Do you want your A/P clerk having access to your payroll records? Or your billing clerk having access to your profit and loss statements? Maybe so, but maybe not.
If not, then you can configure your QuickBooks company so that each user has access only to the information they need.
Set this up through the top menu: Company / Set Up Users and Passwords / Set Up Users. Click Add User or Edit User, depending on whether they are already existing users. Then you’ll see this screen:
Click on “Selected areas of QuickBooks” to begin the process of specifying authorized functions for that user.
The first screen that appears gives you control over the user’s access to Sales and Accounts Receivable functions:
You see that control can be broken down between data entry, transaction printing, and reporting. Select the functions that your user needs access to. You can also click (or not) on the checkbox giving the user access to customer credit card numbers.
This level of control in QuickBooks is great — it introduces accounting controls to your use of the software, and potentially reduces the risk of fraud and error.
You can set up controls for these areas in QuickBooks:
* Sales and A/R
* Purchases and A/P
* Checking and Credit Cards
* Inventory
* Time Tracking
* Payroll and Employees
* Sensitive Accounting Activities (like journal entries and online banking)
* Sensitive Financial Reporting
Finally, you can control the ability to change or delete transactions:
This is an important accounting control. If you open this capability to a user, they will be able to delete or change previously entered transactions. Limiting this capability to only staff that truly need it could help lower the possibility of bookkeeping crime in your office, because it makes it harder for users to cover their tracks if they are making entries they don’t want others to see.
Also, you can prevent users from making changes to the books after the close date. Your accountant will really like it if you restrict that.
There are news stories coming out all the time about embezzlement and fraud taking place in offices where QuickBooks or other accounting software is used. Want to lower the chance of it happening to you? Just limit your employees’ access in QuickBooks to the functions they need to do their jobs.
Do you have any tips or advice on using access restrictions in QuickBooks?
Capstone,
You can set up more flexible access roles in the Enterprise edition. But if you are using Pro or Premier, you can only set up a user so that they can or can’t access sales and customer data in general. The only restriction you can place on it beyond that is to optionally prevent them from being able to change or delete transactions after the fact.
QB Pro 2010. If I grant a user access to A/P so that they can look and create reports of vendor pricing, they can also pay bills which in essence grants permission to view the checkbook? Thus, they can scroll through and see paychecks. Yes?
Hi Andrea,
You can set them up for paying bills, but they wouldn’t be able to view the checkbook. Access to the checkbook is a separate permission.
Thanks for the question.
Hi Shannon,
I am trying to change user permissions for an employee so that they cannot see payroll however I cant seem to do this. I have locked them out of the payroll system but they can still go to the Employee Center; click transactions; pay cheques and be able to view what others are being paid. They cant run payroll reports or anything like that. They can also see what people are being paid through the cheque register. Is there anyway of stopping this?
Appreciate your help
Hi Jenna,
You say “cheque” rather than “check”, so I think you are using an edition other than QuickBooks US? I don’t know what your edition’s payroll permissions are exactly, but I would think that it would work like the US edition in that you can control whether a user can create transactions like cheques, or access the cheque register (a “sensitive accounting operation” permission). But maybe your edition is different in that respect?
In the US edition, yes, you can go into the Employee Center even if you don’t have payroll permissions, which seems incorrect to me. But you can’t see paycheck detail.
Thanks for the question.
Hello,
Can you restrict QB access to certain users by class? We have 6 different classes setup in QB and want to restrict access by class for our regional managers. Is this something that can be done?
Thanks,
Brad
Brad,
No, I don’t think so. You can only restrict by role, function, or module. Thanks for asking.
one of my employee cant see the credit card numbers under the customer payment info, she can see the exp only and the box where the credit card number should be shows just blank, even-thought she has full access. While some others of my employees who has full access to quick books does not have that problem. We used quick books enterprise 2012. I had rebuild the data, uninstall and re-install the software on her pc, virus clean up, and nothing works. Even if she uses another pc she still have the same problem. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
thank you
Jaime
Jaime,
That situation means that her user information in the QuickBooks file is corrupted. It should be repairable. Please see the Data Repair link under the Services tab at the top of this blog.
Thanks for the question.
Hello,
Is there a way to have someone do the book keeping but not view account numbers (Credit Card, Checking)? I want this person to be able to download transactions ( I will setup it up will in admin mode), then they will download transactions from my bank and credit card and move the transaction into the right account. I just dont want them to see the sensitive information regarding the account (account numbers)
Thank you!
Hi Eric,
In Pro and Premier editions, you can edit a user’s permissions, advance to the Sales and Accounts Receivable window, and then uncheck “view complete customer credit card numbers”. That will block the view of credit card numbers to that user.
Otherwise, I don’t think you can block access to bank account numbers without also blocking access to banking functions in general.
You might be able to do that with Enterprise — you can set up “roles” and define the permissions much more closely in Enterprise.
Thanks for the question.
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