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Connecting to QuickBooks Desktop

How to let an app connect to your QuickBooks Desktop company file

By Aaron, a restaurant owner who books his own stores on Toast and QuickBooks Desktop. Updated .

In short

Open the company file in QuickBooks Desktop as Admin, in single-user mode, on the PC where the app runs. Then start the connection from the app. When QuickBooks asks whether to allow it, choose Yes, always; allow access even if QuickBooks is not running, and continue. You can review or remove an app's access later under Edit, Preferences, Integrated Applications, Company Preferences.

Why QuickBooks asks

QuickBooks Desktop only lets another program read or change a company file with the Admin's OK. It asks once for each app and company file, then remembers the answer.

Before you connect

  • Install the app on the same PC as QuickBooks Desktop.
  • Open the company file and sign in as Admin.
  • Switch to single-user mode: File, Switch to Single-user Mode. Anyone else in the file needs to close QuickBooks first.

Allow it

  1. Start the connection in the app. In OK Book Sync, that's Connect on the setup's QuickBooks step.
  2. QuickBooks shows the app's name and asks whether to allow access. Don't see it? Check the taskbar: it can open behind other windows.
  3. Choose Yes, always; allow access even if QuickBooks is not running. That lets an app with a schedule, like a morning run, work while nobody has QuickBooks open.
  4. If QuickBooks asks which user the app should log in as, pick Admin.
  5. Leave the box for personal data, like Social Security and credit card numbers, unticked unless the app needs it. OK Book Sync doesn't.
  6. Click Continue. If QuickBooks asks you to confirm, click Yes. Then click Done.

The other answers either block the app or let it in only while you're watching: when someone has the file open, or after asking each time. A scheduled app can't work on its own with those.

See, change or remove access later

  1. Open the company file as Admin.
  2. Open Edit, then Preferences, then Integrated Applications, then the Company Preferences tab.
  3. Untick Allow Access next to an app to block it, or select the app and choose Properties to change its access. Remove takes it off the list. It asks again the next time it connects.

On the same tab, make sure the option that blocks all applications from this company file isn't ticked. It shuts out every app, including Intuit's own.

If it stops working

  • Someone changed the preferences. Check that the app's Allow Access box is ticked, and that apps aren't blocked altogether.
  • The company file moved or was renamed. Open it as Admin and connect again from the app.
  • Error 80040154 when connecting. That's usually a 32-bit and 64-bit mix-up: see how to fix error 80040154.