Creating Users and Roles in QuickBooks Enterprise:

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions offers more advanced options to customize user permissions. Rather than creating roles from scratch and determining which role has what access level, apply any of the 14 pre-defined roles in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions to your users and spend less time on setup. Each role template includes a complete set of permissions typical for that role. You may copy and edit each role template and assign any role to any user instantly or apply multiple roles to a single user.

What are the 14 Pre-Defined User Roles in Enterprise Solutions?

­  Accountant – This role is designed for your bookkeeping or accounting staff. Access to areas/activities such as Journal Entries, Chart of Accounts, Setting Closing Date & Password, Accountant & Taxes and Company & Financial reports.

­  Accounts Payable – This role is designed for your Accounts Payable staff members. Access to areas or activities such as entering and paying bills, Purchase Orders, and Vendors & Payables reports.

­  Accounts Receivable – This role is designed for your Accounts Receivable staff members. Access to areas/activities such as Invoices, Receive Payments, Statements, Credit Memos, and Customers & Receivables reports.

­  Banking – This role is designed for your staff members who need access to areas/activities such as bank accounts, checks, deposits, credit card charges, Reconcile, and Banking reports.

­  External Accountant – Full access to all areas of QuickBooks except sensitive customer data, such as credit card numbers.

­  Finance – This role is designed for your finance staff members who need to be able to view most financial data. Access to areas/activities such as Planning & Budgeting, bank accounts, asset, equity, and liability accounts, and Company & Financial reports.

­  Full Access – This role is designed for staff members who need full access to the company file with the exception of access to company information, company preferences, Archive & Condense, importing and exporting data, and setting file Closing Date & Password.

­  Inventory – This role is designed for staff members who work with inventory. Access to areas/activities such as Adjusting Quantities on Hand, Build Assemblies, Item Receipts, and Inventory reports.

­  Payroll Manager – This role is designed for a Payroll Manager who needs full access to payroll functions such as Employee Organizer, paychecks, employee and paycheck information, and payroll adjustments.

­  Payroll Processor – This role is designed for your staff members who process payroll checks and payroll liabilities. It does not allow access to the Employee Organizer.

­  Purchasing – This role is designed for your purchasing staff members who need access to Purchase Orders and Purchases reports.

­  Sales – This role is designed for your sales staff members who need access to Sales Orders, Sales Receipts, Sales reports, Estimates, and all information in the Customer list.

­  Time Tracking – This role is designed for your staff members who need to work with Time Tracking functions such as importing and exporting Timer data, Single Time Activity tracking, Time reports, and the Weekly Time Sheet.

­  View Only – This role is designed for “view-only” access to most areas of the company file. Creating, modifying, deleting, and printing are not allowed.

To set up users and roles in QuickBooks Enterprise, follow these steps:

1. From the QuickBooks Main Menu, Select Company > Set Up Users and Passwords > Set Up Users. QuickBooks displays the User List dialog box. The Users and Roles dialog box identifies any users for whom QuickBooks access has been set up and the roles they can fill when using QuickBooks.

Note: You can also Edit, Duplicate or Delete users in this window. The only user you cannot edit, duplicate or delete is the Admin user.

2. Tell QuickBooks that you want to add a user by clicking the New button.

3. Identify the user and supply a password. You do this by entering a short name, perhaps the user’s first name, into the User Name box. After you identify the user, enter the user’s password into both the Password text box and the Confirm Password box.

4. Identify the user’s role(s). Use the Available Roles list box to select the roles (or duties) the user fills. Then add the selected role to the user’s list of assigned roles by clicking the Add button. To remove a role from a user, select the role from the Assigned Roles list box and then click Remove. The Description box at the bottom of the New User dialog box describes the role in more detail, including the type of QuickBooks user who might typically be assigned the selected role.

5. Click OK when you are done assigning Roles to the new user.

Creating and Modifying the User Roles:

If any of the preset roles doesn’t quite fit for one of your employees, you can either fine-tune the roles or create a totally new role for a user. To create a new role, select the Role List tab on the Users and Roles dialog box and then click the New button. To modify a role, click the Edit button.

Note: You can also Duplicate a Role and then modify it slightly to create a quick unique role for a user. You can also delete any custom roles that you no longer have assigned to any users.

When QuickBooks displays the New or Edit Role dialog box, select an option from the Area and Activities list on the left and then use the Area Access Level buttons to on the right to specify what a user with the selected role can do. If you are creating a new role, you also need to create a unique name for the role. 

You can indicate that the user assigned to this role should have no access, full access or Partial Access. If the user should have partial access, you select the Partial button and then check or uncheck as appropriate the Create, Modify, Delete, Print, and View Balance boxes. Go through each of the areas and activities. Then click OK to save your changes and return to the Users and Roles dialog box. From this point forward, the new user can use QuickBooks; however, his or her rights are limited to what you specified.

Important: As a general rule, when it comes to accounting controls, you want to provide the minimal amount of access. If someone doesn’t need access to a particular area for day-to-day duties, you should select the None button. The more ability you give to noodle around in your accounting system, the greater the risk that someone can introduce errors into the system and the easier you make it for someone to steal from you.