Did have.
Unfortunately—got hit with onion. That’s such a pain.
Got a lot of end of the month/end of the year stuff to do: tax records. Etc.
I keep swearing I want to dump our installation of Quick Books and start over…it’s about 15 years old and it creaks and has all sorts of stored contacts from back in OKC.
but then I think of what it’s like to set up your business type and hand-enter all those ‘memorized’ categories and contacts and I think—I’d rather go swimming in January.
Resist the impulse to swim until mid February…: ^ )
It’s been a long time since I used QuickBooks, but I seem to remember that if you downloaded an update, it would keep your memorized categories intact…
Oh, that it does: we’ve updated the software annually. It’s our database that’s creaking with antiquity: there are many old banks and old suppliers, and a lot of obsolete stuff clogging up the response time. We’ve deactivated them, but it’s just huge…
Maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and just triage everything: dump the unused folders, old contacts and any outdated information, before the db starts resembling Fibber McGee’s closet. With standalone 3TB drives available, it’s easy to simply archive everything on the off chance it will be needed later, but that way lies madness 🙂
You probably don’t know how funny I find your post! 😉
(When I started my career in computing, it was rumored the IRS had a 1TB database, but it was largely on magnetic tapes. Automated tape storage “rooms” would identify which tape was needed, bring it to a drive, mount and spool it off to a hard drive for use (29MB on a “diskpack” 14″ in diameter and about a foot high.) [ HEY! Quit snickering about your 32GB keychain thumbdrives!], then unmount the tape and replace the proper rack.)
I date from the days when magnetic tape storage was still common, and have even used punch cards and paper punch tape. The difference is that now, in case of emergency, I can unplug my 3TB drive and scram in about 20 seconds, whereas the old reel room was abandon in place. It’s not for lack of storage, but ease of locating information (stored in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory in the basement, behind a sign saying “Beware of the Leopard”.) Now get off my lawn! 😀
BTW, as a prize on our radio show, we are giving away a 64GB jump drive. It was a donation from our local Office Max, which indicates just how cheap this type of storage has become.
Does Quickbooks have an Archive function? You could keep the last 10 years (for example) and then archive the rest in a separate file.
I do this with Quicken, archive the previous year and start a new file. The new file contains everything that needs to be rolled over and/or kept in perpetuity but it does allow me to clean up some things and keep the size of the file a little smaller.
One thing you can do with QuickBooks to speed it up, is to optimize the database. If you have a huge database that’s been used for many years, it may just need to be checked and the indexes rebuilt if necessary.
There’s a short post and video about it here:
http://blog.betterbottomline.com/scott_gregory_quickbooks/2012/10/how-to-verify-data-in-quickbooks-video.html
There may be more things you can do to sort out the database and get rid of old, unnecessary data like audit trails. It may be worth looking in the Quickbooks documentation, and on support forums, blogs, etc. for more information.
Thanks! I’ll look at that.
If you want a true PITA, try having all the records for a business wiped out and having to rebuild on QB from incomplete paper files for IRS audit… Oh Ben! Could you come here for a moment?
I happen to be Ben 😉 , but accounting drives me bananas.
Give me stories, poetry, non-fiction, images. Heck, give me calculus, back when I was in college. Or computer code (I’m not an expert). — But accounting and business paperwork? Phooey! I’d even deal with legalese sooner. At least legalese is loosely Anglo-Norman.
Heheh, hiya, Tommie.
Heyah, Mr. Pollard!
I’ve been using QB only since 2003, but I upgrade the program about every 4 years. QB 2013 is worlds better than QB 2009. My accumulated QB file (9+ years) is only 31.5 Mb, which is likely a lot smaller than yours.
At some point, I’ll probably have to take care of a major file cleanup, too.
Can you set a close date, and transfer only the more recent data to a new “company”? Or would you lose critical contact info that way?
Good luck!
The way it works is continuing to use every account, every transaction, in a sense, that’s ever been made. One piddling little problem will echo forever. I misattributed a reimbursement for something related to a trip to Australia back in the 80’s, and I think we figured it out sometimes in the late 90’s or early 2000’s, finally determined to keep this idiot thing from resurfacing. That’s how incredibly persistent it is when you have anything out of balance. We have hundreds of vendors, most of which are gas stations we happened to stop at on our way to Chattanooga TN, back in the 80’s, or one that I found late one night somewhere near Castlerock CO that had a gunslit and no window—just slide 10 into the night deposit…sheesh! I’d love to dump them all, but what then happens to the 10.00 I spent back in 2003? Does it resurface, like old mistakes from the Australian trip? There’s a lot good about QB, but it’s dogged about hanging onto information. I am not an accountant—Lord! I am not an accountant. I just log everything and try to be sure I have records of what I did.
One approach that might help is to make the out-of-date vendors, etc. inactive. In my version of QB, I just right click on a vendor’s name, and select “Make Vendor Inactive” in the pop-up window.
I’ll ask one of my friends who is far better at using QB than I am if there is an easy way to “close out” information from many years ago. If QB has an archive function like Quicken (as noted by Tulrose), that might be a simple approach.
If you can find an archive function where we could do a cutoff function it might help, indeed. Our monster definitely has a bad case of TMI…
“Anal retentive” is the term I’d use. I got a free trial of Quicken once. Thought I’d use it to track just my brokerage account. Write a check to add to the account and it had to know everything about my checking account, then it had to know where the money in there came from, “Oh, you’re employed? Do tell!”. It was like tugging at the proverbial thread! It got tossed before then end of the free trial period because it couldn’t be told when to quit, “Just the brokerage account! Hear?”. I use Turbo Tax, but I don’t let it near any of my bank/brokerage accounts! “We’ll go get all the data for you.”
“I’m not telling!”
I’m quite sure your local friendly IRS auditor has absolutely no idea what TMI might mean…
Here’s how to clean up older files (thanks to my friend who is a QB expert, and my bookkeeper).
This note is just a quick summary, so before you start, I strongly recommend that you search for “clean up company data” or “condense data” in QB’s on-line Help files to learn more information than I’m providing here. There are a lot of little details that are pretty darned important that I haven’t included!
The process is a real memory hog, so you’ll want to close down all other programs and be prepared to let the process run–without interruption–overnight, or even over the weekend. If you interrupt (abort) the process, you’ll need to restore your backup, and then start over. Ignore any messages that show that the program is not responding (from Windows).
First (of course!), make a full backup of your entire QB file. The process is NOT reversible, so having a full backup is truly imperative. If you’re willing and able, stash that backup in several places and several media (memory stick, external HD, DVD, the cloud), so that you can always find full copies of older info.
Then, go to File –> Utilities –> Condense data (for QB 2012 and later; Clean up company data for earlier versions of QB).
There will be a wizard to guide you through the process, but QB’s help files are now pretty thorough if something doesn’t make sense. You should be able to select which lists you want to clean up and/or set the date before which everything will be archived (Dec. 31, 2010 is a reasonable choice – you’ll still have two years of active data that way).
QB will make a backup when you start the Condense process. Give that backup a different name, so that it does not over-write the full backup you just made.
When the process is completed, QB will stash your historical data in a company file called “Archive Data”.
Let me know if you have more questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them quickly and accurately.
Hope this helps!!
Errm, don’t just “ignore” Windows complaint that the program has stopped responding, tell Windows you’re happy to wait. 😉