5 Tips for Protecting Your QuickBooks Company File: Interview with Shannon Tucker
Posted by Allison Semancik on Thu, Nov 19, 2009
Shannon Tucker is the co-founder of AccountingUsers, Inc., an accounting software support company specializing in solving database problems for QuickBooks, Peachtree and BPI. In Shannon's words, "We're kind of like an emergency room for injured accounting files."
On Shannon's website, QuickbooksUsers.com, not only can you learn more about the services they offer, but you will find an amazing forum for QuickBooks users. Over 40,000 members help each other out with questions on QuickBooks - and it's free to join.
Since Shannon is a QuickBooks data file expert, we figured he is the perfect person to give advice on how to protect your QuickBooks company file.
5 Tips for Protecting Your QuickBooks Company File
- Bolster Your Network
Imagine this: You are using QuickBooks in multi-user mode and the network...hiccups. The data stream being written to your QuickBooks file gets changed in the midst of that and becomes corrupted. In talking with lots of users, this scenario keeps coming up.
Anything you can do to strengthen the reliability of your network will help QuickBooks. We believe wired networks have fewer connectivity problems than wireless ones. Defrag your server hard drive often. Get your IT person to optimize the throughput on your network and make sure that all your QuickBooks workstations can communicate reliably with the server all the time -- even during power interruptions.
- Be Careful With Your Imports
If you import bank transactions or other kinds of external transactions into QuickBooks and something goes wrong, it's really hard to correct. Make sure you have a good backup before doing imports. If you start importing from a new source, verify your company and check your reports afterwards and make sure everything is flowing through as it should.
- Don't Get Too Far Behind
I don't think that you have to get the new version of QuickBooks every year. But you shouldn't allow too many years to go by before you update to current. Your QuickBooks version works best with versions of Windows that were popular when your QuickBooks version was released. So if you get a new computer with a newer version of Windows on it - along with new device drivers and new ancillary programs -- but use an old version of QuickBooks, well, QuickBooks may struggle.
- Keep an Eye on Your File Size
When your QuickBooks company file (QBW) gets really big, it has a better chance of becoming unstable during use, particularly in multi-user mode. There are no hard limits to file sizes with QuickBooks 2006/Enterprise 6 and higher, but the bigger the file, the more likely there will be either performance or stability problems.
In QuickBooks, you can press the F2 key to see how big your data file is. If your file is big (500MB or larger), you can either use something like our Super-Condense Service to bring your file size down, or create a new company and bring some of your information over from your old company.
Third-party import/export products for QuickBooks can make that process easier and more complete. Just running the archive command in QuickBooks doesn't shrink the file down as much as people sometimes expect, especially if you have lots of inventory transactions.
- Backup, Backup, Backup!
There is much to say about a successful backup plan, but here is one 
important tip: Get your backups off your hard drive. Why? Well, if your hard drive crashes or gets stolen or flooded or burned up, your backup on it won't do you any good. Put your backups, at least occasionally, on a USB drive, or upload it to an online service, or burn it to an old-fashioned CD and take it home with you. I guarantee you, someday you'll need it.
Besides your website, what other resources do you recommend for QuickBooks users?
Intuit has a great online community that they revamped a few years ago, and it is now a very good support and information resource. Also, there are quite a few Intuit employees on Twitter these days, and they are very nice people. So if you need some help directly from Intuit (for a registration problem, say) and don't know where to turn, tweet for help! Finally, there are many QuickBooks Pro Advisors out there who can help you keep QuickBooks on track. If your CPA, bookkeeper, or VA happens to be one, that's perfect.
photo: misskaren