Set up Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 for multiple users

Multiple users can work with Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 from different computers at the same time. To host a database to share with others, you must have a computer running Windows Vista, Windows XP Professional, or the Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 3 (SP3) operating system. When more than one user accesses Office Accounting 2008 and works with the same data at the same time, the last user to write data in a document will receive an error message and needs to reopen the document before saving again.

The Windows user name and password identify a user in Accounting 2008. All users must belong to a Windows group with access to the computer running Accounting 2008. Typically, the user will be in the Windows Users or the Windows Power Users group.

You must also assign a role in Accounting 2008 to a Windows user before the user can work in Accounting 2008. Only a member of the Windows Administrator group on the computer where Accounting 2008 is installed or a user with Application Administrator privileges in Accounting 2008 can assign roles, change users' roles, and remove users' access.

All members of the Windows Administrator group have full access to Accounting 2008, even though their user names do not appear in the Manage Users dialog box. To safeguard your company records, make sure that only appropriate users are listed in the Windows Administrator group on the computer or in the domain where Accounting 2008 is installed.

As an administrator, do the following:

1. Install Accounting 2008.
2. Create a company or import data from an existing data file.
3. Add users to Accounting 2008. For more information about adding users to Accounting 2008, see Manage users and roles.
• If the user is a member of a domain, there is no need to add the user to the Windows user group on the computer where the database resides. The administrator must enable the multiple user environment, and then add the user to Accounting 2008 by entering the user's domain name in the Domain field in the Add User dialog box.
• For a workgroup environment, the user should be added as a Windows user to each computer that she or he is going to use. To get instructions on managing Windows users, see your Windows documentation.

 Note   For workgroups, the same user names and passwords must be used on all computers.

4. To make sure that the user has access to the shared company file (with the .sbc extension), do one of the following:
• Copy the company file to:

Windows Vista     drive:\Users\user\Documents\Small Business Accounting\Companies

Windows XP     drive:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\Small Business Accounting\Companies

• Send an e-mail message to the user, inserting the file as an attachment and instructing the user to save the file to the following location on the user's computer:

Windows Vista     drive:\Users\user\Documents\Small Business Accounting\Companies

Windows XP     drive:\Documents and Settings\user\My Documents\Small Business Accounting\Companies

5. On the File menu, click Multi-user Settings. For more information about enabling multiple users, see Manage multiple users.
6. Log on as a non-administrator user. (This can be on the administrator's computer or a different computer.)
• Open Accounting 2008 and on the Start page, click Open an existing company.
• Browse to the .sbc file, select it, and click OK to open the shared company.

 Note   You must follow these steps for all users, even those accessing Accounting 2008 through third-party applications.