Fishbowl 2016.13: Unable to Export/Connect to QuickBooks Desktop

Quick post and public service announcement.

Changes in Fishbowl 2016.13 cause some customers to have problems exporting to QuickBooks Desktop (any version).

Symptoms

• Unable to connect to QuickBooks
• Unable to find QuickBooks file
• Unable to export
• Unable to test connection

Observations

• QuickBooks unable to be opened
• A secondary QuickBooks window is opened instead of using the existing window
• Fishbowl cannot “see” the open QuickBooks file

Basic Fix

• End task Fishbowl Nexus.exe on the Fishbowl Server computer
• Open Fishbowl Nexus.exe in /Fishbowl/server/bin/ without Administrator privileges
  • You can tell when this happens because it will not require a UAC prompt (the dark window prompting you to confirm launching an application with Administrator privileges)

Root Cause

• Fishbowl Server.exe is now marked to require Administrator rights
• When exporting to QuickBooks Desktop, Fishbowl Nexus may be started by Fishbowl Server
• If Nexus is started by Server as Administrator, Nexus is opened with Administrator rights
• If QuickBooks is open with non-Administrator rights, Nexus cannot communicate with QuickBooks
• This is a security feature of Windows COM+

Long Term Fix

• Put a shortcut to Fishbowl Nexus in the Windows Startup folder
• This will cause Fishbowl Nexus to start normally, and be able to see non-Administrator QuickBooks applications
• Update to Fishbowl 2016.14
  • The new build was released 11/10/2016