and store the data file in that user (no not store the data file in a shared folder)
If you have mobile devices (iOS or Android) and if all you want to sync is cash, bank, and credit card accounts (i.e. non-investment transactions), consider using Quicken Mobile on a mobile device. You can sync more than one mobile to the same data file located on one of your computers, as long as you use the same Intuit ID associated to the data file. Note that this is limited to sync 24 months plus new transactions.
Quicken Web can be used for mult-user access but it is a companion to Quicken desktop (not independent) similar to QMobile. It provides limited functionality for data entry, budgets, etc. but has slightly more functionality than QMobile, e.g. reconciliation
use remote access software (several free options, e.g. NoMachine and Teamviewer) to access Quicken on one computer from the other, or even mobile devices (see this great article for complete review of many options (most are free): http://machow2.com/rdp-for-mac/ ). Though this article was written primarily with Macs in mind, there are many solutions offered that work for Windows too. The advantage of these solutions is that you retain access to all the features of Quicken, unlike Quicken Mobile. The trade-off is that the host computer cannot really be used for anything else while using Quicken with these remote solutions.

Except for the second option, these would require you to settle on only ONE of the two platforms and sync your device(s) to or access that one platform.

All comments

volvogirl

Not really. Sounds like you need to use QuickBooks not Quicken.

Greg_the_Geek

And the Quicken data file format is incompatible between Mac and Windows. You might look at Quicken on the Web.

dwenzlick

How is Quicken on the web different? Is it like Quickbooks in that we can login and manage the books through the web application?

NotACPA

There is NO "Quicken on the web" that's a full-featured application. Q on the Web is a browser based adjunct to Q on your desktop.

I agree with the suggestion that you need Quickbooks.

dwenzlick

Understood. Thank you.

smayer97

the first option is to move the data back and forth between users. In your case, you could move a copy of the data to a shared location, e.g. Drop Box, and each take turns updating the data. You would have to develop a sign-out process to make sure you do not both update a copy and overwrite each other's work. However, do not store and use the data file stored online directly. This often leads to a corrupted data file. Best practice is to compress the data file before moving it to a cloud based storage to prevent problems with file permissions.
if users are have access to the same computer, you can create a new user on your computer and use and store the data file in that user (no not store the data file in a shared folder)
If you have mobile devices (iOS or Android) and if all you want to sync is cash, bank, and credit card accounts (i.e. non-investment transactions), consider using Quicken Mobile on a mobile device. You can sync more than one mobile to the same data file located on one of your computers, as long as you use the same Intuit ID associated to the data file. Note that this is limited to sync 24 months plus new transactions.
Quicken Web can be used for mult-user access but it is a companion to Quicken desktop (not independent) similar to QMobile. It provides limited functionality for data entry, budgets, etc. but has slightly more functionality than QMobile, e.g. reconciliation
use remote access software (several free options, e.g. NoMachine and Teamviewer) to access Quicken on one computer from the other, or even mobile devices (see this great article for complete review of many options (most are free): http://machow2.com/rdp-for-mac/ ). Though this article was written primarily with Macs in mind, there are many solutions offered that work for Windows too. The advantage of these solutions is that you retain access to all the features of Quicken, unlike Quicken Mobile. The trade-off is that the host computer cannot really be used for anything else while using Quicken with these remote solutions.

Except for the second option, these would require you to settle on only ONE of the two platforms and sync your device(s) to or access that one platform.

robbie53024

> @dwenzlick said:
> Hello,
> I am a brand new user to the Quicken software. Currently, I have Quicken installed on my mac computer but there are two other individuals who need access to our accounting from different computers. Until now, the two individuals who did our accounting would meet and sync their Quicken file. Can we back up our file to the cloud and all have access to the same information? Also, I have a mac and the others have Windows.

I'm not a Mac user, so can't speak to that. However, my wife and I connect via Windows from separate laptops. We have Quicken installed on a desktop machine and use the Win10 Remote Desktop Connection to sign in to that machine and do our receipts and reconciliation tasks from our laptops. You cannot login to the desktop from more than one laptop at a time, so no concern with synchronization. Tried before with having just the data file on the shared desktop and connecting from the laptops with locally installed software, but this could cause corruption due to 2 machines accessing the same file at the same time (wife had habit of not closing out of Quicken when done). The RDC option lets us leave the file open on the desktop machine and when signing in from laptop is immediately available to either of us without needing to login. Very convenient. Hope this helps. Haven't seen this method discussed by anyone else.

jess8887

Can you use a third party app like Syncthing (or a similar synchronization app)? The Quicken data file would be stored on the user's computer and the app would provide continuous synchronization of the Quicken files between two or more computers in real time.