Normal Instructions

      QuickBooks can handle a maximum of 2 billion transactions. The maximum number of transactions is limited more by your computer's disk space and memory than by QuickBooks.

      Each list in QuickBooks has a maximum number of items it can contain, as shown in the following table:

List the Maximum number of items

Chart of accounts  - 10,000

Items, including inventory items  - 14,500
(Group items can contain only 20 individual items)

Job types  - 10,000

Vendor types  - 10,000

Customer types   - 10,000

Payroll items  - 10,000

Price Levels   - 100

Classes  - 10,000

A/R terms and A/P terms total  - 10,000

Payment methods  - 10,000

Shipping methods   - 10,000

Customer messages  - 10,000

Memorized reports   - 14,500

Memorized transactions  - 14,500

To-Do notes   - 10,000

Total names: employees, customers, vendors, and other words combined  - 14,500

Note: Some of the items mentioned in the chart above are not available in earlier versions of QuickBooks.

       You can see the total number of customers, items, and names in your company data file by pressing Ctrl+1 in QuickBooks to open the Product Information screen.

Practical limitations

      QuickBooks is typically designed for small businesses with 20 or fewer employees and annual revenue of fewer than two million dollars. The ideal use of QuickBooks is to keep at least two years of complex transactions in a company data file so that you can run comparative reports and have prior-year project information.

      The rate of growth of QuickBooks company data files varies significantly from company to company. Since businesses track different information, there is no "average" or "typical" data file size. How quickly a file grows depends on the number of transactions, the amount of information entered per transaction, and the number of "links" per transaction.

      For example, someone who enters 500 1-line invoices per month might find their data file smaller than another person who enters 100 5-line invoices per month. In comparison, someone who usually receives five separate payments per invoice would have a larger file than someone who receives only one payment per invoice.

Estimate QuickBooks

      To estimate if QuickBooks is right for your small business, take the average number of monthly transactions (remember, an invoice, payment, and deposit would be three separate transactions, and a bill and bill payment would count as two) and multiply by 2 KB to determine how much the data file will grow each month.

Example

      For example, if your company enters an average of 300 transactions per month, the data file would grow approximately 600 KB per month (300 x 2 KB = 600 KB) or 7200 KB per year (600 KB x 12 = 7200 KB). If the annual data file size is less than 15,000 KB, then QuickBooks should be more than sufficient for the company. (Present QuickBooks users can check the size of their QuickBooks file by pressing Command+1 on the keyboard.)

Note: The 2 KB multiplier does not include list information (which will grow as new names are added to the file) and is only an approximation that may not be a suitable estimate for all QuickBooks company data files.

Condensing Data

      If the performance of QuickBooks slows down, or you decide that you do not want to keep detailed transactions for prior years, you can condense a QuickBooks company data file. For QuickBooks 2007 - 2006 users, condensing the company data files is known as "Cleaning up data." For more information on cleaning up the company data file, refer to the article Cleaning up data. For QuickBooks 2005 users, condensing the company file is known as "archiving and condensing data." For more information on archiving and condensing the company file, refer to the article Archiving and condensing data.

Instructions for QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions

      QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions can handle a maximum of 2 billion transactions. The maximum number of transactions is limited more by your computer's disk space and memory than by QuickBooks.

      Each list in QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions has a maximum number of items it can contain, as shown in the following table:

List the Maximum number of items

Chart of accounts - 10,000

Items, including inventory items
(Group items can contain only 20 individual items.)   >100,000

Price levels - 100

Job types - 10,000

Vendor types - 10,000

Customer types - 10,000

Payroll items - 10,000

Classes - 10,000

A/R terms and A/P terms total - 29,000

Sales reps - 10,000

Sales tax codes - 10,000

States - 10,000

Payment methods - 10,000

Shipping methods - 10,000

Customer messages - 10,000

Memorized reports - 29,000

Memorized transactions - 29,000

To-Do notes - 10,000

Total names: employees, customers, vendors, and other words combined   >100,000