In the modern technology age of most people backing their files up to the cloud through one of the various available resources, QuickBooks Desktop Users often forget the importance of maintaining their file on a regular basis and protecting the overall health of the file.
Backing up your file locally can and should include a very important process called “verification”. From the Intuit website, verifying the data is defined as;
“The Verify Data utility detects many types of data damage. The utility looks at the data and then logs any errors it finds in a file named Qbwin.log. This log file is contiguous. Each time you verify, rebuild, condense, or update your data, any integrity issues found will be appended to the end of the file. It is common for the Qbwin.log to become very large.”
By going through this process, provided there are no issues with the file, QuickBooks will reset the TLG (log file) reducing it down to as small as 320 Kilobytes. If the verify completed with the message “QuickBooks detected no problems with your data” there are no impending problems with the file.
However, if you receive the message “Your data has lost integrity”, there is a strong probability QuickBooks will suggest that you “Rebuild the Data”. This process essentially is an attempt to repair any data damage the file may have experienced in the past.
Keep in mind, if you do not continually maintain the overall “health” of your QuickBooks file, you run the risk of the file becoming corrupted. Should that happen, you will incur the expense of paying a professional to help you rebuild the file or you will need to “roll back” to an earlier version possibly losing current work in the file.
One way you can track the health of your file is to monitor the TLG (log file) size for your QuickBooks file. If the log file becomes disproportionately large, you will want to initiate the verification process immediately. Some applications, such as Qbox, will alert you if the TLG is becoming too large and suggest you perform the aforementioned verification steps.
Maintaining the overall health of your QuickBooks desktop file will insure the smoothest operation in the future and help to minimize data transfer times for any third-party programs you are using.
I guess the old adage applies not only to our own physical health but also the health of our financial files; “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!”
Help to reduce the potential for corruption in the future by following these important steps for maintaining your QuickBooks files.
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on linkedin
LinkedIn