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Does QuickBooks Have Limits On the Number of List Items and Transactions That Can Be Entered?

Chief Mechanic · August 26, 2010 ·

Yes. There are 2 kinds of limits: physical and practical. Let’s consider each in turn.

QuickBooks faces these physical limits:

2 billion transactions
10,000 accounts in the GL chart of accounts
14,500 names (customers, vendors, employees, and other names – combined)
14,500 items (which include inventory items)
10,000 classes
100 price levels

The above list highlights the most important physical limits of QuickBooks; it’s not an all-inclusive list. The physical limits of Enterprise Solutions are considerably higher. For details on all of the physical limits of both QuickBooks and Enterprise Solutions, consult this Intuit knowledge base article.

To find out how your own company file stands relative to these limits, press F2 from within QuickBooks to display the Product Information window. On the right side, you’ll see the List Information. In this example, the company file has 134 (out of 10,000) GL accounts, 217 (out of 14,500) total names, and 106 (out of 14,500) Items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Product Information List Information

There are important practical considerations as well. According to Intuit, QuickBooks is designed for small businesses with fewer than 20 employees and $2 million in annual revenue. However, those are general guidelines. Bigger firms reliably use QuickBooks. What impacts whether you should use QuickBooks or its more powerful relative, Enterprise Solutions, is the size of your data file today and how that data is expected to grow over the time period for which you want to keep all transaction data in 1 file.

Intuit suggests estimating 2 Kb per transaction and projecting the size of your data file over several years. Keep in mind that a sale paid for with 1 check results in 3 transactions (invoice, payment, and deposit), and each AP transaction results in at least 2 (vendor bill and payment). This estimate does not include the data that list elements themselves (e. g., customers, vendors, or items) will add to overall file size.

In our experience, the performance of QuickBooks can degrade if overall company file size exceeds 100 Mb. Intuit suggests a practical limit of growth of 15 Mb per year (or about 7500 transactions).

As a company grows, QuickBooks includes a utility to remove fully paid and reconciled transactions in a process referred to as “cleaning up.” This process reduces the size of the QuickBooks company file. That’s why it’s important to consider the time period you’ll keep old transaction data in your company file. If you’ll clean up your company file every 18-24 months, the number of transactions you can store without hitting the practical limitations of QuickBooks will be considerably greater.

Some longtime QuickBooks users engage in a process of making a backup copy of a company file and then cleaning it up with a cutoff date. The backup copy preserves history transactions for those rare instances where they may be useful, but the company file for everyday use has been cleaned up and no longer includes stale, fully paid transactions. That results in improved performance.

The guidelines on practical limits we’ve discussed here aren’t unbreakable rules, and the limits are influenced by factors we didn’t mention, most notably the hardware performance of the computer on which you run QuickBooks.

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What Data Is Exchanged Between POS and QuickBooks Financial Software?

Chief Mechanic · August 25, 2010 ·

When you enable the company preference Use with QuickBooks Financial Software on the Edit->Preferences->Company->Financial menu, certain information is exchanged between POS and QuickBooks financial software.

POS 8 Company Preferences Use QuickBooks

Exchanges take place by initiating the exchange from POS by clicking on the menu Financial->Update QuickBooks.

The results of a successful exchange are shown below.

The Financial Exchange window summarizes what has been exchanged.

Some information is exchanged in both directions:

customer information excluding account balances
active vendor information

Once POS is installed and running, inventory transactions are managed in POS. Therefore, most information exchanges occur from POS to QuickBooks. These exchanges are:

customer payments
cash register payouts
sales and order deposits
receiving vouchers
financial impact of inventory adjustments
freight charges on inventory transfers between stores (POS Pro Multi-store)
time clock records (POS Pro)

To provide the ability for management to record some transactions that affect account balances and change customer credit limits, QuickBooks financial software exchanges this information to POS:

customer account balances
customer credit limits

Certain information is not exchanged in either direction:

inventory items and quantities after the initial import from QuickBooks financial software to POS
employees
employee commissions and tips
purchase orders

This information is summarized in this Intuit knowledge base article.

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What Is a Group Item?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks a group item is a specific type of Item that is used to quickly enter a bundle of individual items that are typically bought or sold together where tracking the detail on individual items is desired.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

It is similar to – but different from – an inventory assembly item, another approach to managing a bundle of individual items. An inventory assembly item is a new item created out of a bundle of individual items, reducing the quantity on hand of the individual items used to create the assembly. Where an inventory assembly item functions like a pre-assembled kit, a group item functions like an “on the fly” kit.

A group item enables a company to track the detail of each individual item in the group while optionally providing a way to simplify information presented to customers and vendors. Data entry is faster because a single group item automatically fills in the information for all of the items in the group.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Edit Item Group Item

If the Print items in group box is not checked, QuickBooks will print only the group item itself. A customer or vendor will not see the detail on the individual items included in the group. However, company reports will track the detail of each item in the group.

Here’s an example of invoicing for the group item A1 Custom Storage Shed shown above. Entering the single group item automatically added the 2 individual items that make up the group.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Customize

The price of a group item is the sum of the items in the group; the price of the group cannot be changed directly, but the price of each individual item can be changed.

Sales tax for group items is calculated based on the taxable status of each individual item in the group. In the example above, both taxable and non-taxable items are included in the group.

A group item can include any other item except other groups; it cannot be included in an inventory assembly item. There are no reports for group items. Instead, the detail of each individual item in the group is reported.

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What Is an Inventory Assembly Item?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks an inventory assembly item is a specific type of Item that is the result of putting together a new inventory part out of a bundle of individual items to enable tracking finished goods separately from individual components. Normally, an inventory assembly item is used when separate raw materials are assembled, packaged, and sold as an inventory item that is separate from the component parts.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

The inventory assembly item type is only available in QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise Solutions. It’s not available in QuickBooks Pro.

It is similar to – but different from – a group item, another approach to managing a bundle of individual items. A group item is a way to quickly add a bundle of items to a form while preserving the ability to track those items individually. Where an inventory assembly item functions like a pre-assembled kit, a group item functions like an “on the fly” kit.

An inventory assembly item is made up of a Bill of Materials (visible by clicking the Full View… button) which can contain a range of item types: service, inventory part, another inventory assembly, non-inventory part, and other charge. Note that a subassembly can be nested within an inventory assembly. However, the Bill of Materials cannot contain these item types: subtotal, group, discount, payment, sales tax item, or sales tax group. Further, there’s a limit of 100 items in the Bill of Materials for an inventory assembly in QuickBooks Premier; for Enterprise Solutions, that limit is 500 items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Bill of Materials Full View

The Cost shown for an inventory assembly item should normally not be entered. When a Cost is not entered, QuickBooks will use the Bill of Materials Cost that appears at the bottom of the table.

An inventory assembly is built from its components parts by clicking on the Vendors->Inventory Activities->Build Assemblies menu selection. During the build process, the Quantity on Hand of the inventory assembly item is increased by the Quantity to Build, and the Quantity on Hand of each component is reduced by the product of that item’s Qty in the Bill of Materials and the Quantity to Build.

Builds in QuickBooks can be either pending or final. If there are insufficient quantities of the component parts, a build will automatically be marked as Pending. You can also manually mark a build as pending by clicking on the Edit->Mark Build As Pending menu selection while the Build Assemblies window is displayed. The Pending Builds report (Reports->Inventory->Pending Builds) supports managing future build requirements.

Here’s an example of invoicing for the inventory assembly item Interior Door kit shown above. Unlike a group item, which automatically adds other items to a form and controls whether these other items are printed, the inventory assembly item appears as a single line item on a form.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Inventory Assembly Item

The price of an inventory assembly item is specified, just like the price of an inventory item, and can be changed directly on a form.

Sales tax for an inventory assembly item is calculated based on the single Tax Code assigned to the inventory assembly.

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What Are Service Items and How Should I Use Them?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

Service Items are one type of Item and are maintained on the Lists->Item List menu selection.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

Generally speaking, Items are designed to pre-fill invoicing and purchasing forms. Service Items normally include charges for labor or professional fees that your firm buys or sells. You should use Service Items for those charges for labor and professional fees that you plan to included on invoicing and purchasing forms.

Once you’ve created a Service Item, you can’t change the type to another type of Item, so use care when choosing the Item Type.

The New Item window appears below. How you record values in these fields depends on whether you’re creating a Service Item that you purchase or an Item that you sell. Some fields only appear if you’ve set a preference.

If you’re creating a Service Item used in purchases, record your vendor’s unit price as the Rate and choose an expense account for the Account. If you’re creating a Service Item you sell, record your typical selling price as the Rate and choose an income account for the Account.

Since you’ll have a chance to change the Description on invoicing and purchasing forms, you can either leave the Description blank, enter the most common Description, or create different Service Items for each unique description. QuickBooks stores the actual description recorded on each line of every invoicing and purchasing form, so the Description you enter when recording the Item is only an aid to filling out a form.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 New Item

If the Service Item is used in assemblies or performed by a subcontractor or owner, click the checkbox indicating This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner. Doing so will allow you to record both the revenue and expense for each Item in separate accounts. Such Items can be used on both sales and purchase forms.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 New Item Subcontractor

When you’ve recorded all relevant fields, click Next to save your changes and enter another Item or click Ok to save your changes and close the window.

(+4 rating, 4 votes)

vendor

Accounting

Developer

Intuit