Shannon Tucker « QuickBooks and Your Business

About Shannon Tucker

Support and Marketing Director - QuickbooksUsers.com

First of all, it won’t look exactly the same. But you can make it look a lot more like QuickBooks 2012 (or prior) than it does by default, which looks like this:

Some (many?) folks don’t like the monochromatic look that was one of the most obvious changes in the 2013 version.

To make it look more like it used to, first of all make sure that you have R6 update (or later) installed. Prior to R6, you were pretty much stuck with the black/white/gray mode. To check for updates, just click Help / Update QuickBooks… and let it check for more current updates than you currently have installed.

So after getting R6 or later installed, click Edit / Preferences. Click Desktop View in the left pane. You’ll see this:

Click the checkbox for “Switch to colored icons/light background on the Top Icon Bar” and then click OK.

Now click View, and click “Top Icon Bar”.

Voila! This is what your QuickBooks desktop will then look like:

It’s a beauty, ain’t it? Nice, colorful icons up top, just like you’re used to. They changed the graphics for the icons, and I think the font is a little different, but it’s a lot more like the look you had in 2012 and prior versions.

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Let’s say that you have QuickBooks users in your office that need to be able to process sales with credit cards on file, but you don’t want those users to be able to see the credit card details that are stored in QuickBooks.

This easy to accomplish.

In QuickBooks, just click Company / Edit Users and Passwords / Set Up Users.

Select the user for whom you want to restrict credit card access. Click Edit User.

Click Next until you get to the Sales and Accounts Receivable Screen. You’ll see this:

quickbooks view credit card numbers — Just one click makes credit card numbers viewable or not.

Uncheck the box at the bottom that says “View complete customer credit card numbers” and then click Finish.

Make this adjustment to the permissions of any users for whom you wish to prevent a view of customer credit cards.

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software life cycle Every QuickBooks version has a life cycle. Understanding that life cycle might save you some grief.

When a new version is released to the public, that version has already been tested thoroughly by Intuit’s development team. It has also been tested by a group of non-Intuit users — the beta testers. These testers put the new version through its paces with unplanned, real-life tests.

Still, relatively few people have used the new version prior to its official public release. And as you know, QuickBooks is quite complex in its feature sets and functionality.

Therefore, every new release will have bugs. This is true not only of QuickBooks, but of any complex software or app. There are simply too many lines of code being written and changed for it to be otherwise.

My first job out of college was as an accounting software tester. The company I was working for was developing general accounting software to be co-branded with IBM on the original PC (yes, this was back in the 80s). IBM already knew a thing or two about software testing protocols, and our company had already published industry-leading accounting software for the Apple computer market (pre-Mac!). So I had a well-planned script to follow when testing pre-released software.

I’m sure Intuit does too. In fact, Intuit’s test process is bound to be better than the test process we used way back when.

Even so, software testing processes are inherently imperfect and incomplete. Coding accounting software is hard. Programmers and testers are human and make mistakes. Real users in the real world will do things with the software that were not anticipated. (Just ask your QuickBooks consultant or accountant about some of the crazy things they’ve seen people do in QuickBooks.)

So, every new version of QuickBooks comes out of the gate with some problems. This is “normal”.

Problems are reported by users to Intuit. And I’m sure that Intuit prioritizes the problems and assigns their programming team to fix them.

Intuit then releases an update to QuickBooks. You download the update and install it, and it fixes problems.

There’s a good chance that there will some new problems in the update that are unique to that update — problems that weren’t there before. Hopefully the update fixes 10 or 20 or 100 problems for every new problem that it creates. Hopefully the new problems aren’t as serious as the ones that were fixed.

But an update isn’t a miracle worker — it probably doesn’t fix all the problems in the previous version. More problems will be reported, and after another month or two or three, another update will be made available to the user base.

After a few go-rounds of this, you usually have an updated version that works pretty darn well.

OK, so what? Well, if you understand that brand new versions are likely to have more bugs in it than older, updated versions, it might make you decide to wait a little bit before jumping on the upgrade bandwagon when a new version comes out.

You may decide to read some reviews and blogs and forums and see what kind of experience users are having with the new version. If you decide to wait until the new version is updated, you can check these same sources and see what folks are saying about the update.

If the word in the street is favorable, then you’ll feel more comfortable about committing to the new version or update. But if a lot of people are having problems with it, then maybe you’d want to think about waiting until another update comes out and gets good user reviews.

That’s one approach to take, anyway. What’s your policy on installing QuickBooks updates?

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The short answer: Yes. Here’s what people say who have had their file converted recently.

“We converted from Enterprise to Pro a month ago & the file is working great. I don’t think that the conversion could have been more seamless. Thanks!” — Daniel Moss, Olympus Packaging LLC

“I really appreciate how fast and easy you made the transition from Enterprise to Pro for me. Thank You!” — Peter Garza, Scantech Utility Detection Service, Inc.

“Thank you very much! Just had our bookkeeper compare the data this morning, and she said everything matches and transferred well as far as she could see. Great job and done in a timely manner!” — Raj Phangureh

There are only two scenarios that prevent a file from being converted from Enterprise to Pro or Premier: 1) If the file has more than 14,500 names in it (press F2 in QuickBooks to see how many names your file has) or 2) If your version of Enterprise is higher/later than the version of Pro or Premier you want to convert to. In other words, we cannot convert an Enterprise 13 file to Pro 2012.

Otherwise, your Enterprise file should be convertible. For details and service ordering information, see this page.

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Here is a clip from QuickBooks Inventory Essentials, a webinar-on-demand available here. This clip walks you through the process of creating a purchase order in QuickBooks. Click here to watch the video on YouTube on a bigger screen.

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Sometimes we just forget things. Or we write it down and then misplace the piece of paper! That happens with passwords sometimes.

Or one trusted person knew the password, and then leaves or is fired…and can’t or won’t share the password with you afterwards.

If that happens to you with your QuickBooks company password, don’t fret. The problem is solvable. There are two ways to tackle it:

1. If you are using QuickBooks 2011 or later, you can reset it within QuickBooks itself. At the log in screen, click the link next to the password prompt that says “I forgot my password”.

If you had set up a challenge question, it will ask you that, and if you remember the answer, you’re back in business. If not, click “I forgot my answer”.

You’ll then see this screen.

quickbooks password recovery screen

QuickBooks makes you confirm that the file’s password is going to be released to the authorized party on record. An email will be sent to that address with a temporary code. (See below if that email address is now unavailable to you.)

You enter that code at the prompt, and then you’ll be able to enter a new password for the file.

Having done that, it takes you back to the original log in screen. You can enter the new password and you’re in like Flynn.

2. Download the QuickBooks Automated Password Reset Tool. This is a free, downloadable tool to reset your password. You have to provide the same kind of information as per the method above, to confirm that you are authorized to reset the password:

* QuickBooks license number
* First and last name
* Email address of record
* Business phone number of record
* Zip code

You’ll then be able to download and run the utility to reset the password.

Fortunately, Intuit provides this even for unsupported (old) versions of QuickBooks. It’s only available for Windows versions, however. It doesn’t work on Mac versions or, of course, online editions of QuickBooks.

What if your QuickBooks installation is associated with an email address you no longer have access to, like an ex-employee’s personal email? You can jump through some hoops to update your e-mail address here. And then use one of the methods above to reset the password.

Have you used one of these methods before? How did it work out for you?

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QuickBooks being a bit sluggish for you?

Apart from adding newer, faster hardware (think solid state drives) or having your file supercondensed, here are some less obvious ways to possibly get a speed increase.

1. Turn off the built-in search indexing in QuickBooks. This is a company preference that enables you to do the quick, global search with F3. But that instant search capability comes at a price: slower performance for other functions, particularly saving new transactions. This is particularly true with very large files, or with version 2013 files.

So try this: Click on Edit / Preferences / Search / Company preferences. Uncheck the search box, or the search update automatically box, depending on your version of QuickBooks. Rebuild your file. Close out of QuickBooks, then open it up again. Are formerly sluggish processes faster? They might be. (If the rebuild step failed, your file has other issues.)

(Note: you can still search in your company file after turning off Search, but it will take longer.)

2. Get rid of unneeded memorized reports. Some users save a bunch of memorized reports over the years that become irrelevant later on. Get rid of the memorized reports you don’t need anymore.

We have seen cases where QuickBooks performance slows way down if you have memorized reports numbering in the dozens. Not sure why this is exactly. Maybe QuickBooks pre-populates at least some of the information in the memorized reports whenever you save new transactions? Maybe. In any event, we’ve seen performance increases sometimes when you parse the list of memorized reports down significantly.

To delete unneeded memorized reports, click Reports / Memorized Reports / Memorized Reports List. Right click on any unneeded report and select Delete Memorized Report.

3. Delete the TLG file. The TLG file – transaction log file – is an auxiliary file that QuickBooks automatically creates and maintains alongside your main file. The TLG file doesn’t have to be there for QuickBooks to work correctly; it can be deleted without data loss. (It sometimes is useful in data recovery situations, however.)

If the TLG file gets very large — say, over 1GB — then it might start to slow down QuickBooks, especially when you are adding new transactions.

The simplest way to delete the TLG file is to just make a verified backup of your file in QuickBooks. That will blank out the TLG file and start it over again.

You can simply click File / Create Backup / Local Backup, and click the Options button. Make sure that “Complete verification” is selected. Finish making the backup, and the TLG file will be reset to a blank file. (If there are problems verifying the file, contact us for help.)

You should make sure that your automatic backup system is backing up the TLG file in addition to your QBW file, in case you need it later. Or, you can just manually move it in Windows from its current folder to a backup folder that you have created.

Anybody tried any of these techniques? How did they work for you?

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hawaiian sunset — Some sunsets please. Others do not.

…You should see what Sage is getting ready to do.

Starting in 2014, Sage 50 (formerly known as Peachtree Accounting) will start a transition to only support the most current software release, instead of supporting the current AND the previous two releases. (Sage posted their new policy here.)

Sage and Intuit are two separate companies, but until now their support policies for their respective small business accounting solutions have been pretty much the same: they both support the current version plus the last two previous versions.

In the QuickBooks world, the discontinuance (“sunsetting”) of the oldest version of QuickBooks happens in May of every year. So in May, 2013, Intuit will discontinue supporting QuickBooks 2010 editions.

That annoys some QuickBooks users. But imagine if you are a Sage 50 user. In the future, you’ll have to upgrade every single year if you want to have the support associated with payroll updates, etc.

Sage calls it an “obsolescence policy”, as if software 13 months old is inherently obsolete, like a can of soup with an expired date.

Oh well. QuickBooks users don’t have to worry about it. Be thankful that on planet QuickBooks, it takes three years for the sun to set. And if you’re coming over to QuickBooks from Sage 50, welcome.

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lady with piggybank If you use QuickBooks in-house for your accounting, your software is saving or making you money in several ways:

You don’t have to pay an outside accountant or bookkeeper to do the day-to-day books. Your bookkeeper (or bookkeeping staff) can do all the time-intensive tasks themselves: entering and paying bills, cutting checks, invoicing, entering payments and deposits, receiving inventory, etc. Doing these tasks in-house with QuickBooks is likely to cost less than outsourcing the bookkeeping.

You can run management reports whenever you want, and make well informed business decisions as a result. Timeliness is better than outsourced bookkeeping. Better business decisions usually go to the bottom line — you either increase your revenue, or control expenses better, or both.

You can run the reports the way you want them; you can customize them as you go along and tweak them to your needs. Again, this can result in better business information that you can use to be more profitable.

You can manage your cash better. You can detect and manage delinquent receivables and time your payments to vendors for best cash flow.

QuickBooks pays for itself compared to other software solutions. Why? Because it is less expensive than most competitive offerings, it has a larger user community through which to get free support, and has by far the biggest consulting and 3rd party developer network of any accounting software now available. This makes it the most extensively supported accounting software in existence. And that’s a good thing when you are trying to get problems solved.

What do you think? Are there other ways in which QuickBooks has proven to be cost effective for your office?

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lady waiting at computer I had written before about when QuickBooks is “Not Responding”, particularly when doing data-intensive tasks on large databases. The “wait time” can be reduced by supercondensing large files, but even users of medium-sized files sometimes experience the “not responding” phenomenon.

I was watching the performance graphs in Windows Task Manager during a QuickBooks company verify (with the “not responding” message in my QuickBooks windows tab). Guess what? QuickBooks wasn’t using much CPU power or memory:

task manager screen during quickbooks verify — Verify not taking advantage of available computing resources

Why is that? Why didn’t it use more of my Intel i7-2600′s processing power? Why didn’t it want to use more of my 6GB of RAM? Dunno. It did have some peaks at about 22% CPU usage, but no more than that.

I was verifying a large company under Enterprise Solutions 12. Enterprise is said to take better advantage of extra RAM than Premier and Pro editions, and I think it probably does. But even so, it seems to me to be leaving lots of computing power on the table.

I’ve read about people doing hacks on their Windows registry so that QuickBooks uses more resources and things happen faster. Anybody tried that?

Also, I’ve read that if you keep your QuickBooks information on a solid-state drive (SSD), that speeds things up quite a bit — your hard drive is kind of like extended memory, so there is no mechanical movement associated with reading and writing data. Anybody have a word of experience on that?

Otherwise, as far as QuickBooks itself is concerned, here’s my wish: that future versions use more memory and processor resources than currently available versions do. That would save us — millions of QuickBooks users and pros — a lot of time. Just an idea.

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QuickBooks and Your Business

an independent blog by AccountingUsers, Inc.

Author Archives: Shannon Tucker

About Shannon Tucker

How to Make QuickBooks 2013 Look More Like Old QuickBooks Versions

How to Protect the Viewing of Customer Credit Card Numbers

Handling QuickBooks Upgrades and Updates

Is It Possible to Convert a QuickBooks Enterprise File to Pro or Premier?

How to Create a Purchase Order in QuickBooks [video]

Help! I Lost My QuickBooks Password!

3 Backdoor Ways to Speed Up QuickBooks

If You Don’t Like the QuickBooks Sunset Policy…

5 Ways that QuickBooks Pays for Itself

Why QuickBooks Is Sometimes Slow