Welcome To My Fellow QuickBooks Users
I’m Les Murphy… thanks for making the trip to my QuickBooks section. Although I’m no accountant, I think of myself as somewhat of an expert in QuickBooks software and hardware architecture, networking and operating systems related issues. I hope to provide you with some beneficial QuickBooks information as well as other tech tips. Please consider subscribing for regular updates.
QuickBooks Server Remote Applications On A Shoe String
They say one picture’s worth a thousand words. Check out this screen shot of my QuickBooks Remote Application Server, a QuickBooks multi user terminal server on a shoe string. You can plainly see three users’ remote desktop QuickBooks Multi User sessions and an administrator desktop session simultaneously working on an XP Pro based terminal server. This stuff’s so much fun.
The key to all this fun is a product called Thinstuff, a remarkable tool that changes an XP computer into a multi user terminal server computer. The cost can be as little as $99 for a three user license. Thinstuff uses several license models to help companies save on expense. Try it out by downloading a trial from their product purchase page.
I know you will be as impressed as I am. Thinstuff XP/VS Terminal Server Lite and XP Pro saves me a substantial amount of money over Microsoft Server 2008 Standard Terminal Server or utilizing a hosted QuickBooks solution that averages around $50 per user per month. If you need control or have requirements for faxing, label printers, bar coding or other unusual things, this is the way to go.
To gain access from the Internet, port forward remote desktop through the local firewall to the QuickBooks server or avoid any tricky firewall configurations at all by adding another level of security with LogMeIn Hamachi. Install it on the server and any of your remote users including your CPA.
I’m still amazed at the number of times people inquire about purchasing a new XP Pro computer. I see no reason not to buy an XP Pro computer. I use XP Pro commercial desktop computers to build the Holy Grail of QuickBooks setups, QuickBooks Remote Application Servers, multi user terminal servers. I also use them to build QuickBooks Dedicated Production Servers, the standard QuickBooks multi user client-server deployment that I detail in my book.
The Dell summary worksheet details my computer specs for a new QuickBooks server, a great deal considering it has 2gb memory, 3 year on site service and 3 year anti virus software. As a mater of fact, I will use this computer as a multi session terminal server designed for both local access and remote access from a CPA’s office. The entire project costs typically come in under $1000 plus the QuickBooks license.
If you need a new XP Pro computer, all the major players still sell Windows 7 Pro downgrades to XP Pro. It just takes a bit of effort to configure and purchase them. I continually need a steady supply of XP Pro computers for small businesses. If you want to save a good bit of money, try searching Amazon for off lease desktop
QuickBooks Backup Fully Automated
I’ve seen a lot of pain lately. The latest, a small company assuming their nightly backup was working correctly, until they found out the hard way. It seems to me that loss of business data always involves QuickBooks, so I created a short film instructing users on automating their backups.
This process keeps seven days of company files available for recovery in an online location, out of your building. Seven days helps to alleviate the problem of catastrophic data entry errors, allowing a business to revert back to a previous day’s company files.
As I’ve repeatedly said, test your backup at least once a month. Do a complete trial recovery. If you don’t know how to do that, contact me. I can use the work.
Now the film.
Are You Ready For QuickBooks Multi User?
Visit painlessquickbooks.com to find out.
You Can Still Buy A New XP Pro Computer
I’m still amazed at the number of times people inquire about purchasing a new XP Pro computer. I see no reason not to buy an XP Pro computer. I configured a new Dell business desktop computer today for a project I’m working on.
The Dell summary worksheet details my computer specs for a new QuickBooks server, a great deal considering it has 2gb memory, 3 year on site service and 3 year anti virus software. As a mater of fact, I will use this computer as a multi session terminal server designed for both local access and remote access from the CPA’s office. The entire project costs will come in under $1000 plus the QuickBooks license.
If you need a new computer, all the major players still sell Windows 7 Pro downgrades to XP Pro. It just takes a bit of effort to configure and purchase them. I continually need a steady supply of XP Pro computers for small businesses.
If you want to save a good bit of money, try searching Amazon for off lease desktop
They say one picture’s worth a thousand words. Check out this screen shot of my prototype QuickBooks terminal server on a shoe string. You can plainly see three users’ remote desktop QuickBooks Multi User sessions and an administrator desktop session simultaneously working on an XP Pro based terminal server. This stuff’s so much fun.
Annoying QuickBooks Error Codes
If your a QuickBooks user like me, you’ve probably noticed all of the mentions of errors popping up in QuickBooks about the time anyone gets up a head of steam to do a bunch of work. Again, if you are like me, you want all of your software to work all of the time. So, those annoying QuickBooks errors could be a real problem. Fortunately, they’re not typically a problem for me.
If you find yourself having to deal with application errors, Intuit can shed some light on them for you. They’ve received the calls so often that error code resolution’s built into the default search on their support web site.
I recently took the opportunity to respond to a question on LinkedIn at the Successful QuickBooks Consultants – QuickBooks Technical Questions group. You must join LinkedIn or sign in to see comments in this group.
Here’s the question. I hope my answer might help you.
I’ve used and supported QuickBooks environments almost twenty years. I agree that the proliferation of errors and increased sophistication of QuickBooks can be problematic. On various forums, blogs and visits to new clients sites, I primarily see two types of errors; errors related to connectivity to company files both on the local computer and across the network and errors related to data integrity issues. I also occasionally see setup and update errors.
Improvements to and increased sophistication of QuickBooks in recent years has increased the demand on both the computer where QuickBooks resides and the network where QuickBooks accesses company files in a multi user environment. End users need to be more careful about purchasing and configuring production computers and networks, as well as executing regular automated backups and an overall maintenance program in a typical QuickBooks production environment.
Intuit’s done a decent job of publishing necessary information about configuration, backup and maintenance, but I think much of the information is difficult for most end users to both access and understand. Computer and network configurations for reasonable performance of a typical QuickBooks environment exceed normal consumer understandings of such things.
My installations tend to be relatively error free because I remove any connectivity problems by doing things like utilizing fully certified cabled gigabit networking, moving any firewall software to the Internet gateway, using fast processors with maximum memory and automating computer maintenance. I eliminate data problems by automated backups and regularly scheduled file maintenance. QuickBooks updates are typically not automated to prevent installation and update errors.
QuickBooks offers a lot of bang for the buck, especially the Enterprise version. I know of multi thousand-dollar software that can’t do what QuickBooks does. But along with this level of sophistication comes the price of sophisticated infrastructure and close attention to detail. Most end users need to know that their expectations and level of computer systems understanding might be a bit skewed by their consumer frame of reference and that it might be time to call a seasoned IT professional.
