How To Solve Quickbooks Error H202
Do you experience an H202 error when attempting to open Quickbooks over a network or multi-user setup? This is a fairly common error that users report, and while having access to your account is frustrating, the problem is easily fixed by following a few simple steps.
Let’s first talk about what exactly triggers the H202 error. According to Intuit’s official website, this error appears when the Quickbooks software on one computer is unable to communicate with the Quickbooks software on another networked computer. So even if the server is set up to allow shared connections, there’s still something present that’s preventing the two computers from communicating to one another through Quickbooks.
File Doctor
Intuit’s File Doctor program makes fixing errors such as H202 as easy as a few clicks of the mouse. If you haven’t done so already, you should first attempt to fix your H202 error by downloading and running File Doctor.
Note: Intuit recommends downloading the latest version of File Doctor, because older versions may not effectively troubleshoot all problems.
Download the latest version of File Doctor from Intuit.com (click here). Once the download is complete (it’s a small file, so it shouldn’t take long), double-click to open and run qbfd.exe. This is the installer program that will place File Doctor on your computer. The program is set up to automatically run once the installation process if finished. Process by choosing your preferred settings for File Doctor, and when it asks you which type of problem to diagnose/fix, choose Network connectivity only.
Check Hosting
If Intuit’s File Doctor did not successfully solve your H202 error, your next course of action should be to check your hosting. Log in to Quickbooks through one of your workstations (not server or host) and access File > Utilities. The goal in performing this task is to ensure that your workstations are not set up to host multi-user access. If you notice the option Stop Hosting Multi-User Access on any of your connected workstations, select this option and confirm that you wish to stop hosting.
Create a New Folder For Quickbooks Company File
A third possible solution to error H202 is to create a new folder for your company file. Access the hosting computer, create a new folder, and set the Windows permissions to share it. You can then copy and paste your company file (extension .qbw) inside the folder.
How To Make Quickbooks File Smaller
From customer records to years of purchase invoices and transactions, the average Quickbooks file contains a lot of data. Failing to clean up your company file could result in it becoming too large to reasonably move back and forth between different storage devices. Thankfully, however, you can make your Quickbooks company file smaller by performing some routine maintenance on it.
Condense Your Data
Quickbooks has a built-in utility program for shrinking the company file size. To access this program, go to File > Utilities > Condense Data. This tool deletes unnecessary data, which in turn reduces the overall file size. Before using Quickbooks Condense Data tool, you should familiarize yourself with its functions.
One of the features of the Condense Data tool is the ability to delete transactions before a specific date. If your company is new, or if you’ve only been using Quickbooks for a short period of time, this option may not offer much help in terms of shrinking your file size down. If you have years worth of data in Quickbooks, though, this tool will certainly help in reducing your company file size.
The Condense Data tool also offers the option to delete all data within the Quickbooks account while preserving lists, preferences and service subscriptions. Enabling this option is a highly effective way to free up space in your company file while keeping vital information that may be used at a later time.
A third function of the Condense Data tool is to delete all transactions while simultaneously creating a “period copy” (note: this option is currently only offered with Quickbooks Accountant version). Basically, this option allows users to create condensed company files which only includes transactions within a specified time period. In doing so, users can easily shrink their company file size while only sending data that’s relevant to the client.
Note: Quickbooks automatically creates an archive copy of your company file before engaging the Condense Data tool. Should you ever need access to information that was deleted with this tool, you can access it in the archives.
Using the Condense Data tool is a highly effective way to reduce your company file size by getting rid of unnecessary data. With that said, it’s important for users to check and make sure they do not need any of the data mentioned above before using the tool. Quickbooks does produce an archive of the file before condensing, but it’s better to only use the tool if you no longer need the data.
5 Reasons Why You Should Choose Hosted Quickbooks
The Intuit Commercial Hosting Program allows authorized third-party vendors, such as MyVao, to install desktop versions of Quickbooks for clients to access and use. Rather than downloading and installing Quickbooks on their own computers, clients can install it on a server maintained by a participating vendor.
You might be wondering what (if any) advantages there are to using Hosted Quickbooks. Here, we’re going to discuss 5 reasons why you should choose Hosted Quickbooks over non-hosted.
#1) Access Quickbooks Anytime, Anywhere
One of the most notable benefits of Hosted Quickbooks is the ability for clients to access it anywhere, anytime. Normally, desktop versions of Quickbooks are limited to a single computer or device, and if the user isn’t around this device, he or she won’t be able to access it. Hosted Quickbooks, on the other hand, is installed on the cloud, allowing users to access it from any Internet-enabled computer or device.
#2) Extra Layer of Support
With Hosted Quickbooks, clients receive two layers of support: through Intuit and the third-party vendor. Should you ever find yourself in need of assistance, whether it’s setting up your account, performing maintenance, or any other task, you’ll have more options to choose from with Hosted Quickbooks.
#3) Automated Backups
Hosted Quickbooks perform automatic backups on a regular basis, protecting clients’ data from hardware and/or software failures. It’s disheartening for clients to see all of their hard work go down the drain due to a server crash. Thankfully, this isn’t a problem with Hosted Quickbooks, as client files are automatically backed up. Should the server ever fail, clients can rest assured knowing there’s a backup copy ready to be re-uploaded to the server.
#4) No Onsite Server Costs
Maintaining servers is neither cheap nor easy, but Hosted Quickbooks takes this burden off your shoulders by storing files on remote servers. This ultimately cuts down on server maintenance costs, time, and energy, allowing users to focus more on building and expanding their business rather than maintaining a server.
#5) Ease of Use
The sheer simplicity and ease of use associated with Hosted Quickbooks is an attractive feature that draws many users to choose it over non-hosted versions of Quickbooks. The only required program to access Hosted Quickbooks is secure virtual desktop connection — and an active Internet conenction, of course. Users can log in and access their desktop Quickbooks from any computer or device with an Internet-enabled virtual desktop connection.
How To Make an Account In Quickbooks Inactive
Still struggling to figure out how to make an account inactive in Quickbooks? While there’s no option with this label, there’s a simple work-around that allows you to deactivate accounts. And if you wish to reactivate them at a later time, you are free to do so — assuming you follow the steps outlined here.
Delete The Account To Make It Inactive
The only viable way to make an account in Quickbooks inactive is to delete it. Once deleted, it’s removed from the Chart of Accounts and financial statements so it no longer shows up when performing routine operations.
Don’t worry, your reporting will remain the same, as deleting an account does not alter transactions balances; it merely adds the “deleted” annotation next to the respective account. You can still find all transactions connected to the deleted account by running a report.
Steps To Deleting an Account:
- Launch Quickbooks.
- Access the Company tab > Chart of Accounts.
- Scroll through the list of accounts and click on the one you wish to delete (AKA make inactive).
- Click on the Delete button.
- A message will appear, prompting you to confirm the deletion of the respective account. Double-check to ensure it’s the correct account and click Yes to confirm its deletion.
- Congratulations, you’ve just deleted the account from Quickbooks!
Note: unfortunately, there’s currently no method for deleting multiple accounts at once. If you need to delete two or more accounts from Quickbooks, you’ll have to follow the steps mentioned above for each account.
How To Reactivate a Deleted Account
- Launch Quickbooks.
- Access the Company tab > Chart of Accounts.
- At the top-right corner of your screen, you should see a button titled Related Reports. Click this button and proceed to the next step.
- Under Help Topics, select Deleted Accounts.
- Close out of the Help Topics window.
- Scroll through the list of accounts and click on the one you wish to reactivate.
- Click on the box titled Deleted, essentially undeleting the respective account.
- When you are finished, click Save to finish the process and reactive the account.
Note: if you delete a balance sheet account, you won’t be able to edit or delete transactions associated with that account until it’s reactivated. This is why it’s important to know the proper steps to deleting and reactivating accounts. If you find yourself in this situation, refer back to this post for detailed step-by-step instructions.
Help! Quickbooks Won’t Open
Does Quickbooks cease to open when you attempt to double-click the file icon on your desktop computer? It’s frustrating when errors such as this appear, but it’s typically a quick fix that should only take a couple of minutes to rectify.
Restart Your Computer
Intuit recommends users first restart their computer to see if this resolves the problem. Various windows bugs and errors may trigger compatibility problems with Quickbooks; thus, preventing it from opening when you double-click the icon. A simple restart, however, can often fix this problem, allowing you to once again open and use your Quickbooks program.
Use The Shortcut Command
If restarting your computer did not fix the problem, you should attempt to open Quickbooks via the shortcut commands. Click on the Start button at the bottom-left corner of your Windows screen and select All Programs > Quickbooks. Next, right-click on the Quickbooks icon, hold down the Ctrl button, and click Open. This will attempt to run Quickbooks through the shortcut rather than primary path, which hopefully bypasses the error.
Access Quickbooks as Windows Administrator
It’s not uncommon for Windows users to have restrictions placed on the types of files and programs they can access. If you are unable to open Quickbooks, try logging into Windows as the administrator and then running the program. This is done simply by restarting Windows and entering the name and password of the administrator. Admins are given full, unrestricted access, which should allow you to run Quickbooks if there’s no other error or bug to blame.
Register Your Quickbooks, Again
Granted, users are required to register Quickbooks during the initial setup, re-registering your account could solve this issue. If you haven’t done so already, register your Quickbooks again by closing all open programs and running reboot.bat. When the operation is complete, open Quickbooks like you normally would. This will sync your account information with Intuit’s servers and hopefully fix this problem.
Kill QBW32.EXE Process
Open your Windows task manager via the taskbar or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete and scan for the process QBW32.EXE. If you find this process running, kill it by selecting the option End Process. When you are finished, close out of the task manager and reattempt to run Quickbooks.
Reinstall Quickbooks
As a last ditch measure, you can attempt to fix this problem by reinstalling Quickbooks. Rather than placing it in the same destination as before, try installing it in a new folder.
How (And When) To Use Quickbooks File Doctor
File Doctor is a program developed and released by Intuit that’s designed to fix common Quickbooks errors. If you’re experiencing the dreaded “Error 6000” message when attempting to run Quickbooks, for instance, you can use this tool to resolve it. Of course, this is just one of the many errors which are easily fixed with File Doctor. For more information on how, and when, to use Quickbooks File Doctor, keep reading.
Note: Intuit recommends using the Quickbooks Component Repair Tool before resorting to the File Doctor if Quickbooks is not installing or loading properly. Doing so will troubleshoot Windows-related programs, ensuring the error is in fact caused by Quickbooks and not your operating system.
Common Errors Fixed By File Doctors
Intuit’s File Doctor program is sort of a “catch all” repair tool. It can be used to fix everything from error 6000 and other error XXXX messages to solving bugs that prevent company files from being opened. If you’re having difficulty opening your company file, run the File Doctor tool to see it fixes the problem. It only takes a couple of minutes to run the tool, but doing so could prevent you from having to perform a complete reinstallation of your Quickbooks files.
Note: Quickbooks 2014 R5 and up have File Doctor built in; therefore, there’s no need to download the program if you are running this version Quickbooks or newer. Refer to the Intuit help page for more details about setting up and using the built-in Quickbooks File Doctor tool.
Downloading and Using File Doctor
If you are running a version of Quickbooks that’s older than 2014 R5, you’ll need to download File Doctor remotely from this location. When the download is complete (download times vary depending on your Internet Service Provider (ISP) speed and Intuit’s server-side speed), click on the .exe file to begin the installation. File Doctor should open immediately after the installation is complete. If it does not automatically open, double click on the green File Doctor icon to manually run the repair tool.
Upon launching File Doctor, you’ll be prompted to choose one of the following options:
- Repair Both file damage and network connectivity.
- Repair network connectivity only.
If you’re only experiencing a network error, such as failure to open a company file in multi-user mode, choose repair network connectivity only. If your Quickbooks problem is not related to the network, however, you should choose the first option.
Continue through with the File Doctor process as it performs the repair. If all goes well, it should resolve any bugs you were previously experiencing.
How To Perform a Manual and Automatic Update
Keeping Quickbooks up to date is important for a number of different reasons. It ensures a smooth and efficient operation; it protects against unauthorized access; it fixes security vulnerabilities; and it introduces new features into the software. Failing to update your Quickbooks to the latest version will ultimately come back to bite you in the foot. Here, we’re going to reveal the step-by-step method for performing manual and automatic updates.
How To Perform an Automatic Update
Note: automatic updates are only available for full-version Quickbooks, not trial copies. If you have a trial copy or any other non-full version, you’ll need to perform a manual update. Intuit only allows automatic updates for users who own a full version Quickbooks product, such as Quickbooks Pro.
- Log into your Quickbooks account and choose the Help menu > Update Quickbooks.
- Click Overview from the top of the menu followed by Update Now.
- In the Update Now window, scroll through the available options and choose the updates you wish to download and install.
- After selecting the desired updates, click the Get Updates button to begin downloading.
- Wait until the Update Complete message appears, at which point you can click Close to finish the process and exit the update menu.
- Select File > Exit and restart Quickbooks.
- When Quickbooks prompts you to install the new update(s), select yes and wait for the files to install.
How To Perform a Manual Update
Note: Intuit advises against manually updating company files across a network connection. A more secure means of performing a manual update is to copy the file to a local installation where you can safely update it and then move it back to the networked installation.
- Download the update file from the official Intuit website.
- Immediately launch Quickbooks once the download is complete.
- Ask all other users (if applicable) to exit out of Quickbooks.
- On the server computer, right click on the icon QB Database Server Manager and choose Exit QuickBooks Database Server Manager.
- Double click the update file located on the server computer and click Install.
- Wait for the installation to complete and you’re finished!
Try to get into the habit of updating your Quickbooks files on a regular basis. Intuit typically rolls out new updates starting with a small percentage of users. If the new version appears to be working without any problems, they increase the number of users who receive it. Of course, you can bypass this waiting list by following the steps mentioned above.
Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise vs Self-Hosted
Intuit offers both a “self-hosted” and “hosted” option version of Quickbooks Enterprise. The self-hosted option, as its name suggests, allows certified personal accountants, small business owners and other like-minded professionals to manage their own hosting; thus, providing a greater level of freedom over features and settings. However, hosted Quickbooks Enterprise is more hands-off, with the respective hosting company handling all of the maintenance and security updates.
Servers
Server costs are included in the price of Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise. In self-hosted Quickbooks Enterprise, server costs are not included. Server costs vary depending on the size and specifications, but opting for Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise is a smart move that will ultimately save you money in the long run.
Security and Maintenance
As previously stated, all security and maintenance updates are performed by the respective hosting company in Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise. If a new security vulnerability is identified, the company’s IT team will take action to rectify it immediately.
On the other hand, self-hosted Quickbooks Enterprise requires the user to perform their own security and maintenance updates, leaving the server and all of its Quickbooks files vulnerable in the time being.
Backups
Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise automatically performs backups of software and tape library to prevent the loss of data. By default, Hosted Quickbooks performs a full backup every night, although this frequency can be adjusted depending on the user’s specifications.
Backups are available through self-hosted Quickboks, but the user must manually perform the operation or set up the server to perform them automatically. Backups are a fundamental component of Quickbooks and should be ran routinely to reduce the risk of data failure.
Network Licenses
Another area where Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise shines above its self-hosted counterpart is network licenses. All network licenses — Terminal Server and Windows Client Access — are included in the hosted version. In self-hosted, the user must pay extra for these licenses.
Setup
Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise is more of a hands-free approach to managing a Quickbooks environment. The hosting company performs all of the required setup operations to get the user’s Quickbooks up and running. In Self-Hosted Quickbooks, the user must set up his or her own account.
As you can see, Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise will save you time, money and labor. It may cost slightly more upfront, but you’ll end up saving money in the long run by opting for Hosted Quickbooks Enterprise.
Why Won’t Quickbooks Export To Excel
Quickbooks reports can be saved and exported in Microsoft Excel .xlm format. If you wish to modify the report on your desktop computer using Microsoft Excel, for instance, you should export the file in this respective format. Doing so will allow you to open the file directly from Excel without performing any special conversions.
But some Quickbooks users may notice the Excel option grayed out when attempting to export a report (error 14900 31866). When the option is gray, you won’t be able to select it; thus, you’ll be forced to save the report in standard Quickbooks format. So, what causes this compatibility problem in Quickbooks?
Unsupported Version of Microsoft Excel
In order for the export to Excel option to appear in Quickbooks, the user must have a supported version of Microsoft Excel installed on his or her computer.
Microsoft Office Trial, Starter Edition, and Click To Run Office are not supported with Intuit Quickbooks and will result in the “export to Excel” option being grayed out on the report screen. Only full versions are supported, so check to make sure your Excel is valid and compatible with Quickbooks before attempting to export a report in .xlm format.
Microsoft Excel Installation Is Damaged
Another possible reason why Quickbook won’t export a report to Microsoft Excel is because the Excel Installation is damaged and/or corrupt. Depending on the version, you may be able to repair the installation directly from Windows. Right click on the Excel icon and choose “troubleshoot compatibility.” Wait for the system to scan the program to see if it detects any issues. If any problems are detected, proceed with the fix.
If the “troubleshoot compatibility” tool did not fix the problem, you can attempt to uninstall and reinstall Microsoft Office. This should fix any compatibility problems triggered by a damaged or corrupt installation.
Note: make sure you have access to both your Microsoft Office installation discs and key codes when performing a reinstallation.
Intuit Quickbooks Installation Is Damaged
Of course, a damaged and/or corrupt installation of Intuit Quickbooks may also prohibit reports from being exported to Microsoft Excel format. The only viable fix in this scenario is to reinstall Quickbooks. From the add/remove programs tool in Windows, uninstall Quickbooks, restart your computer, and reinstall a fresh copy.
In the event that you still can not export Quickbooks reports to Microsoft Excel after exhausting all of the options mentioned above, consult with an IT professional for assistance.