#TipTuesday: How to Share and Unshare Company Files

Alexis McKeown
Alexis McKeown Reckon Staff Posts: 415 Reckon Staff
edited June 13 in Accounts Hosted
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Greetings! Stay a while and listen.

Today's #TipTuesday is about one of the most-frequently called questions: how do I share and unshare company files?

With the new MFA security system in-place, it's pivotal for clients, companies, and accountants to keep company files interconnected in Hosted. As such, this post aims to demystify the process of handling sharing, unsharing, and how to login to company files.

To quickly jump to a specific part of the article click on a link below.

Sharing Files

There are two ways of sharing files: sharing files that haven't been shared, and sharing files that have. This is all handled through the Control Panel.

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The Control Panel hosts a wide variety of features - but for this guide, we only need to focus on Share Your Company File and Manage Shared Folder Access.

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The key difference to remember between the two options:

  • Share Your Company File is to share files that haven't been shared yet
  • Manage Shared Folder Access is to share files that have already been shared, or to remove users from shared folder access

We'll start with Share Your Company File. This will be used for all files that haven't been shared, or for brand new files you wish to share to another user.

Sharing Files for the First Time

Before you share any file: Ensure that you, and the user(s) you are sharing with are not currently signed in to a Hosted session.

If they are, simply advise them to do the following:

  1. Go to File.
  2. Select Exit.

If they do not do this, it can lead to de-synchronization or failure to share the file properly.

After they have all exited their sessions, you can continue with the guide.

  1. From the Control Panel, click Share Your Company File.
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  2. From the Select Users drop-down, select the user that owns or created the company file.
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  3. Left-click the file you wish to share, and click Add.
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    Note: You can add multiple files by repeating this step. If you add a file by accident, simply left-click on the file on the right-hand side, and click Remove.
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  4. Click Next.
  5. The next screen will allow you to search for a user to share your file with. You can search for a user's account number, user-ID or full name.
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    Note: By default, your own User ID will appear in the search box. This is to help speed up the process of sharing a file between your own licenses.
  6. Enter in a User ID belonging to the person/business you wish to share with.
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  7. Left-click the user you wish to share with on the left-hand box, and select Add.
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    Note: You can add multiple users to the Selected Users by repeating this process for each user you wish to add.

    Here's what my example looks like after I've added the users I wish to share:
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  8. After all users are added, click Next.
  9. The next screen is the Review screen. You will be able to check the files you wish to share, as well as the users you are about to share the file with. You can click on Edit at this stage to modify which file(s) you're sharing, or which users you're sharing the file(s) with.
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  10. Click Create Share to finish the process.

It will take, on average, between 5 to 15 minutes to share files, depending on the size and age of the company file. You will want to leave the page open until the process completes.

If the process does not complete for any reason, you may wish to double check if there are any users currently signed in, and advise them to sign out.

If you do not receive any error, and the files shared success fully, you will receive the following message:

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Note: When your file is shared, it will move locations, meaning you will need to manually open it the next time you wish to open it. To do this:

  1. Launch Accounts Hosted.
  2. Go to File.
  3. Select Open or Restore Company.
  4. Select Open a company file (.QBW).
  5. You should see a Shortcut folder, identifiable by its icon (a small folder with a black arrow on it).
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  6. Click into this folder.
  7. Open your company file.

Note: If you do not see a shortcut folder, please Exit out of Hosted, and wait 5-15 minutes. If it still isn't there after this time, repeat the Sharing your file for the first time steps, as it's likely the share did not succeed properly.

Adding Users or Removing Users from a Shared File

Now that you have shared a file, we'll talk about adding more users to a shared file, or removing users from a shared file.

Like before, ensure that all users you want to share with, or remove the share from, have signed out of their Hosted sessions.

  1. Go to Control Panel, and click Manage Shared Folder Access.
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  2. In the Manage Shared Folder Access screen, left-click the shared file you wish to modify, and click Add.
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    Note:     You can add more files to modify by repeating this step. Each shared folder will be added into Selected Shared Folders.
  3. Click Next when you're ready to proceed.
  4. Like in Step 7 of the previous guide, you will be taken to a screen to add users. To add additional users, simply left-click the user you wish to have access, then click Add.
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  5. To Unshare or Remove users from access, click on the user you wish to remove from access in the right-hand box, and click Remove.
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    Note: You can add multiple users to the Users to have access by repeating this process for each user you wish to add.
  6. Click Next when you're ready to proceed.
  7. The next screen is the Review screen. You will be able to check the files you wish to share, as well as the users you are about to share the file with. You can click on Edit at this stage to modify which file(s) you're sharing, or which users you're sharing the file(s) with.
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    Note: Users you are Unsharing the file with will not appear in the review screen.
  8. Click Update Access to complete the process.


Like before, it will take anywhere between 5-15 minutes, depending on the size and age of the company file. You will want to leave the page open until the process completes.

If the process does not complete for any reason, you may wish to double check if there are any users currently signed in, and advise them to sign out.

Setting up users for the shared file

After sharing, the users the file were shared with will need their own Usernames for the Company File. These are separate from Reckon Accounts Hosted Licenses, which allow somebody to access Hosted in the first place.

  1. Open your Company File.
  2. Login to your Company File as Admin (or whichever username you've given to your Admin user).
  3. Once your file is open, go to Company.
  4. Select Users.
  5. Select Setup Users and Roles.
  6. In the Users and Roles box, select New.
  7. Create a Username for another user - make it something you can easily remember or provide to the shared user for ease of reference.
  8. Create a Password for this username - make it something you can easily remember or provide to the shared user for ease of reference.
  9. Add a Role in for this user. Roles determine what a user can or cannot do in a company file.
    1. If this is another owner or accountant, you will want to consider giving this user the role of Full Access.
    2. If this is user is a Payroll Officer, you will want to give them Finance, Payroll Manager, and/or Payroll Processor roles.
    3. If you cannot think of a role, select which one is closest to the role you believe the user should have.
    4. In all the above examples, once you have selected a role for a user, click Add » to add the role to this user.

      Here is a user I created earlier for reference:
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  10. Click OK to complete user setup.
  11. Provide this new Username and Password to your shared user.

And that's that! 🙂

Sharing files can appear as a long, complicated process - but it's as simple as:

  1. Add a file to share,
  2. Add users you wish to share (or unshare) it to,
  3. Reviewing the share,
  4. Completing the share,
  5. Adding a user in for them to use.

I hope you've all enjoyed today's #TipTuesday!

Alexander McKeown

Reckon Senior Technical Support

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