Are you responsible for maintaining more than one company and wish there was an easy way, from the desktop, to open a particular company’s file immediately upon opening QuickBooks?  You can!  Follow these instructions and you can have a Desktop Icon for each company you are responsible for.

This example is for the Sample Product Based Business file QuickBooks provides with QuickBooks Pro.

1. On your Desktop, select the QB icon by single mouse-clicking it; right-click the icon and select “Copy”.
2. Move the mouse over the general Desktop area, right-click and select “Paste”.This will provide a new QB Icon on your Desktop, which would act just the same as your original.
3. Open QB to the company file for which you wish to have a custom Desktop Icon.
4. Press “F2″, and under “File Information / Location”, select all the text with your mouse, right-click and select “Copy”.  Click “OK” and exit QB.
5. Select the Desktop Icon you created in Step 3, right-click and select “Properties”.
6. You should be on the “Shortcut” tab, and the “Target” field should be highlighted; it indicates a fully-qualified path to the QB program.  go to the end of the entry, tap the <Space> key, tap the <Double-Quote> key (”), then hit “<Shift-Insert>” (this pastes the path and name of the QB Company File into the Target box); once again, tap the <Double-Quote> key (”).
7. Click the “General” tab and in the text-box next to the QB Icon, type a meaningful description (e.g., “QB Sample Product Company”.
8. Click the “OK” button.

There you go!  The newly created Desktop Icon, when activated, will directly open the Company File you want it to!  Repeat this process for any other Company File, and you can have customized Desktop Icons for each of the companies you are responsible for!