Year-end means reconciliations and preparing for tax season. If you use an accounting firm, you’ll need to send your QuickBooks file to your account. There are many options of how to send your QuickBooks files, each with its own advantages and limitations.
You may ask yourself ‘Can you email a company file.’ The answer is yes, you can send your QuickBooks file to your accountant via email, although it isn’t recommended for security purposes. It also isn’t recommended because of size limitations. If you have a larger file, you will need to compress the file as most email services do not allow sending or receiving emails over 25MB. In these circumstances, you may want to create a QuickBooks Accountant Copy or try sending a portable QuickBooks file.
If file size is an issue, you may want to send your QuickBooks file to your accountant by using a QuickBooks accountant copy. A QuickBooks accountant copy freezes the books for a specific timeframe. This option allows the client to share their file with their accountant while continuing to work in their own copy of the file. A client can send their QuickBooks accountant copy via Intuit servers, email, or a syncing application such as Dropbox. Once the accountant is done, their changes will need to be imported back into the company file by the client, which may require some additional training from the accountant.
You can also send your QuickBooks file to your accountant using a portable file. A portable file is a compact version of your company file and is not a full backup. It doesn’t include your message templates, logos, images, or templates. It also doesn’t include your .tlg or .log files, Loan Manager, Statement Writer, or Fixed Asset Manager files. This option does not allow the client and the accountant to both work at the same. However, like the accountant copy, a portable file can be sent via email or syncing application such as Dropbox.
Once the accountant receives the file, they will need to restore the file to their computer; complete their edits and changes; then create an updated portable copy to send back to the client. Once the client receives the updated portable file, they will need to restore the file to their computer and then work from this version going forward.
The last option to send your QuickBooks file to your accountant is a QuickBooks backup. Unlike the portable copy, a QuickBooks backup saves everything currently in your company file. This includes your accounting data, templates, letters, logos, images, and related files (QuickBooks Statement Writer, Cash Flow Projector, and Business Planner). Backups can be emailed if they are small enough, saved to thumb drives and delivered to the accountant in person, or through a syncing application such as DropBox.
The QuickBooks backup has the same workflow process as a portable copy. The accountant will need to restore the file to their PC, make their changes, and then create a new backup to give to the client. The client can then restore the backup to their PC and will work from this version going forward.
An alternative to manually sending your QuickBooks file to your accountant using the methods described above is Qbox. Qbox is a cloud-enabled collaboration software that helps users share files over the Internet. Files in the Qbox folders on one user’s Windows computer, are synced to the Qbox cloud server and then to the shared users’ Windows computers, so everyone has identical copies of the file. There’s no need to backup, restore, or import accountant copies as all users have access to the entire QuickBooks file. To learn more, visit https://www.qboxplus.com/how-qbox-works/.
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