Data File Management

How Do I Change the Number of Companies Displayed When Starting QuickBooks?

Chief Mechanic · September 22, 2010 ·

By default, QuickBooks shows the most recent 2 company files you’ve opened in QuickBooks, but this number can be easily changed. The program can display up to 20 companies.

The most direct way to change it is to first open a company file, and then click on the Set number of previous companies… on the File->Open Previous Company menu. That menu is shown below.

QuickBooks 2011 Set Number of Previous Companies Menu

Enter the number of companies you’d like to display (from 1 to 20) and click Ok.

QuickBooks 2011 Set Number of Previous Companies Window

This setting is stored in the QBWUSER.INI file, which you can locate and edit using the Tech Help window.

The setting is recorded as:

MAXMRUFILES=20

Sometimes, in multi-user configurations, efforts to save the file might be unsuccessful and may or may not be accompanied by an error message. If you can’t save the file, check your folder permissions on the folder where the QBWUSER.INI file is located.

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How Can I Improve the Performance of QuickBooks?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

QuickBooks is a complex program that processes a lot of data. As data is added to a QuickBooks company file (.qbw), loading and processing times increase. Within the program, slower processing is usually seen when performing tasks that involve the entire company file, such as running utilities or preparing reports. Since QuickBooks is typically used every day over a period of years, it’s highly likely that at some point you’ll find a need to improve performance.

There’s no single solution that will improve performance in every circumstance, but there are a series of steps you can take that together will have a dramatic impact on QuickBooks performance. We’re ignoring the “common sense” recommendations of “buy a faster computer with more memory” or “upgrade to the latest version/update to the latest release.” Spending money on new or upgraded hardware and not running outdated software will improve performance.

We recommend that you:

Close your company file before exiting QuickBooks and reduce to a minimum the amount of windows that do open once you open your company file. This will dramatically reduce the time it takes to load QuickBooks, which is one way users measure performance, but it won’t have any impact on performance while working in the program itself.
Perform a manual, verified backup on a regular basis. QuickBooks maintains a transaction log file (.tlg) that is used in conjunction with its manual, verified backup routine. This .tlg file grows and can often become bigger than a company file (.qbw) itself. A manual, verified backup reduces the .tlg file size and improves performance. Scheduled QuickBooks backups don’t count, nor do other backup routines that you happen to use. When the .tlg file exceeds 25% of the size of the company file (.qbw) size, it’s time to do a manual, verified backup. Remember that the primary purpose of this step is to reduce the .tlg file size, not to back up data.
Reduce your DB file fragments if they’re too high. DB file fragments represent the degree to which pieces of your QuickBooks company file (.qbw) are scattered over your hard disk. The more fragments you have, the lower your performance will be. For most organizations, DB file fragments in the single digits are reasonable. Organizations running Terminal Services will see more DB file fragments, into the low double digits, and that’s reasonable. If your DB file fragments exceed those levels, convert your company file (.qbw) into a portable file, and then convert that portable file into a company file (.qbw). That conversion routine will reduce DB file fragments and improve performance.
Clear the queues for forms to be printed. Large numbers of forms with the To be printed flag set can degrade performance. The most common example of this problem is a large number of invoices that are in the print queue. Remove these invoices from the print queue and performance will improve.
Run the clean up utility to reduce your company file’s overall size. For QuickBooks Pro and Premier, Intuit recommends keeping data files under 100 Mb for reasonable performance. The clean up utility can remove stale list items and consolidate closed transactions, thereby shrinking file size and improving performance.
Avoid excessive use of sub-accounts, sub-items, and Jobs, which are effectively sub-customers. Relatively speaking, a sub-account requires more processing than a top-level account, so the more sub-level list entries you create, the slower your performance will be. The performance penalty is small, so don’t let this fact alone discourage your use of sub-level entries when necessary. Some organizations have used sub-level list entries excessively, when other QuickBooks features would have been better suited to the purpose.
Stop using Google Desktop. Google Desktop can only index a QuickBooks company file (.qbw) when that file is open. Google Desktop indexing routines consume processing and memory resources, leaving fewer of these resources available to QuickBooks. That will degrade performance. Uninstalling Google Deskop will improve performance.
Consider an upgrade to Enterprise Solutions. The database engine behind Enterprise Solutions is more robust and is capable of handling larger company files at reasonable performance levels. If your business has grown and your QuickBooks company file can’t be cleaned up to where it offers reasonable performance, Enterprise Solutions will provide improved performance.
Investigate network issues if QuickBooks is installed on a network. For example, mismatched network interface card (NIC) settings can significantly reduce network performance. If QuickBooks is the primary program that’s used over the network, this network configuration issue can appear to be a QuickBooks performance problem.

For some of these recommendations, the impact will be significant. For others, it may be imperceptible. What works or doesn’t work will be heavily dependent on your own configuration.

Intuit describes some of these recommendations in this knowledge base article.

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What Are Sources and Targets?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

Sources and targets are important concepts to understand reporting in QuickBooks and use of the Advanced Find function.

Sources and targets are terms assigned by Intuit to describe transactions.

In most instances, the source of a transaction is the summary or total of the transaction. For example, the source of a check includes the amount of the check, the payee, and the bank account from which the check was written. The target of a transaction is the distribution of the source into 1 or more other accounts. For example, a check might be used to pay expenses in 2 different General Ledger accounts, which appear on the Expenses tab below the check payee information. The targets of this check include the information on these 2 lines.

A transaction can have 1 source and 1 or more targets. In most instances, the source is equal to the sum of the targets. Forms or windows in QuickBooks determine what information will be the source and what will be the target. Your only control over what is the source or target is what you enter (subject to validation) in the appropriate area of the form. In the check example below, the top part of the check form is always the source, and the bottom part always contains the target information. However, don’t extend too far the thought that the “sources are on top of the form and targets on the bottom.” That only applies to A/R & A/P transactions.

General Journal Entries are one important exception to the discussion of sources and targets. The first line of a general Journal Entry is the source, and all other lines are targets. Depending on how one enters a general journal entry, the source may not be equal to the sum of the targets. Since you have direct control over the order of lines in a general journal entry, you do control what the source and targets are for general journal entries.

Payments, statement charges, and transfers don’t follow the model that the source is on the top of the form and targets on the bottom.

Here are the source and targets for QuickBooks transaction types:

Invoice: A/R is the source; income accounts associated with the line items are the targets
Bill: A/P is the source; expense accounts on the line items are the targets
Deposit: The Deposit To account is the source; the accounts on the line items are the targets
Payment: The Deposit To account is the source; A/R is the target

To learn the source and targets for any transaction, click the Journal button or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Y. The source is the first line listed. The targets are the lines listed after the source.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Check

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Check Transaction Journal

In this example, the source is the first line of the report that shows the payee and check amount. There is 1 target, the second line that contains the distribution information. We’ve added Source Name as an additional column to the standard Transaction Journal report to better illustrate sources and targets. Note that the Name field for the target is the Customer:Job name, but the Source Name is the check payee. Reports that show target information won’t show the check payee in the Name field.

That leads to confusion among QuickBooks users that aren’t familiar with sources, targets, and the type of information that appears on a report. A report that shows check information in an expense account is reporting target information. The report is not indicating that a check was written to the information shown in the Name field.

According to Intuit:

sources and targets are database concepts and have nothing to do with debits or credits
a source can be a debit or credit, just as a target can be a debit or credit
most reports display a mixture of source and target data
the Inventory Valuation Summary and Inventory Valuation Detail reports are examples of exceptions in that they display only target data

This Intuit knowledge base article offers additional information on sources and targets. When reading it, don’t forget the general journal entry exception to statements about sources and targets. Some of the statements in Intuit’s own materials don’t repeat that exception, and they’re only true with that exception noted.

Issues involving confusion about sources and targets are fairly common. To address these issues, Intuit also offers explanations of the source and target data sets, the report set, where reports get their data, and how conflicting report filters produce unexpected results.

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How Do I Resort Lists?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

Lists are one of the foundations of QuickBooks, and from time to time they can become out of order. That’s when they need to be resorted. Some common indicators that it’s time to resort your lists include:

the list itself is out of order
an element is missing
new entries in a list appear at the top of the list instead of in their sorted order
you can’t turn on the account number preference
selecting a Customer:Job, Vendor, or Employee in a Center fails to display existing transactions for that name
Names don’t properly auto-fill when entering a Name filter on the Advanced tab of the Edit->Find… function

Resorting any list will undo any special order you’ve applied to the list, and this activity can’t be done in multi-user mode. It’s always a good idea to backup your company file before undertaking an action that can’t be undone.

There are 8 lists that can be resorted. They are:

Customers:Jobs
Vendors
Employees
Other Names
Accounts
Items
Memorized Reports
Memorized Transactions

Since this technique is often used to address possible data corruption, we’ll outline the most efficient technique to resort multiple lists, but you can also choose to resort an individual list by opening up a Center and right clicking on a list element.

The first 4 lists are collectively referred to as Names or Entities, and there’s an easy way to resort these 4 lists:

Open the Write Checks window by clicking on Banking->Write Checks or using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + W
In the Pay to the Order of field, click Ctrl + L
Opt to include inactive list entries by clicking the Include Inactive checkbox
Click the Name button and choose Re-sort List from the menu
Click Ok to resort the lists
Uncheck the Include Inactive checkbox

The screenshot below shows the combined Name list in Step 4:

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Resort Name List

Our related article explains how to provide easy access to this combined list of all Names.

Resorting the Chart of Accounts and Items lists follow similar procedures, except each of these lists will have to be resorted individually. To access the Chart of Accounts, click the Lists->Chart of Accounts menu selection or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A. To access the Items list, click Lists->Items. Opt to include inactive list entries, resort the list from the button in the lower left of the window, and uncheck the Include Inactive checkbox before proceeding to the next list.

Resorting Memorized Reports and Memorized Transactions are similar to the above steps, except there’s no need to include inactive list entries since they’re not allowed on these lists. To access Memorized Reports, click the Reports->Memorized Reports->Memorized Report List menu selection; to access Memorized Transactions, click Lists->Memorized Transactions or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + T.

After resorting lists, close and reopen your company file (.qbw) to insure that all changes are successfully written to disk.

Resorting lists is discussed in this Intuit knowledge base article.

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What Is the QBWIN.LOG File and What Function Does It Serve?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

The QBWin.log file is a text file that stores information about selected QuickBooks errors and the results of verifying, rebuilding, cleaning up, or upgrading, or converting a company file.

This file is created the first time you:

run the Verify Data utility (File->Utilities->Verify Data)
run the Rebuild Data utility (File->Utilities->Rebuild Data)
run the Clean Up Company Data utility (File->Utility->Clean Up Company Data…)
encounter a “C=” error
upgrade from a previous version of QuickBooks or Quicken

To locate or view the QBWin.log file, from within QuickBooks press F2 or Ctrl +1 to open the Product Information window. With the Product Information window open, press F3 or Ctrl + 2 to open the Tech Help window. With the Tech Help window open, click the Open File tab and scroll down in the file list to the QBWin.log file. To display the full file path, click the Path On/Off or use the keyboard shortcut Alt + p button. To view the file in your default editor for text files (normally Windows Notepad), click Open File or use the keyboard shortcut Alt + o.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Tech Help QBWIN.LOG

For more information on locating the QBWin.log, consult this Intuit knowledge base article.

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Data File Management

Accounting

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Intuit