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Home/QuickBooks/Send Your QuickBooks File to Your Accountant
QuickBooks

How to Send Your Accountant Your QuickBooks File (the Desktop Accountant's Copy)

In QuickBooks Desktop, go to File > Send Company File > Accountant's Copy > Client Activities > Save File, choose a dividing date, and QuickBooks creates a special .QBX file for you to send however you normally share files, email, a shared drive, whatever you two already use. This is a Desktop-only workflow; QuickBooks Online handles sharing with an accountant a completely different way.

The full walkthrough

1. Open the Accountant's Copy menu. In QuickBooks Desktop, go to File > Send Company File > Accountant's Copy > Client Activities > Save File.

2. Choose Accountant's Copy, not Backup or Portable Company File. QuickBooks offers a few similar-looking file types here; this is specifically the one built for handing work off to an accountant without handing over your live file.

3. Set the dividing date. Everything on or before this date gets locked for your own editing while your accountant has the copy; you can keep entering new transactions after it the entire time they're working.

4. Let QuickBooks save the file. It closes your open windows, may prompt you to back up first, then creates the Accountant's Copy as a .QBX file and asks where to save it.

5. Send that file to your accountant. QuickBooks doesn't email it for you automatically; attach it to an email, drop it in a shared drive, or use whatever method the two of you already use for files.

6. Keep working. You're not locked out of your own file while they have the copy. Anything after the dividing date is fair game; your accountant works inside their copy, and you'll import what they send back once they're done.

Where this sits next to the other two accountant workflows

This is specifically the export step in QuickBooks Desktop, the moment you hand a working copy of the books over. It's easy to confuse with two other things that sound similar but do something different.

Importing your accountant's changes is the return trip: once they've made edits in their copy and sent you a .QBY file back, that's a separate import process, not this one. Giving your accountant access in QuickBooks Online is a different product entirely; it's an online invite through Manage users, with no file changing hands at all. Three different workflows, same general idea of letting an accountant work in your books, but they don't overlap.

What we've built on top of QuickBooks accountant handoffs

01

Accountant's Copy sent on a schedule, not a reminder

The Accountant's Copy gets generated and sent automatically ahead of a recurring close or review, instead of someone having to remember to kick off the export every quarter on their own.

02

A status check on whether the accountant's finished

A nudge goes out automatically if the accountant's copy has been sitting open past a set number of days, instead of someone having to ask, awkwardly, whether it's done yet.

03

How does your business currently hand files back and forth with your accountant?

Tell us what that back-and-forth actually looks like right now, and we'll tell you what parts of it don't need a person doing them.

Let's talk

Still trading accountant files by hand every close?

Tell us how often it happens and what usually slows it down, a forgotten export, a missed email, waiting around for a status update, and we'll tell you whether that handoff can run itself. This file exchange is one example of a manual handoff; n-frames fixes the same pattern wherever else it shows up in a business.

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Questions people ask

What's the difference between sending my accountant a file and giving them access to QuickBooks Online?

They're two unrelated products. Giving an accountant access in QuickBooks Online, through Settings > Manage users > Accountants, invites them directly into your live company; nothing is ever exported or emailed. This page's Accountant's Copy workflow exists only in QuickBooks Desktop, where there's no equivalent direct-access option, so a file genuinely has to change hands.

What's the difference between sending my file and importing my accountant's changes back?

They sit on either side of the same handoff. This page covers sending your file out, the first step. Once your accountant finishes their edits and sends back a .QBY Accountant's Changes file, importing that back into your working file is a separate, later step with its own menu path.

Can my accountant access my QuickBooks Desktop file directly, without me sending anything?

Only with extra setup beyond the Accountant's Copy, hosting the company file on a shared network both of you can reach, or using a cloud hosting service built for multi-user QuickBooks Desktop access. Without that kind of setup, sending the Accountant's Copy is the standard path.

Do I need to send my whole company file, or just a copy?

Just a copy, and that's the entire point of the Accountant's Copy feature. It's a special export built for this exact handoff, not your live working file, so you're never actually handing over the file you work in day to day.

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