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What Is QuickBooks Error -6144, 0?

Chief Mechanic · December 7, 2012 ·

According to Intuit, QuickBooks Error -6144, 0 and the related error -6144, -103 are accompanied by the message “An error occurred while QuickBooks tried to access the company file”.

They are caused by either:

an incorrect path in your .nd file to your company file (.qbw) or
damage to the Windows user account used by the QuickBooks Database Manager

See our article on QuickBooks file types for more information on the .nd file.

There are 2 possible solutions to this problem:

use the QuickBooks File Doctor or
delete the Windows user account used by the QuickBooks Database Manager and then do a clean install of QuickBooks

To delete the right Windows user account, identify the version of QuickBooks that is generating this error. The Windows user account used by the QuickBooks Database Manager has a name that begins with qbdataserviceuser and, for versions of QuickBooks after QuickBooks 2006, ends with a 2 digit number. If you only run 1 version of QuickBooks, it should be easy to identify the Windows user account. If you run multiple versions of QuickBooks, be sure to only delete the user account associated with the version of QuickBooks that’s giving you a problem.

Here are the Windows user accounts for recent versions of QuickBooks:

QuickBooks 2013: qbdataserviceuser23
QuickBooks 2012: qbdataserviceuser22
QuickBooks 2011: qbdataserviceuser21
QuickBooks 2010: qbdataserviceuser20
QuickBooks 2009: qbdataserviceuser19
QuickBooks 2008: qbdataserviceuser18
QuickBooks 2007: qbdataserviceuser17
QuickBooks 2006: qbdataserviceuser

Once you’ve deleted the user account, continue to the next step of doing a clean install of QuickBooks.

For more information on resolving QuickBooks Error Code -6144, 0, consult this Intuit knowledge base article.

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What Is the QuickBooks File Doctor?

Chief Mechanic · December 7, 2012 ·

The QuickBooks File Doctor is a tool from Intuit that is designed to diagnose and fix common problems with QuickBooks data files and your Windows and network configuration, including:

Data corruption
Windows setup problems
Network setup problems

The tool has its limits. It only works with:

.qbw and .qba files
QuickBooks company files (.qbw) smaller than 2 Gb

Further, diagnosing network setup problems may not work if you have multiple QuickBooks versions installed on your computer. In some cases the tool may diagnose a problem but then be unable to fix it. That typically depends on whether a QuickBooks Auto Data Recovery folder exists. Auto Data Recovery (ADR) is another Intuit data protection tool available to some QuickBooks users.

For more information on the QuickBooks File Doctor, consult this Intuit knowledge base article.

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QuickBooks 2013 Coming On September 24th

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2012 ·

Intuit will release QuickBooks 2013 and Enterprise Solutions 13.0 on or about September 24th. Downloads from Intuit’s site will be available immediately upon release. Physical product should reach stores by sometime in October.

The biggest thing users will notice about QuickBooks 2013 is the new design, or graphical user interface (GUI) in tech-speak. The design incorporates colors from contemporary web sites and ribbons on forms similar to Microsoft’s popular Office software suite.

There’s little in the way of major new product features, but there are important tweaks throughout the program. We’ll cover the changes in more detail in future posts. For now we’ll touch on a few examples of the improvements.

In the QuickBooks 2013 Customer Center, shown below, information is organized into tabs. Customers can now have multiple contacts and multiple date-stamped notes, which can be managed on the Contacts and Notes tabs respectively. There are built-in links to maps and directions to the customer’s address to save having to re-enter that address in another application. When navigation and mapping apps are everywhere, it’s good to see Intuit recognize the importance of this type of information.

Many forms, such as the Create Invoices form shown below, now include a ribbon full of common commands. The ribbon is larger than the icons used in previous versions of QuickBooks. The increased size allows the text and icon to more clearly identify the task with which it is associated. In the past QuickBooks icons were so small that that they provided little useful information. In the age of retina displays, they simply didn’t cut it anymore, and QuickBooks 2013 is a recognition of that reality. Quick links have been added to a context-sensitive find tool. In other words, the FIND button on the Create Invoice ribbon has input fields for invoices, and the button on the Enter Bills ribbon has input fields for bills.

These improvements are useful, but no single one stands out as revolutionary.

The design change for QuickBooks 2013 is the standout feature. The new look won’t be universally loved, but the change brings QuickBooks much closer to the visual appearance of popular web sites, which are playing a growing role in setting the standards against which software is judged.

For more background on the changes in QuickBooks, check out Intuit’s blog post on the introduction of QuickBooks 2013.

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What Is the QuickBooks Migration Policy?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2012 ·

The QuickBooks migration policy is Intuit’s policy to provide a free upgrade to a soon-to-be-released version of QuickBooks to those customers who purchased the currently shipping version very close to the new version’s introduction. The free migration period is about 60 days.

Typically, Intuit releases a new version of QuickBooks in the last week of September. Without a policy to provide a free upgrade to the new version, prospective QuickBooks customers might otherwise suspend purchases until after the official release of a new version. That wouldn’t be good for sales.

The migration policy discourages potential customers from deferring purchases. It also allows customers to buy and use the time-tested, currently-shipping version that has been on the market for 10 months or more while gaining access to the latest software. That new software can be put to use once its stability has been affirmed in the market. For those who are reluctant to install the first release of a new program but want the features of a new QuickBooks version, the migration policy offers solid benefits. For those years when there’s an expected price jump on QuickBooks, the migration policy offers built-in savings, since you’ll receive the higher-priced new version by paying the lower, current price.

For QuickBooks 2013, the expected release date is 9/24/12, and the migration policy started on 7/25/12. That means any purchaser of QuickBooks 2012 from 7/25/12 through the release of QuickBooks 2013 is eligible to receive a free upgrade to that new version.

Let’s clarify a few details on what constitutes a “free upgrade.” If you received your QuickBooks software via download, you’ll be able to receive the newly released version for free. However, if you opted to receive your QuickBooks software on physical media, such as as a DVD, then shipping charges and taxes will apply to your upgrade order. Moreover, free migration policy upgrades are not available to those who purchased QuickBooks software through a mass merchant.

Unfortunately, there are no links on Intuit sites documenting the migration policy, so the details are subject to change. And you’ll need to contact Intuit to claim your free upgrade promptly. All in all, the migration policy removes all the reasons to defer buying QuickBooks for new installations and upgrades.

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What Are the Changes To QuickBooks Attached Documents For 2012?

Chief Mechanic · September 21, 2011 ·

Coinciding with the release of QuickBooks 2012, Intuit is making a variety of changes to QuickBooks Attached Documents, a cloud-based document storage system that has been available as an extra-cost add-on for users of QuickBooks 2010 and QuickBooks 2011. For QuickBooks 2010, Intuit’s document storage feature was called QuickBooks Document Management, and the changes impact users of that service as well.

For 2012, Intuit is phasing out the online QuickBooks Attached Documents and including a capability for free local document storage.

Let’s summarize the changes based on the year of your QuickBooks version and the impact of those changes based on whether they add capabilities (good), remove them (bad), or it’s too early to assess the impact (unclear):

QuickBooks 2012

Good: Local document storage on the computer running QuickBooks is now free, and the new Doc Center supports a drag-and-drop interface, including the ability to add Microsoft Outlook emails to Doc Center. Supported documents can be attached to QuickBooks lists or transactions. Users of QuickBooks Attached Documents have access to a tool to migrate online documents to local storage.

Bad: Users can no longer sign up and pay for an extra cost, cloud-based storage solution from Intuit. Users requiring cloud-based solutions will have to turn to third-party add-ons, some of which have been in existence longer than Intuit’s cloud-based storage.

QuickBooks 2011

Good: Intuit has lowered the price of QuickBooks Attached Documents, where the maximum monthly fee is now $9.95 for unlimited document storage.

Bad: Since QuickBooks Attached Documents is being phased out, existing users of the service can continue to use it subject to Intuit’s sunshine policy. Under that policy, and assuming Intuit keeps the service live until that point, QuickBooks 2011 users can continue to use QuickBooks Attached Documents until May, 2014 – provided that they continue to run that same version of QuickBooks. Once QuickBooks 2012 is formally available to the public, QuickBooks 2011 users can not sign up for new subscriptions to QuickBooks Attached Documents. This change effectively limits the users of this version of the program to 2 undesirable choices: don’t upgrade QuickBooks and keep the Attached Documents service for a limited time or upgrade QuickBooks and lose the ability to attach documents and store them on Intuit’s secure servers. The first blocks access to new QuickBooks features, and the second blocks access to a service that may be important to an organization. It should be noted that users that do opt to upgrade QuickBooks will only lose the ability to attach documents stored in the cloud; they will not lose access to the documents themselves, since access in all likelihood will be preserved until May, 2014.

Unclear: While users of QuickBooks 2012 have access to a tool to migrate existing online documents to local storage, it’s not clear if that tool will be made available to users of QuickBooks 2011 without first upgrading to QuickBooks 2012. Without such a tool, there is no obvious way to migrate documents from Intuit’s cloud storage other than saving them one by one, which would be a time consuming process for active users of the service.

QuickBooks 2010

Good: For users that have stuck with Intuit’s Document Management, there is little good to report. For those that have migrated to Attached Documents before the introduction of QuickBooks 2012, the lower pricing of Attached Documents is a benefit to QuickBooks 2010 users.

Bad: Similar to the fate of QuickBooks 2011 users, QuickBooks 2010 users of online document storage (either Document Management or Attached Documents) can use the service subject to Intuit’s sunshine policy. However, since QuickBooks 2010 was released 1 year before QuickBooks 2011, the sunshine date is 1 year earlier, or May 2013. New, free subscriptions to Document Management with a cap of 100 Mb can be created, but these were intended to allow evaluation of the service when it was first introduced; it’s unlikely anyone would want to evaluate a service that is being phased out, and the 100 Mb cap has little practical value outside of evaluation testing.

The changes to document attachment are significant, and many QuickBooks users that have avoided attaching documents in QuickBooks because of cost considerations will be pleased at the free local document storage in QuickBooks 2012. On the other hand, organizations that have used Intuit’s cloud-based system will be disappointed to see that low-cost service disappear, but they’ll have ample time to implement other approaches to document storage.

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QuickBooks 2012

QuickBooks 2011

QuickBooks 2010

Accounting

Developer

Intuit