Quickbooks for Mac however fits this mould quite well. The typical quickbooks software for PC is the exact same thing you can expect from a Mac. It allows an alternative for those who wish to do accounting on a Macintosh device.

Summary: If you’ve been working with QuickBooks long enough, you know that it’s a business accounting software developed by Intuit and has small and medium-sized organizations as its target audience. QuickBooks offers on-premises accounting as well as cloud-based accounting thus making business payments, managing and paying bills, and payroll functions easier. For professionals and small-time entrepreneurs, QuickBooks has rightfully become the go-to product when it comes to managing their business’ financial activities with ease. And what makes such solid performance possible? A solid database of course!

The Intuit database behind QuickBooks is quite competent in handling pressures and growing demands. However, like all other databases, it is prone to problems every now and then. In this guide, we’ve tried to compile everything there is to know about the topic – causes of the QuickBooks company file corruption, how you can know about it (symptoms), how to prevent it from happening, how to fix it through free as well as professional tools. If you’ve been waiting for a concise guide about repairing QuickBooks file, well, this is your lucky day!

How to identify corruption in QuickBooks Company file?

Experts say that the most crucial step towards solving a problem is accepting it. But that cannot be done if you don’t even know that there is a problem. After all, how can you be expected to resolve an issue that you don’t even know exists? QuickBooks file corruption can be little tricky to identify, but if you read and keep the following instances in mind, it can’t evade you for long:

• Errors like “A data problem prevents QuickBooks from continuing” in the Verify Data Utility or “Verify Target: Values in minor do not match major” on your screen or in the Qbwin.log file.
• The sudden shutdown of QuickBooks on trying to save or delete a transaction.
• Faulty reports like Balance Sheets where the total Assets don’t match the total Liabilities and Equity.
• Missing transactions and entries from Lists.
• Account names preceded by an asterisk (*) which were created by QuickBooks because the original accounts were missing.
• QuickBooks runs slow, operations take longer than normal.
• Paid bills and invoices show as unpaid.
• Transaction History shows a negative Balance Remaining.
• You open the Send Feedback Online > Bug Report window and you see HTML code in the window.

It’s not really that difficult to spot a problem in QuickBooks if you just observe its working closely. Data damage comes in many forms and symptoms but what is most important to note is, that anything that makes the data look strange could be a sign.

Reasons behind QuickBooks company data file corruption

Now that you know how you can find out if there’s corruption in your QuickBooks database, before attempting to fix it, the next logical step would be to investigate the reasons behind what causes QuickBooks data corruption? That might lend a helping hand in fixing the problem.

Most common reasons for data damage in QuickBooks include:

• The QuickBooks database file size expanding beyond its healthy limit or 200 MB (for QuickBooks Pro) or 450MB (for QuickBooks Enterprise).
• Lack of resources like RAM, Virtual Memory, network interface cards, routers, network cables etc.
• A sudden power surge or drop has the capability to trash your entire hard drive if you don’t have proper UPS.
• Improper shutdown of the system due to technical or other reasons could lead to a QuickBooks database corruption.
• Virus attacks to the hard drive on which the database is stored can also be the cause.
• Development of bad sectors on the hard drive where the database is stored.

Though the reasons can broadly be classified in the above categories, it is important to remember that all causes of QuickBooks database corruption cannot always be found.

Prevention of QuickBooks company file corruption

Rather than being a question about how to prevent it, it’s more a question of can you prevent it or not! The answer is, there is no way to be absolutely sure that it won’t happen at all. So at best, you can minimize the risk factors that contribute to its happening and protect your data by safeguarding it better. For this:

• The best bet against data corruption is to back it up and do it multiple times, at different physical locations. Better make it a regular routine to be sure you always have complete backups.
• Online backing up is also very effective. It eliminates the threats to physical backups.
• Keep tabs on the size of the QuickBooks database file and if it threatens to expand beyond its healthy limit, reduce its size using third-party tools.
• Try to avoid other reasons that cause corruption.

How to fix corruption in QuickBooks?

There are actually quite a few ways to do it.

Manual method: Verify & Rebuild Data

• Open the data file and log-in as administrator.
• Select the Single User Mode and then initiate data verification by clicking on File -> Utilities -> Verify Data.

Note: This step could take time depending on the size of the file. If this process takes too long or does not complete, you should do a complete rebuild as follows:

• Make a local copy of the data file form the server.
• Enable temporary hosting on the machine where it is copied (if required) and open the file and log-in as administrator.
• Click on File-> Utilities -> Rebuild Data.

Figure: Rebuild Data Option

Note: Complete rebuild takes even more time that Verifies process to complete. Plus, until it finishes, take care not to interrupt this process at any cost. If needed, stop using the machine on which it is happening till it completes.

Free Tools

Though the manual method is the simplest to do, it often takes a lot of time to complete. A better approach could be to use a free tool to repair QuickBooks company

data file. Here are some popular qbw file repair tools for this task:

1. Reboot.bat

Re-registers the various QuickBooks related components with Microsoft Windows.

2. QuickBooks Install Diagnostic Tool

Diagnoses and repairs a number of problems, with the main focus being on the Microsoft .NET Framework.

3. QuickBooks Component Repair Tool

It fixes problems that prevent QuickBooks from running.

Quickbooks Print And Pdf Repair Tool For Mac

4. QuickBooks File Doctor

It fixes certain kinds of file and data corruption, Windows setup problems, and network setup problems. Detailed information about this tool is available here.

Third-party tool

Even free tools can’t fix all problems; hence, the last recommended way to fix QuickBooks company data file corruption would be to use reliable and efficient third-party software Stellar Repair for QuickBooks Software. This competent software repairs corrupt QuickBooks data (QBW) file and recover every bit of information stored in it. You can easily activate this software by following easy steps described in this KB article.

How to repair corrupt QuickBooks® company file using Stellar Repair for QuickBooks Software:

Repairing your corrupt QuickBooks® company file using this software is very easy. Follow these steps exactly in the order as described:

• Download, Install and Launch the software on your machine.

Quickbooks And Mac

• Select the corrupt company file and click on the ‘Scan File’ button to start scanning.
• The software will scan the selected file and list all the details under company customer, employee, and vendor sections.

• You can see the review of any employee by clicking on it. Repeat this for other details.
• Finally; save the repaired file to use.

Wrapping it up

Once the rebuild is complete, save a copy of the repaired qbw file on the local machine as well as on the server, refrain from hosting the file on the local machine and give the new file a name different from that given to the previous one.

Hope this guide would have helped you in understanding QuickBooks corruption better. One or the other pointers here will surely help you to overcome the issue your QuickBooks installation is facing and get you back on track soon.

You may also be interested to read: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/QuickBooks-File-Repair-6f48dc52

Quickbooks For Mac Reviews

I've been using this tool a lot, and it has been life saving, so thought I'd share. It lets you do work in a spreadsheet, then import to QuickBooks as a WebConnect file. Very useful on Mac where you don't have the accountant version. I had a few years of old records I wanted to import, and this made it quick and relatively painless. I now even use this vs direct connect, as it ensures I add good memos to every transaction. I am not associated with the product and I paid for my copy. Hope it helps: https://www.propersoft.net/csv2qbo/