When the Clean Up utility is run, the effects on a company file (.qbw) can be significant. The goals of the Clean Up utility are to shrink the company file size and to make using that file more efficient. These gains come with some trade-offs.
Important considerations when using the Clean Up utility are:
- Transaction details from the cleaned up period will no longer exist in the company file (.qbw), so detail reports will not be available for the cleaned up period
- Financial statements and summary reports for the cleaned up period will be accurate to a given month but not a shorter interval of time, because the clean up process summarizes transactions with a monthly journal entry
- Inventory transactions up until the first inventory transaction that can’t be removed will be summarized in an inventory adjustment using the average cost of the items on that date; clean up of inventory items stops after the first inventory item that can’t be cleaned up
- Cash basis reports for a cleaned up period will not be accurate because detail transactions are required to determine a transaction’s paid status
- Sales tax reporting for the cleaned up period will be accurate because QuickBooks does not delete information required to produce reports on sales tax liabilities
- Regardless of the end date specified for the clean up, QuickBooks retains payroll transactions for both the current and prior years based on the current setting of your computer’s clock
- Only Estimates with a job status of Closed are deleted; Estimates with any other job status are preserved
- Lists elements for 6 lists may be optionally removed if they’re not used in a transaction
The principal trade-off is that detail history for the period cleaned up will no longer be in your primary company file (.qbw). You’ll have to open an archive or a copy to review details from the cleaned up period or run reports that aren’t accurate for a cleaned up period, such as a cash basis report.
The Clean Up utility optionally can remove lists elements from 6 lists that are no longer used in a transaction. These lists are:
- accounts
- customers
- vendors
- other names
- invoice items
- To Do notes
Each of the 6 lists can be selected for clean up individually, as shown in the screenshot below.
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We are considering running QB clean up utilities and are ok on transactions. I cannot find details on what all happens with “unused lists” during the clean up. We have many hidden customers and want to be sure what happens to them. Also, we have customers and companies that may not have had any transactions but we still consider them active and do not want to lose them. Also what happens to hidden chart of accounts?
You’re right that this aspect is not as well documented. When you say “hidden” customers, I’ll take that to mean customers marked Inactive.
Just because a list item such as a customer is active doesn’t mean it has transaction activity, and conversely, just because it is marked inactive doesn’t mean it has no transaction activity.
The Clean Up utility is not paying attention to the active status of a list item. Instead, it’s paying attention to whether a list item is used in a transaction. You can control which lists will have unused entries removed:
I always recommend making several backups of the company file prior to running the clean up utility. You can then create a company file using the same base name as your existing company file but with the year appended through which data is complete.
For example, CompanyXYZ_2008.QBW could indicate that it has complete transactions from 12/31/08 and earlier. You can keep several company files to be sure that you have complete records for any period.
The backup also has the benefit of giving you a recovery path if you find that your clean up of unused items on lists went too far.
Before you run the Clean Up utility, identify several list items with all different combinations of active status (active or inactive) and activity (some transactions or no transactions). When you’ve completed the clean up, confirm that only the entries you want have been removed. That way you’ll be satisfied with the benefits that come with running the utility.