Recently, when talking with Pat Egen (our business owner) about our own QuickBooks company file, I mentioned that QuickBooks (Pro/Premier) has a limitation of 17,000 entries in its “lists” feature.* She was unaware of this limitation and wondered how close PEC was to this limit. For small companies that have been using QuickBooks for a long time, this limitation sometimes creates a problem when new items (inventory) are entered or a batch of new customers/venders are created.
So, I suggested that she hold down the computer’s Control key and then press #1 at the same time (F2 works too) to see how many list entries were in her QuickBooks lists. Below is a screenshot of the results. I have used a QuickBooks Sample file in this example.
Looking through this view, notice there is some really useful info! For example:
- The version of QuickBooks is installed. License number, # of users, date installed.
- The total file size, # of transactions and age of the file
- To review the accounts in use, with lists, look to the lower right. In this company file has 105. But, if you look at your own QuickBooks Company file, you will discover your company info will be quite different.
So, what value is this information?
Per the above discussion with Pat, you will know if you are reaching your limit or near limit of QuickBooks lists. If the total of accounts, names and items in the item list are near the limit, it might be time to consider creating a new company file. Better to be prepared rather than to reach the limit in the middle of transaction!
So, take a moment, open your QuickBooks Company file view (Pro, Premier or Enterprise) and see it can tell you what you need to know to improve the health of your QuickBooks Company file!
*Lists in QuickBooks are Customer lists, vender list, items list (inventory), Other Names list, and secondary lists like payment terms, payment methods, etc.