Users, roles, passwords and the audit log
The first administrator, adding staff with the right role, the accountant invite, what the audit log records, and the one password that cannot be recovered.
6 min read · Updated 2026-10-09
The first administrator
The first time a company file opens, AcboBooks asks you to create the administrator: a username and a password. From then on, every open of that file asks someone to sign in. The administrator can do everything, including creating other users and activating the licence. There is always at least one administrator.
Roles
| Role | Can | Cannot |
|---|---|---|
| Administrator | Everything | — |
| Standard | Enter and edit transactions, lists, run reports, bank feeds, payroll | Change company settings, closing date, users, branding; activate the licence; year-end close; backups |
| View only | Open everything, run and export every report | Save any change |
Give staff who only need to look things up, such as a salesperson checking a customer balance, the view-only role. Give the person who does the books the standard role, and keep administrator for the owner and the bookkeeper who closes periods.
Add and manage users
Company → Users (administrator only). Click New user, enter a username, a starting password and the role. Tell the person their password in person; they can change it after signing in. When someone leaves, deactivate the user rather than deleting: their name stays on every transaction they entered and in the audit log, but they can no longer sign in.
Users belong to the company file, not to the computer, so the same sign-ins work on any PC that opens the file, including over the network.
Invite your accountant
Company → Accountant Access creates a time-limited invite: a one-time code your accountant enters on their own PC to sign in over the network, with a standard role and their own name in the audit log. Revoke it from the same screen when the work is done. If your accountant is not on your network, send an encrypted backup instead; see backups, and the page for accountants for how adjusting entries come back.
The audit log
Company → Audit Log records who did what and when: sign-ins, every transaction created, edited, voided or deleted (with the before and after amounts), changes to the closing date, user changes, licence activation. It cannot be edited or cleared from inside the program. Filter by user or date range, and export it for an auditor. If a figure changed and nobody remembers why, this is where to look.
A lost password
A standard or view-only user who forgets their password: an administrator opens Company → Users and sets a new one.
The administrator password cannot be recovered by anyone, including us. The file is yours and we have no key to it. If every administrator password is lost, the options are: restore a backup made before the password was set, or create a new company and bring the data across with Lists → Import Data and the report exports from the old file. The lesson is cheap compared with the alternative: write the administrator password down and keep it with your other critical records.
Didn't answer it?
Email [email protected] with what you were doing and what happened. We answer within one business day, and the answer usually becomes a paragraph on this page.
In this guide