How to use Quicken by multiple people

lvtbal

We have an older quicken version on a single computer. We would like to have several people use the same data, and preferably on a shared drive like dropbox.
Could someone help this newbie and explain the best way of going at this, especially as i see quicken does not recommend sharing data on a network.
Does everyone have to have quicken installed on their computer, is that even ok?

volvogirl

If you need to have multiple people access the data over a network or online you maybe should look at using QuickBooks.
http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting-software/small-business-software.jsp 

Ps56k2

Overall - Quicken is created for a single user on a local computer.
It is not built or created as a multi-user system with concurrent access.

Now, depending upon what you want these other people to do with the Quicken data, there are a couple of ways to access the data - but it all starts with Quicken being installed on a desktop computer, and that is the primary location of the data.  Next is sharing of those Quicken accounts to the Quicken Cloud.

https://www.quicken.com/support/what-quicken-cloud 

You can use the Quicken on the Web feature to access "some" of the data from any browser, from any location.

You can use the Quicken Mobile App to access "some" of the data from the App installed on a smartphone or tablet - Android or Apple -

Lastly, you can pass the potato around to the other users.... taking a backup of the Quicken data file, and sharing it with others to have, restore, and then re-save, and re-share - this might become a sharing nightmare, as whoever last changed the file is the winner - there is no way to merge multiple copies or changes to the Quicken file.

splasher

If the multiple people are using the same Windows computer but with different Windows user accounts, the Quicken data file needs to be stored in a Public folder, not a folder that belongs to one of the Window user accounts.

Storing it that way makes it available to all of the users, just make sure that if you do on-the-fly Windows account switching, that no one ever leaves Quicken open in their Windows session because that should/would prevent the other users from using Quicken.

Ps56k2

lvtbal said:

We have an older quicken version on a single computer. We would like to have several people use the same data, and preferably on a shared drive like dropbox.

It would help if you share some details about what you want to happen....
as "use the same data" can mean a variety of things...
- reports
- data entry
- reviewing current bills, deposits, etc

lvtbal

We are using the basic quicken, to record transactions and to create financial reports. What we want to do, is to have several people in our society to access the transactions and reports, and to do it by means of clicking a link on our website. This means that the data cannot be local . I though wonder if quicken mobile would work, otherwise could someone recommend an alternative

splasher

Q-Web would allow multiple people to see the transactions AND they would be able to change any transactions which may or may not be acceptable, but there is NO way to restrict what a person can or not do.
Whether or not Q-Web has enough features to meet your needs is a different issue, I don't use Q-Web, so I'm not sure what/if reports are available.
If I was the treasurer of your organization, I would not be happy with other people having the ability to change transactions.

Chris_QPW

I wouldn't recommend Quicken for your use case.  It is primary a Desktop application with a "companion" "Quicken cloud account" that has "part" of your data that can be viewed by Quicken Web or Quicken Mobile.  It isn't meant to be used entirely from Quicken Web and it has very limited reporting through Quicken Web.  Most of its reporting is on the Desktop.

I think Quickbooks would work, but might be expensive.  It is intended to be used by multiple users at a time.
There is also Quicken Simplifi might work, but it is really intended for "single user", but probably would work given they have allow for the case where more than one person might be accessing it by the very nature that it is a website.

There is also Mint that is in the same category.

The biggest sticking point I think you will find is dependent on what "financial reports" you want.

lvtbal

thanks for the responses, for the questions, I only use the trial balance and balance sheet reports, and I think other people would only want to see these and maybe enter current transactions only.
we cannot see a time when more than one person enters transactions at one time
so maybe quicken web can be used if a couple people can add a couple transactions there.
can we have like a read only user and a update user in quicken web?

splasher

lvtbal said:

…
can we have like a read only user and a update user in quicken web?

As stated earlier, " there is NO way to restrict what a person can or not do."

volvogirl

Quicken doesn't have a trial balance or balance sheet reports.  Quicken is a personal finance program.  You seem to need QuickBooks.