have to be on the same version. So if you have 2016 they need to be on 2016 as well if you are working on it and sending it back. And unless you have the Accountant edition you have to have the same edition as them. Accountant will open any addition but if you have Premium and they have Pro it will upgrade the database and then they will also need to upgrade editions

Thank you! I do have the accountant version, so it should not upgrade the database then?

Accountant's edition can open pro, premium or quantum without converting them but you need the same version as them

DR Financial

When berniel is talking about the same version, that is a very specific thing. If your client is running 2015.1 then you must be running 2015.1. Your Accountant's Edition of 2015.4 will not open their file and allow you to do data entry and send it back again. The database structures are different between the two versions.

However, if you were a business partner since 2014, then you have the 2015 version, probably already installed and have all the updates. Just make sure you have the same version as they do and do their books, send it back, but do the data entry in the 2015.x version.

I do this kind of thing all the time and still have two clients using 2008 and we swap files at times. I never force a client to upgrade software that I am already compatible with. I have recommended it due to features eg. we finally got a client to allow us to upgrade from version 8 to 2010. It was so nice not to have to dump G/L reports out to Excel to sort by date any more. Now they are on 2016 I believe.

You can only convert files from the left 'lower' Edition and from older versions.  It's one way - Sage software doesn't provide for conversions in the other direction.

The Accountants' Edition can open any Edition, but will still convert the client file's 'Version' to the one you're running.

So you have to be careful of which Version, and which Edition they are using. 

Old name ->	Basic	Pro	Enterprise
Current name->	Pro	Premium	Quantum
Version->	2015.2	2015.2	2015.2
Version->	2015.3	2015.3	2015.3
Version->	2016.1	2016.1	2016.1
Version->	2016.2	2016.2	2016.2
Version->	2016.3	2016.3	2016.3
Version->	2016.4	2016.4	2016.4
Version->	2017.0	2017.0	2017.0
Version->	2017.1	2017.1	2017.1

If everything is properly aligned, the Accountants' Edition will also allow you to send entries to your client that they can just import.  

In reply to Dr Financial....

The comment at the very end about being aboe to send entries to your client from the Accountant's Edition that they can just import - be aware that this only works for General Journal entries. Any other entries (sales, receipts, payables, payroll) can not be imported.