Dropped out of the IT world in 1999 so not up to speed on small business needs anymore. BIL has a small plumbing business running quick books. Has 3 concurrent users, what hardware will I need? Server (OS?) and workstations or just run main pc as a server
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Small office (Quick books) hardware advice
- Thread starter gobnu1
- Start date
That depends as much as on other factors besides Quickbooks, like centralized file sharing, security (Active Directory, etc). QB is easy enough to run on a server or another desktop. Just make sure that if you will be using multi-user mode, that you connect the users using the UNC path. In my experience, most small office owners are much more concerned with daily business ops than maintaining their systems. So, in this scenario, backups are your friend. Figure out a backup strategy that is as automated as possible and will do notifications as well BEFORE you implement.
As far as specifics go, I'd want siome more information prior to making a recommendation:
1) Any growth expected?
2) Budget?
3) BIL's savviness?
As far as specifics go, I'd want siome more information prior to making a recommendation:
1) Any growth expected?
2) Budget?
3) BIL's savviness?
1. No
2. No real limit
3. Has none
Trying to make something that I won't get pestered with after install. So QB with just a few users would be just fine a desktop? I'd rather steer clear of the server issue for simplicity sake. I did instill the backup mentality after he lost everything twice. Also is QB easily accessible remotely (not a game changer)
When you say three 'concurrent users', do you mean that all three people need to be working in the same quickbooks company file at the same time? FYI, that will require a quickbooks license for each of them, which will obviously add cost to this project. If they can deal with one person working in quickbooks at a time, that is a $ saver.
If this is a small business, I'm assuming we're not running a domain, so I'm going to go down the workgroup path here....
Buy a computer and call this the 'quickbooks server'. Run Windows 8.1. Install QuickBooks on this computer. Give it a 4TB hard drive to make things easy on yourself. I personally really love using an OptiPlex for this as they are pretty bulletproof. I buy my refurb optiplexes from insightsystemsonline.com. They are excellent to deal with, a little slow to get the order out initially, but really fast on warranty claims and service. Good pricing, but not the cheapest out there. They are an authorized refurb shop that puts a 3 year warranty on their products. A+. Go for a 4th gen i5 or better, 8GB memory or better, 4TB hard drive. That's about it.
Each of the clients should run Windows Vista SP2, 7 SP1 or 8.1 Update 1 (32-bit & 64-bit) , per the Intuit system requirements page. For trouble free operation, do not deviate from Intuit's requirements!
On the all of the computers create user accounts for the users. Make sure the usernames and passwords match across all of them. This is required for the workgroup file sharing to work seamlessly.
On all of the computers create an admin account. The passwords here should not match. Keep a record of all passwords.
On the server, make all of the users local administrators. This is necessary for some features in QuickBooks to run properly. This took me a LONG time to figure out!!!
On the desktops, make the users standard users. If they need to install stuff, they will need to type in the password of the local admin for elevation. This is a good security practice.
Create a folder on the computer called 'QuickBooks Data'. Do not store in the c:\users\... folder structure. Put it somewhere else. Share this folder with full read write access for all the users. Make the share name 'quickbooks'.
Purchase a license for Macrium reflect desktop for all of the users and server. Use this for backup. Contact me if you'd like to buy a copy, I'm a reseller. There are multi-license packs that drop the cost. Set all the desktops to forever incrimental back up to the server with a 60 day retention. Buy an external 4TB hard drive, and have the server do the same kind of backup to that drive nightly. Then use backblaze on the server to get the data in the cloud as a secondary backup mechanism (~$4.50/mo for unlimited data). Use my backblaze affliliate link when you order it if you want to help me out, http://www.backblaze.com/partner/af4761 .
Create macrium boot ISO's of the appropriate WinPE version for each of the computers and save in the backup folder. In case of emergency, you can burn one of these ISO's to disk/USB and boot the computers for recovery.
Set yourself up for remote access to each of the computers using Teamviewer for ease of maintenance in the future.
Consider using NiNite One ($20/mo) for automated patching of software such as flash, acrobat, etc, etc on all the desktops.
Buy a copy of Norton Security 5 user license off amazon and license it to your customer. Install this on all the computers.
That should pretty much do it. I did almost exactly this for a small client of mine awhile back and it's working great.
If this is a small business, I'm assuming we're not running a domain, so I'm going to go down the workgroup path here....
Buy a computer and call this the 'quickbooks server'. Run Windows 8.1. Install QuickBooks on this computer. Give it a 4TB hard drive to make things easy on yourself. I personally really love using an OptiPlex for this as they are pretty bulletproof. I buy my refurb optiplexes from insightsystemsonline.com. They are excellent to deal with, a little slow to get the order out initially, but really fast on warranty claims and service. Good pricing, but not the cheapest out there. They are an authorized refurb shop that puts a 3 year warranty on their products. A+. Go for a 4th gen i5 or better, 8GB memory or better, 4TB hard drive. That's about it.
Each of the clients should run Windows Vista SP2, 7 SP1 or 8.1 Update 1 (32-bit & 64-bit) , per the Intuit system requirements page. For trouble free operation, do not deviate from Intuit's requirements!
On the all of the computers create user accounts for the users. Make sure the usernames and passwords match across all of them. This is required for the workgroup file sharing to work seamlessly.
On all of the computers create an admin account. The passwords here should not match. Keep a record of all passwords.
On the server, make all of the users local administrators. This is necessary for some features in QuickBooks to run properly. This took me a LONG time to figure out!!!
On the desktops, make the users standard users. If they need to install stuff, they will need to type in the password of the local admin for elevation. This is a good security practice.
Create a folder on the computer called 'QuickBooks Data'. Do not store in the c:\users\... folder structure. Put it somewhere else. Share this folder with full read write access for all the users. Make the share name 'quickbooks'.
Purchase a license for Macrium reflect desktop for all of the users and server. Use this for backup. Contact me if you'd like to buy a copy, I'm a reseller. There are multi-license packs that drop the cost. Set all the desktops to forever incrimental back up to the server with a 60 day retention. Buy an external 4TB hard drive, and have the server do the same kind of backup to that drive nightly. Then use backblaze on the server to get the data in the cloud as a secondary backup mechanism (~$4.50/mo for unlimited data). Use my backblaze affliliate link when you order it if you want to help me out, http://www.backblaze.com/partner/af4761 .
Create macrium boot ISO's of the appropriate WinPE version for each of the computers and save in the backup folder. In case of emergency, you can burn one of these ISO's to disk/USB and boot the computers for recovery.
Set yourself up for remote access to each of the computers using Teamviewer for ease of maintenance in the future.
Consider using NiNite One ($20/mo) for automated patching of software such as flash, acrobat, etc, etc on all the desktops.
Buy a copy of Norton Security 5 user license off amazon and license it to your customer. Install this on all the computers.
That should pretty much do it. I did almost exactly this for a small client of mine awhile back and it's working great.
D
Deleted member 12106
Guest
I like this but see nothing about mirrored volume(s) for the copies/orig to live on. I do support for our ERP package so see many machines/networks laid out like this and most often missing a total bare metal recovery option. Have had people lose their whole SQL DB and not have a solid backup that no one had ever checked on. You have no idea how many times I hear "we don't need a backup, we have raid (raid 5, wtf?!) and then they are doing unplanned disaster recovery and scrambling for backups....or "we have a backup" and next week they are starting from a weeks old database copy. Don't be those people, please! PROVE the recovery plan regularly, at least yearly from bare metal.
I'd do the same desktop OS type server but mirror the boot volumes and data volumes and ENSURE offsite backup to get the QB data file and any "corp" files offsite. If they have the bandwidth, I'd throw the images into this as well. If there is potential for growth then I'd suggest to peep Windows Server Essentials.
EDIT YOU FORGOT CRYPTOPREVENT. This is another bugger I see customers hit with, often and some over and over. "we have really good antivirus"
scottatwittenberg
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It's not even worth it anymore. Just setup a Quickbooks Online account for them.
Less maintenance, less worry about backup, and they will be able to use on mobile devices and eventually input stuff while they are on job sites to save extra steps.
I am running a similar setup for a client of our's. Main computer is i7, 8gb ram, 500gb SSD with a 1TB internal that is used for windows backup.
I created C:\quickbooks and shared it out. Then mapped the other 2 computers to it.
We had a ton if issues with both windows 10 and office 2016. we had to downgrade the computers to windows 7 and office to 2010 to get everything working how they wanted. It was a huge PITA. Since this was a client, and we got paid for it, we will survive. But if I was doing this for a friend or family, then lots of time can be lost getting it right.
You have to host the QB file on a windows computer that is running the QB Database manager. Otherwise, I would tell people to get a NAS with raid and external backup, and possibly cloud backup to and call it a day.
Less maintenance, less worry about backup, and they will be able to use on mobile devices and eventually input stuff while they are on job sites to save extra steps.
I am running a similar setup for a client of our's. Main computer is i7, 8gb ram, 500gb SSD with a 1TB internal that is used for windows backup.
I created C:\quickbooks and shared it out. Then mapped the other 2 computers to it.
We had a ton if issues with both windows 10 and office 2016. we had to downgrade the computers to windows 7 and office to 2010 to get everything working how they wanted. It was a huge PITA. Since this was a client, and we got paid for it, we will survive. But if I was doing this for a friend or family, then lots of time can be lost getting it right.
You have to host the QB file on a windows computer that is running the QB Database manager. Otherwise, I would tell people to get a NAS with raid and external backup, and possibly cloud backup to and call it a day.
D
Deleted member 12106
Guest
While I would agree, first understand their needs and their business processes. We have a component for QB which allows QB to process financials vs. using our app. If you go to hosted like some customers did without reviewing specs, you will be very sorry when you can't invoice jobs from the other side or pay vendor invoices, or complete payroll.
I've had numerous customers that have gone to quickbooks online only to move back to quickbooks inhouse within a year or so. The online version has a different feature set than the desktop version.
I second the mirrored volume for the data drive. If you want to do this on the cheap, you can use software RAID1 in windows. That way you can still use an inexpensive optiplex and won't have to worry about any fancy raid drivers, etc.
The bare metal restore was specifically why I mentioned using Macrium Reflect Personal edition. It does bare metal restore beautifully and reliably. That's also why I suggested backing up all the desktops to the server via Macrium.
As for the checking on the backups, configure macrium reflect to email you the nightly backup report. Make it your job to check on these emails and charge them for your time to monitor it.
I also agree that you should implement a ransomeware tripwire type program to prevent from getting hit by encrypting ransomeware.
I second the cloud option, that is why I put a link in there for backblaze.