Quickbooks and Remote Access

September 11, 2011 2:07 PM

I'm looking for the best way to share a QuickBooks file with a remote site. Working for a small non-profit so resources are limited. We are currently using QuickBooks Pro 2011.

Are the online versions that QuickBooks offers any good? Or should we look at a VPN setup?

Thanks.

posted by mac-way to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

You could set up a dropbox and essentially have both locations use the same file on the same remote drive.

(Obviously that may not be appropriate for accounting info, but depending on what's in the file, something like Dropbox might secure-enough.)
posted by colin_l at 2:37 PM on September 11, 2011

Why not just mail an encrypted qbb file (quickbooks backup) to your remote site? Although the online version might be your best bet. I'm not sure of the pricing.
posted by Xurando at 3:06 PM on September 11, 2011

My understanding is that Online Quickbooks is sort of like Quickbooks Lite - it doesn't do nearly as much as the desktop version. Is there any reason you can't just enable Windows Remote Desktop for the remote site?
posted by COD at 5:00 PM on September 11, 2011

I've been using Quickbooks online for 4 years for several different entities. Can you say what your usual uses are and maybe I can tell you if I am able to do those on Quickbooks online?
posted by fyrebelley at 7:50 PM on September 11, 2011

Response by poster: colin_l I've heard that dropbox can cause issues with the quickbooks file?
posted by mac-way at 6:57 AM on September 12, 2011

Sharing a Quickbooks data file is extremely slow over anything but a fast local network. It won't work if you try to share a drive with dropbox or another VPN. If you need simultaneous access to the file you will need to set up some sort of VNC/Windows Remote Desktop system to allow remote access to a computer on your local network.

If you don't need simultaneous access (say, you are just sending your quickbooks file once per month to an offsite accountant) than you can just send it via some secure file sharing service (Google Docs allows non document file uploads that can be shared with a select list of users, I think the limit is 1GB).
posted by ChrisHartley at 7:20 AM on September 12, 2011