When the client creates an accountant's review copy of their data file, it restricts them from performing certain tasks, for example modifying lists. Since this frustrates many clients, they often choose to “cancel accountant's review copy.”
If your client “cancels accountant's review copy”, it will effectively “orphan” the changes you make and send back to them in the AIF file.
Background: When the accountant is working with the accountant's review copy and then “exports changes for client”, QuickBooks creates a file (with an AIF extension) containing the journal entries that the accountant created and that are to be imported into the client's data file (their QBW file). This AIF file is nearly the same as an IIF file except that it contains some special information that specifies the company file into which it can be imported. This special information is stored on the top two lines of the AIF file. See Figure 1.
Figure 1 AIF file opened in Microsoft Excel.
When you try to “import accountant's changes,” you'll see the message shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Warning shown when trying to import accountant's changes.
To solve this problem and successfully import the accountant's changes into the client's file, follow these steps.
Step 1. Open the AIF file in a spreadsheet or word processing program.
Step 2. Delete the top two lines from the AIF file.
Step 3. Save the file.
Step 4. Using the Windows Explorer, rename the AIF file, changing the extension to IIF. For example, rename My Company.AIF to My Company.IIF
Step 5. Open QuickBooks and open the client's company file.
Step 6. Import the IIF file that you just modified.