welcome to video 2 in our QuickBooks security series putting in usernames
and passwords usernames and passwords are the foundation of security in QuickBooks
when you first create the file you're logged in as the administrator or admin for short anyone who
uses the file right after it's created is logged in as admin and Men has access to everything in
the file once you make an admin password you cannot open the file without inputting the
password so if you're not going to use security features it might not be a good idea to make an
administrator password because once you do that you will always have to put in a password every
time you open up the file it's the administrator who gives all the other users their usernames and
their passwords and it's also the administrator who gives the other users whatever permissions
they might have and we're going to show you after we put a password on the administrator
we're going to show you how to set up other users with different usernames and passwords and give
them permission but for now let's just give the administrator the password when we do this in
our example we'll leave the username as admin you could change the username to something else but in
our example we'll keep it simple when deciding on a password we will use the conventional wisdom we
will take the typical common advice for setting up a safe password that means the password will have
at least one capital at least one number and at least one special character we'll also considered
a punctuation mark so for this example I have decided that the administered will be Jeremy 12
with a capital J and the and an exclamation point after the number 12 let's take a look at what the
file looks like both before and after we put in an administrator password here's the file for
the holden video company it does not yet have an administrator password so now when we double-click
QuickBooks will open up the file with no problem at all and without asking us for a username or a
password it opened and it did not ask us for a username and password now we want to put a
username and password for the administrator once we do this we will never be able to open this file
again without putting in some kind of username and password so make a backup copy before you do
it from the main menu click company and go down to setup users and password come across to the
right and down to click change your password now let's leave the username as admin it's only five
letters and only the a is capitalized now you will not see that I'm typing it in from PowerPoint or
I'm not copying in from PowerPoint I'm going to type shift I want to shut off the cap locks and
hold down the shift key and type J aremy one two shift exclamation point okay now I have to make
sure I did it properly capital J E or E my 12 shift exclamation point challenge question what
is the name of your oldest nephew the answer is Jeremy so click OK and now QuickBooks recommends
your QuickBooks passport has been changed we recommend you change it again in ninety days
we'll worry about that in 90 days click OK and now you will not be able to open this particular file
until you put in that password now I'm going to prove it to you I'm going to close out QuickBooks
and give it a moment to you know power down now this very same file I'm gonna double click
and open up give it a moment to boot up and lo and behold it's demanding a password and if we
don't put it in we won't get in ok by the way if you click I forgot my password you can get
you can still recover your password or at least reset it if you type in the security question
but let's just type in the regular password and see what happens J capital e ar e and y 12 with
Shift exclamation point click OK and lo and behold QuickBooks lets us back into the file and now that
we've made an administrator username and password we're going to set up another user and give that
user a password after we do that we'll give an example of how the administrator sets permissions
in this example the user name will be Jill and again we will follow the conventional wisdom when
making a password at least one capital at least one number and at least one special character or
punctuation mark in this case it'll be Allison 22 with a capital A and a question mark at the
end from the main menu click company setup users and passwords now we're going to click
setup users before we do that we have to make sure we again put in the administrator password
shift for capital j e r e my 12 shift exclamation point click OK and now it allows us to add user
the username will be capital J lowercase I ll and the password will be shift capital a L iso:221
now don't worry about the QuickBooks license issue that's an issue for another video when
we click Next we are asked do we want to give Jill access to all areas of QuickBooks or just selected
areas here in our first example we're going to click all areas of QuickBooks then click Next
and it says are you sure bla bla bla bla bla and we're going to click yes now notice it gives you a
list of places and things within the file that our new user can do and you can browse this later to
remember what Jill is allowed to do and what Jill is not allowed to do click finish and now we have
the administrator and we have Jill now we could always log out but I think that the best thing
to do is to close this window and now let's make sure Jill can log in when we close QuickBooks do
we want to backup no give QuickBooks a few seconds now when we reboot the program by double-clicking
our company file it'll ask us for the password and instead of a Mad Men shift capital J I ll
and let's make sure we remember Jill's password shift capital a L iso:221 behold we're logged
in as Jill and not the administrator it is very important to remember that even though we did not
restrict Jill in any way it is still the case that only the administrator can add new users
delete existing users change access privileges for other users import and export data change
company preferences change company information like the name and address in the file set or edit
closing days create accountants copy or clean up the data file these are all things that only the
administrator can do that Jill or any other user cannot do now you remember a moment ago we allow
Jill to have access to all areas of our QuickBooks file but even though we told QuickBooks to give
her access to everything just the fact that she is not the administrator prevents her from being in
the these nine areas or doing these nine things now allow me to prove this to you by giving you
two examples of having Jill do try to do something and get an error message that she's not allowed to
do it first let's confirm that we're logged in as Jill company set up users and password set
up users and you could see Jill is the one that's logged in so let's close it out and we know she's
not allowed to change company preferences click Edit preferences every area of preference has
a my preference tab and a company preference tab but my preference tab can be changed by any user
because that's the preference of a particular user and QuickBooks will remember each user's
my preference but look what happens when we try to click company preference okay when we go to
change something we'll get this message only the QuickBooks administrator or external accountant
perform this action you must reopen the company file and login as the administer nelec counted
means and that's coming up very soon but that's one example of what jill is not allowed to do the
other example is change the company information from the main menu click company and then click
my company now you can see this is where we would normally put the username and password
but we're getting a warning message here and there's no pencil to click normally there'd be
a little pencil to click for us to edit the name and address of the company but instead we have
this message only the QuickBooks administrator or external accountant can view this information so
that proves as long as we're logged in as Jill and not the administrator there are these few
things that Jill is not allowed to do now let's go even deeper let's limit Jill's permissions
so that she can handle all area of receivables and customers and she has access to the vendor
vendors and payables transactions but not the reports what would we have to do first
well first we have to make sure that we close the file and reopen it and log in as the administrator
because only the administrator has the ability to do that ok capital a lowercase D M I n and
min don't forget the administrator password is capital J lowercase e ar e my 12:00 shift
exclamation point when we click OK we're logged back into the file but now we're logged in as the
administrator now we can click company setup users and passwords set up users now again it's asking
for the administrator password capital j e ar e my 1 shift exclamation point click okay and now we're
going to edit Jill and we're going to click Edit user now the username and password is fine we're
not going to change that click Next but this time we want to give her selected areas of QuickBooks
click Next and now it's going to ask us each area one by one sales and accounts receivable we'll
leave it as full access click Next purchases and accounts payable will click selective access and
then we'll put create transactions only which means she cannot print transactions and she
cannot see payable reports click Next now for all other areas we're going to click no access
next no access next no access next no access next no access next do you want this user to have the
ability to change or delete transactions and the areas they have yes should this user also have
the ability to change or delete transactions that were recorded before the closing date no and we'll
talk more about the closing date later click Next and it gives us a summary of all the areas that
Jill does and does not have access to and you can browse this on your own time when we click finish
we now have set the permissions for Jill now let's prove that they work properly in order to do that
we have to close QuickBooks completely and then reopen QuickBooks and log in as Jill and we will
see if the permissions work now we're not logging in as it men we're logging in as capital J I ll
and again it's capital a list2 shift question mark that's Jill's user name and password click OK and
here we are logged in as Jill now let's see what areas we're allowed to use if we click banking
right a check up up you need checking and credit card permissions to perform this action oh gee
let's try the areas that Jill was given permission for click customer create invoice no problem there
what about this customer enter time use weekly timesheet up you need time tracking permission
to perform this action and we had told QuickBooks no when it comes to Jill having permission for
this area but what about this vendors enter bill no problem there because we allow Jill
to record transactions in the vendors and payable section now let let's look at the reports reports
customers and receivables any report we choose Jill is allowed to see however even though Jill
was allowed to enter bills and record transactions in the vendor area when we click reports vendors
and payables unpaid bills we get the message you need reporting permission under purchase
and accounts payable to perform this action looks like the security features are working pretty well