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Installing takes about ten minutes, and most of it is waiting. You don’t need administrator rights, and nothing is written to Program Files — it all goes under your own Windows account. Throughout these pages, your chat client means the app you talk to Claude or ChatGPT in: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT Desktop, or Codex.

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Before you start

  • QuickBooks Desktop on this same computer. Not on a server, not on the PC down the hall. The connection runs inside this machine, so QuickBooks has to be on it.
  • A chat client, installed and working — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT Desktop, or Codex.
  • The company file you want to work on, and the QuickBooks Admin password for it.
Install your chat client first, and open it once. Zeno connects itself to the chat clients it can find while it installs, and a client that hasn’t been opened yet is one it can’t find. If you’ve already installed in the other order, that’s fixable — see nothing shows up in one chat client below.

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Installing

1

Download the installer

It’s the file named ZenoQuickBooksDesktop-<version>.exe.
If your firm checks downloads before running them, the SHA256 for each release is on the download page.
2

Double-click it and follow the prompts

The installer tells you if it can’t find QuickBooks Desktop on this machine. It connects itself to Claude Desktop, Claude Code, ChatGPT Desktop and Codex, and adds a Zeno folder to your Start Menu.
3

Read the last page before you close it

This is the page people skip, and it’s the one that matters. It lists every chat client it connected to, and every one it skipped — the fastest answer to “why doesn’t Claude see this”.The same list is saved as register-summary.txt next to the program, so it isn’t lost if you close too quickly.
4

Restart your chat client — properly

Every chat client reads its list of connections only when it starts. Until you restart it, it has no idea Zeno exists.Claude Desktop and ChatGPT Desktop: closing the window is not enough. Clicking the X leaves the app running in the background, where it never re-reads anything.To quit it properly:
  1. Look at the bottom-right of your screen, at the small icons next to the clock.
  2. If you don’t see the app’s icon there, click the ^ arrow to show the hidden ones.
  3. Right-click the icon and choose Quit (or Exit).
  4. Open the app again from the Start Menu.
In Claude Code, just start a new session.
This is the single most common reason a fresh install looks broken. If you only do one thing from this page carefully, do this one.
Connecting a chat client has the details of what all this wrote, for each client, and how to write it yourself. You shouldn’t need it — but it’s there.

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Set up your company files

Open Start Menu → Zeno → Zeno for QuickBooks Desktop, then use the Setup Center. It finds company files, tracks five checks for each one, and gives you the exact next request to copy into your chat client. The company setup walkthrough covers the whole loop: sign in as QuickBooks Admin, approve the permission dialog, choose closed-file or open-only access, build the local copy, answer a harmless test question, and move to the next company. Permission is granted once per company file. The Setup Center remembers where each file stopped, so closing a window doesn’t restart the process.

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Checking it all worked

There’s one thing to type that checks the whole chain end to end:
It walks every link — QuickBooks installed, QuickBooks running, the right file open, permission granted, licence, your records, and whether your other chat clients are connected — and tells you the first thing that’s wrong, in plain words, with what to do about it. If several things look broken, the first one is usually causing the rest, so start there and run it again. This is the right first move any time something isn’t working. It’s faster than reading the rest of this page, and it can see things you can’t.
The check on your other chat clients arrived in 1.2.0-beta.6. On an earlier version qb_doctor still checks everything on the QuickBooks side; see nothing shows up in one chat client for the manual route.

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Check setup progress later

Open the Setup Center again, or ask your chat client:
Both show the same saved progress and next action for every company.

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Adding a licence

Without a licence everything works and the workstation may post 250 transactions in total, in batches of any size. Every question you can ask, every report, every plan and every reversal is unlimited and always will be. See what it can’t do for exactly what counts. The Licence tab shows how many of the 250 you’ve used, as does qb_status.
  1. Open Start Menu → Zeno → Zeno for QuickBooks Desktop.
  2. Go to the Licence tab.
  3. Paste your key and click Save key.
  4. Restart the connection in your chat client, the same way as above.
Moving a licence to a different computer? If your key names particular machines, that same Licence tab shows this workstation’s machine id. Email it to support@zenofirm.com.

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When something isn’t working

Start here, always:
It names the first broken link and how to fix it. What follows is the same ground in longhand, if you’d rather read it.

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”QuickBooks Request Processor not found”

QuickBooks Desktop isn’t installed on this computer, or its connection components are damaged. Repair QuickBooks: Windows Settings → Apps → QuickBooks → Modify → Repair. Remember that QuickBooks has to be on the same machine. A copy on a server or another PC can’t be reached.

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Nothing shows up in one chat client

Almost always, that client hasn’t been restarted since Zeno was installed — or was closed by its X rather than quit from the icon next to the clock. Quit it properly and open it again, following step 4 above. If it still doesn’t appear, the likeliest cause is that this chat client was installed after Zeno, so Zeno never had a chance to connect to it. Ask a chat client that is working:
It checks the other clients on this machine and tells you exactly what to do. If no client is working at all, connecting a chat client has the by-hand route, including the Microsoft Store version of Claude Desktop, which keeps its settings somewhere else entirely.
Claude Desktop and Claude Code are separate programs with separate settings. Zeno working in one tells you nothing about the other. This surprises nearly everybody.

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Nothing happens when you run a tool

The permission prompt is open in the QuickBooks window, waiting. Click QuickBooks on your taskbar.

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”Could not start QuickBooks”

QuickBooks isn’t running, or it has a different company file open. Open the file you want first, then try again.

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The console shows someone else’s clients

Upgrade. Before 1.2.0-beta.3, a second Windows account on the same PC could reach the first account’s console, because the port belongs to the machine. Each account now gets its own console and its own port; see a workstation two people share.

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Nothing happens when you click the Start Menu shortcut

If the console can’t start, it now says so in a message box. An older build failed silently — upgrade.

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Where your data goes

None of it leaves the machine. The licence is checked on the computer itself, so a workstation behind a client’s firewall works exactly like one with open internet.
To open any of those folders, copy the address, press Windows key + R, paste it in, and press Enter.

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Upgrading

Run the new installer. It stops the running copy, replaces the program, and leaves your journal, rules, registered companies and licence alone — those live under your Windows account, not next to the program, so an upgrade can’t lose a practice’s client list. Restart your chat clients afterwards, the same as a first install. Zeno tells you in chat when there’s a newer build, and downloads it for you on request. Updating has that loop end to end.

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Uninstalling

Uninstall from Settings → Apps, like any other program. Your run journal stays where it is. The record of what was posted to client books is yours, and removing the software doesn’t remove it. Delete %LOCALAPPDATA%\Zeno\qb-mcp by hand if you want that gone too.

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For IT and larger installs

Install with writing switched off to look at a live company file without any risk of changing it. Every write tool refuses before it reaches QuickBooks; reading works as normal.Set ReadOnly to true in appsettings.json next to the program, or install from the zip with -ReadOnly.
The zip contains the same program plus Install-QbMcp.ps1 for deployment tools:
Connecting to chat clients is a tick box on the installer’s Select Additional Tasks page, which a firm managing configuration centrally can clear. Run it later, or again, with:
Re-running is safe: it updates the existing entries rather than adding second ones.
Set DataDirectory to a network path in appsettings.json, or set the QBMCP_DataDirectory environment variable by policy. Every workstation then writes to the same run journal and reads the same coding rules, knowledge, and playbooks.

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Still stuck

Contact support. Paste in what qb_doctor said — that answers most of it on its own. Also useful:
  • register-summary.txt from %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\Zeno\qb-mcp\
  • The newest file from the logs\ folder in that same place
  • Your QuickBooks edition and year, and which chat client you’re using