You may have received one of the following QuickBooks prompts:

• You need to log in as a QuickBooks Administrator to proceed. Please enter the admin (owner) password

or

• Enter a user name and password to log in.

To resolve either of these issues, refer to the instructions that best fit your scenario:

• If you are an Administrator and need to reset a password for a user, click here.
• If you are an Administrator and are unable to gain access to the company file, click here.
• If these steps don't work and you recently changed or created a password, you may want to restore a recent backup of the company file. If this is the case, click here.

If none of the steps below resolve your password issue, download our Password Reset Tool. This tool is available for QuickBooks versions 2008 and later.

If you need a user password, login as the Administrator and reset the password for that user (Pro/Premier only)

1. Go to the Company menu and click Set Up Users.

2. Select the appropriate name from the User List window, and click Edit User.

3. Delete or change the password in the Password and Confirm Password text boxes, and click Next.

4. Verify that the correct access level is selected, and click Next.

5. If the user has access to selected areas of QuickBooks and you want to modify the choices, continue through each window, making changes as needed. If the access permissions are correct, or if the user has access to all areas of QuickBooks, click Finish, and then click Close.

6. (QuickBooks 2008) Go to the File menu and click Open or Restore Company. Select Open a company file and click Next. Choose the correct company name, and click Open.

   (QuickBooks 2006 or earlier) Go to the File menu and choose Open Company. Choose the correct company name, and click Open.

7. Type the user name and new password (if one was created), and click OK.

8. Users can change their passwords by choosing Change Your Password from the Company menu.

• Type Admin in the User Name field and click OK without typing a password.

• Enter the password with a space before or after the actual password; it may have inadvertently been recorded with a space.

• Make sure you have opened the correct company file.

• Type the password in Notepad or WordPad to make sure your keyboard is functioning properly: From the Windows Start menu, choose Programs, then Accessories, and then choose Notepad or WordPad.

• If the password contains numbers, make sure the Num Lock keyboard feature is on.

• Restart the computer and try accessing the company file again. If you are on a network, make sure that all users have logged off, then restart all of the computers, including the server.

• Try passwords for other QuickBooks company files, or for other software or program functions; you may be using a different password.

• If you are upgrading from an older version of QuickBooks, try typing only the first ten characters of the password, as later versions limit the number of characters allowed.

• If the file is new, or there are not many transactions entered, you may want to start a new company file.Go to the File menu and click New Company. The EasyStep Interview will guide you through the rest of the process.

If you recently created or changed the password, it may be useful to restore a recent backup that was made before you created or changed the password

To safely restore the backup without overwriting an existing company file:

1. Copy the current company file to a different directory on the hard disk, and make note of the new location. This will leave the current file untouched.

   1. To find the current file location, open the file, hold down the Ctrl key and press the number 1 on the left side of the keyboard (do not use the number pad). This will open the Product Information window.

   2. Near the bottom of the window you will see File Information and Location. The path to the file will be listed next to Location. The path may be long enough to wrap to the next line, so be sure to note the information through ".qbw."

2. Restore the backup.

3. Any information entered in the company file since the backup was made will need to be manually reentered after you restore. Review the original company file (that was copied to a new location) to determine what needs to be reentered.

If none of these steps resolve your password issue, download our Password Reset Tool. This tool is available for versions 2008 and later.