Are you Pushing the 14,500 Limit in QuickBooks? « QuickBooks and Your Business

If you didn’t know, QuickBooks Pro and Premier editions have a limit of how many names and items they can contain in one set of company books.

If you add up all your customers, vendors, accounts, employees, etc., that number has to stay below 14,500. Likewise, you can only have up to 14,500 items, including inventory items, in the Pro and Premier editions. (Why 14,500? I don’t know! It seems kind of arbitrary.)

To see how many you have, open your company in QuickBooks and then press the F2 key. In the right-hand column of information, you’ll see your counts.

Once you get up to the 14,500 limit, you basically have three choices:

1. Upgrade to Enterprise Series. Your data will convert immediately, and that ceiling goes up to 1,000,000 names and 1,000,000 items.

2. Have your company supercondensed. This is a database consulting service we provide to QuickBooks users.

One of your options when you get your file supercondensed is to have old, unused customers and/or items removed from your file. This can free up thousands of spaces in your file for new accounts or items. The supercondensed file also has the advantage of being much smaller and faster than the original. We provide this service turnkey.

3. Consolidate old accounts. Let’s say you have a ton of old unused customer accounts. Rename one of them to “Unused”. Then rename another old customer to “Unused”. It will ask you if you want to merge the two accounts. Say Yes. You then have one less name in QuickBooks, so you can add a new customer (or other kind of) account in its place. You can merge as many old customers to “Unused” as you want to free up space for new customers. Merging accounts is a non-reversible action in QuickBooks, so make sure before you merge.

Have you ever bumped up against this limit? How did you resolve it?

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48 thoughts on “Are you Pushing the 14,500 Limit in QuickBooks?”

Earl Reed said on April 7, 2011 at 1:01 pm:

This is good information. It shows yet another serious limitation to your product and your attitude of requiring as much of an investment in software as you can squeeze out of your customers. This combined with your rediculously poor support continues to drive me to advise my clients to look for alternatives to your products.
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Shannon Tucker said on April 7, 2011 at 3:38 pm:

Hi Earl. I’m not with Intuit — it’s not my product! — we do our own support! — so my feelings aren’t hurt. We’re all about hashing out QuickBooks issues, the good things and otherwise. So thanks for joining the discussion here.

Do you know of alternatives in the SMB accounting software market that don’t have limits on the number of accounts or items? Curious.
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D. S. said on April 7, 2011 at 3:44 pm:

I have a client using enterprise who is running out of price levels, which is limited to only 100, even in enterprise. The reasons are too complicated to elaborate on in this comment, but they have a very legitimate need for more price levels. Any suggestions?
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Shannon Tucker said on April 7, 2011 at 4:57 pm:

D.S., I haven’t heard of a workaround for that one, but I’ll post back if I hear of something that might help.
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Stacy said on June 29, 2011 at 3:13 pm:

I need a solution to the Price Level limit too! Each customer has custom pricing, we have 250 customers and found out about the 100 PL limit during initial set-up. We’ve invested a lot of time and energy in the conversion process and now we’ve hit a major road block. If anyone finds a work around or 3rd party solution please post.
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Greg said on September 7, 2014 at 3:46 am:

I hit F2 and looked at the list. The first three, Total Accounts, Total Names and Total items add up to about 10700 then there is a long list of relatively small amounts until the end and we find Total List reviews which amounts to another 3700. Am I reading this correctly? we add up EVERYTHING in that little box? If so, by my reckoning, I am already over 14500. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
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- Lisa said on July 1, 2015 at 1:16 pm:
  
  After 3 plus hours reading every blog,chat and help window regarding the 14500 name limit, amazingly, (through my desperation), I figured it out. My fear of losing any accounting data almost stopped me from following the simple directions required to allow more names to be added. But I assure you that after removing 9000 customers, vendors, employee and other names, they are safely tucked away in my G:\ file. (I saved them on a zip drive too – just in case) LOL. ANYWAY, here’s all you have to do: go to File, click Utilities, then click Condense data. It will then ask you for a date from which you want stuff removed. For example, I put in 1/1/2011, so everything prior to that date would be removed (safely tucked away in the G:\ file). It did take 2 hours to condense the data, but I now have plenty of room to add more customers, vendors, etc. YEA ME. Stress be gone.
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  - Shannon Tucker said on July 1, 2015 at 2:12 pm:
    
    Hi Lisa,
    
    When the condense command works well, it works well. For a lot of users, though, it fails. Glad that it worked for you! Thanks for the comment.
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    - igenyar saharam said on May 15, 2016 at 2:51 pm:
      
      Why didn’t you suggest this in the first place? If you don’t know this method, then I doubt your expertise to help in this area. If you know and you don’t want other people to know, then I doubt your integrity.
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      - Shannon Tucker said on May 15, 2016 at 3:13 pm:
        
        Hi Igenyar,
        
        The built-in condense command that Lisa refers to was introduced in the QuickBooks 2012 version, after this blog post was written.
        
        When people call me these days, I often recommend that they try it on a copy of their file and see what happens. Sometimes it works quite well and they don’t need our services. In many cases, however, the built-in condense command fails and they need services like ours. Thanks for your comment.
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Shannon Tucker said on September 8, 2014 at 12:00 pm:

Greg,

There is a limit of 14,500 on the combined total names. Separately, there is a limit of 14,500 on total number of items. So it sounds like with 10,700 names, you’ve still got some room to grow.

Thanks for the question.
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Michael said on December 24, 2014 at 7:29 am:

Does anyone know how to convert inventory items to non inventory items?
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- Shannon Tucker said on December 29, 2014 at 2:42 pm:
  
  Michael,
  
  Can’t be done, sorry. Thanks for asking.
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  - Colin Langlois said on March 9, 2015 at 4:20 pm:
    
    It’s quite correct that it can’t be done, EXCEPT ……..I had to convert approx. 5,000 stock items to non-stock items (it had been set up incorrectly by an IT company). The only way to do it was to export the item list with certain additional fields into Excel. Within Excel, I removed all items other than the stock ones and re-designated the stock items as inactive, I then copied the entire list to the end of the list (making it about 10,000 items). I re-designated the new items as “active” and “non-stock”. Using an Excel formula, I changed the item codes to have a “#” as a prefix (e.g. item No. 1234 became #1234). I then populated those new # items with the minimum required fields (Name, Description, Price, Account, Is Inactive, Type) as required, tehn imported everything back to QuickBooks. The original 5,000 became inactive and the new 5,000 items became active non-stock items. I hope that helps.
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George said on December 31, 2014 at 8:27 am:

Is there a name limit in Quickbooks Online?
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- Shannon Tucker said on January 23, 2015 at 1:43 pm:
  
  Hi George,
  
  No hard limit. Thanks for asking.
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Rich S said on April 29, 2015 at 3:38 pm:

You mention you offer a supercondense service. I have a client that has it the silly 14,500 limit.

What is the cost for this service?
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- Shannon Tucker said on April 29, 2015 at 4:39 pm:
  
  Rich,
  
  The cost depends on some things. Please contact us through http://quickbooksusers.com/file-shrink.htm and I can get you a quote. Thanks for asking.
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Irtesam Haider said on September 19, 2015 at 12:30 am:

Hi,
We re using Enterprise Edition. I have a concern about company file size. It is growing rapidly. e.g. in 6 months it is grown up to 1.75GB from 1.5 GB (we are using it since 2011). What do you suggest me about this? I tried to shrink the file size but on super condense option it asks me to delete the transactions which my company policy will never allow.

Best Regards
Irtesam Haider
Head of IT
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- Shannon Tucker said on September 22, 2015 at 9:27 am:
  
  Hello Irtesam,
  
  A file growing 250MB in 6 months is not too surprising. If you have lots of transaction volume, or lots of inventory activity in your transactions, the file can grow pretty quickly. Unfortunately, deleting transactions, either through the built-in condense command or through our separate supercondense process, is the only way to reduce a file’s size.
  
  Thanks for your question.
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Trisha said on August 30, 2016 at 1:03 am:

Our company has reached the 14,500 customer limit. We want to condense our files, however we do not want to loose customer data for long time customers, only ones who’s accounts have been inactive for long periods. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you
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- Shannon Tucker said on August 30, 2016 at 10:09 am:
  
  Hi Trisha,
  
  I don’t think that is possible with the built-in Condense command. But when we supercondense a file, we can only remove customers that you have checked as ‘Inactive’, and leave the rest. That would put you in control of which customers would be protected from removal. Thanks for your question.
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Brian said on October 25, 2016 at 7:23 am:

Hello, if this was covered previously in this thread my apologies, but is it possible to archive old customers using Quickbooks’ function to do that, then create a new company file and dump them back-in? I would be interested-in help doing that if it’s a possibility. We just want to retain their old information in case we need to access what they purchased.

Thanks,
Brian
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- Shannon Tucker said on October 25, 2016 at 11:02 am:
  
  Brian,
  
  Assuming that you can get QB to do what you want with data removal, you’d want to simply to keep a copy of your original file on your system, and open it up whenever you need to run historical reports on old customers. Thanks for your question.
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Julie said on October 25, 2016 at 5:59 pm:

So to my surprise I’ve hit the 14500 limit today (during our busy time of year)! If I was to create a new company file and not import the old customers and data into that new file, I’m assuming I would have to manually enter in our inventory items. Basicly start from scratch.

Thank you.
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- Shannon Tucker said on October 26, 2016 at 11:16 am:
  
  Julie,
  
  Yes, that’s right. Or you could get some 3rd party tools to bring over partial info. rather than starting from scratch. Or you could get your file supercondensed, and the customer list reduced, and keep using your existing file. Thanks for your question.
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Tracy said on November 17, 2016 at 12:39 pm:

Shannon,

I’m using 2015 Accountant. I am trying to re-name the customers as you suggested. It’s not prompting me to merge the files. I’m assuming this is because your advice was in 2011. Do you know if this is still possible to do on the 2015 version?
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- Shannon Tucker said on November 17, 2016 at 3:54 pm:
  
  Tracy,
  
  It’s not trying to merge files, it should merging customers under one common name. Is that what you’re trying to do?
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Natalie said on November 26, 2016 at 8:09 pm:

Hello, I am using the item # as a Bill of Lading # from our log books, I’ve now reach my limit. Can I make the older #’s inactive and make room to add more?
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- Shannon Tucker said on November 28, 2016 at 11:46 am:
  
  Natalie,
  
  Inactive items still count towards the total, unfortunately. Thanks for the question.
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Ruth said on December 2, 2016 at 6:58 pm:

I’m using QBO Plus. I use it only for A/R. I have 1072 customers. Both active and inactive. I’ve been experiencing difficulty with system response. Slow or completely unresponsive. Called QB support today and they told me I have reached my limit on customers. Further that QBO is not designed for that large a volume of customers. I will have to go to a desktop version. They can help me with a conversion….I need to access this company from wherever I am, and have 2 other employees working in the program as well. Any comments or help would be appreciated.
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- Shannon Tucker said on December 5, 2016 at 10:13 am:
  
  Ruth,
  
  1072 customers isn’t that many. Even 10,720 wouldn’t be too many. I think there must be something else going on…
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Jess said on November 1, 2017 at 12:16 pm:

Hello,

If we decide to supercondense or merge files into an “unused” account, how does that work for running reports or finding the data? I am concerned by doing so that when we need to provide reports for a financial audit, we will not be able to search them. Thoughts?
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- Shannon Tucker said on November 1, 2017 at 2:55 pm:
  
  Hi Jess,
  
  I think that in either case, you’d want to set aside a copy of your original file before either merging customers or having your file supercondensed. So then whenever you need to run old reports for whatever reason, you’d be able to do so from the original file. Thanks for your question.
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  - Jess said on November 3, 2017 at 8:15 am:
    
    Thank you so much. That is very good to know.
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Ken R said on December 24, 2017 at 8:12 pm:

Shannon,

We use QB Desktop Pro 2017 for our Travel office. Our Heirarchical View list the Trips as the Customer, the Traveling Group as the Job and the Travelers are the Jobs under the Traveling Group Job. Our Items are the Trip’s Invoice line item for the Deposit and Installments. Each Trip has an Account for the Invoices and Checks to Vendors.

When I hit the 14,500 limit, like I did Friday, I save the Backup as an Archive and then start Deleting old Depostis, Payments, Invoices, Travelers, Groups and Trips. I’m deleting 2013 & 2014. I’m pretty fast with Alt-E, D, Enter, but it still takes a long time to Delete everything. I tried Condensing 5 years ago and Hated the results.

Is there a faster way to Delete all the Depostis, Payments, Invoices, Jobs and Customers older that a given Date?
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- Shannon Tucker said on December 26, 2017 at 12:30 pm:
  
  Hi Ken,
  
  I don’t know of a faster way for DIY. We can clean up customers/jobs/subjobs as part of a supercondense of your data, if you want to farm out the process. https://quickbooksusers.com/quickbooks-supercondense/
  
  Thanks for your question.
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  - Ken R said on December 26, 2017 at 5:22 pm:
    
    Shannon,
    
    Thanks for the quick Reply.
    
    After spending 3 evenings deleting the data with Alt-E, D, Enter, I found your post. I then checked the QB Condense, which was suppose to be improved, and I tried it. I entered for it to delete anything older than 1/1/2015. However, it did NOT delete any of my old 2014 data.
    
    An Online QB expert said I had to first change each Job’s Status to Closed, though Condense doesn’t mention this.
    
    Any idea why the QB Condense didn’t delete the old data?
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    - Shannon Tucker said on December 26, 2017 at 6:49 pm:
      
      Hi Ken,
      
      I don’t know why the built-in condense command does what it does. In my opinion it’s pretty buggy.
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Al B said on May 24, 2018 at 11:06 am:

Good information, even if from 7yrs ago. I am wondering about this: I have a client running up against the 14.50o limit. If they do a QB condense of say, all transactions before 1/1/15. Will that allow them to then delete old customers who, as an example, only had a single transaction before that date?
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- Shannon Tucker said on May 24, 2018 at 1:04 pm:
  
  Hi Al,
  
  If you mean the built-in Condense, you can check the box on the options to delete customers. I believe that it will delete customers then who have NO transactions before after that date. If some transactions are left behind for any customer before the cut off date, the customer will have to be left in the file, even if it is only one transaction.
  
  With our supercondense process, it’s pretty much the same criterion for customer removal ( although we can optionally restrict the removal process further by only looking at customers that have “Inactive” checked for them).
  
  Hope that helps. Thanks for your question.
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Al Bracco said on May 24, 2018 at 1:56 pm:

” I believe that it will delete customers then who have NO transactions before after that date.” Not clear – before or after?
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- Shannon Tucker said on May 24, 2018 at 2:52 pm:
  
  Sorry! Actually, it might be more clear to say this: After old transaction are removed, customers would then be deleted who have NO transactions left in the file. Make sense?
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Al Bracco said on May 24, 2018 at 3:49 pm:

yes, that’s what I thought you meant – thanks.
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tal said on October 17, 2018 at 2:05 pm:

Thank you so much for your help and for getting me up and running so quickly. I highly recommend Shannon’s service to supercondense!!

-Talitha with Antrim Air
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Werner Fleischer said on April 29, 2019 at 3:12 pm:

Just raise the 14 500 limit to 25 000 . Call it QuickBooks Plus. And charge for it.
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