Useful tips for improving QuickBooks performance

Recently one of my friend who has been using QuickBooks for a while asked me “Is there a way to improve the performance of slow QuickBooks file?” No doubt QuickBooks is a complex program and overtime its performance decrease due to numerous reasons. You can definitely improve the performance of QuickBooks file by using below steps:

Improve performance of QuickBooks in multi user mode: When two or more user works on same company file in multi user mode, QuickBooks run slowly. To improve performance in multi user mode make sure to install QuickBooks or QuickBooks server on the same computer on which your company file is placed.


Reduce the size of .tlg file in QuickBooks: QuickBooks maintain a Transaction log file to record changes that are made in qbw file. Gradually the size of .tlg file increase and sometime it becomes bigger than a company files itself. So a manual backup is required to reduced the size of .tlg file.

Periodically run cleanup utilities: It is recommend by expert users that, for QuickBooks Pro and Premier, size of data file should be 100 MB. You can also use cleanup utilities to reduce the company file size. Following are the steps to clean up your qbw file:

1. Open your QuickBooks file.
2. Go to Files-> Utilities.
3. Now select Clean Up Company Data.

Disable automatic update option in QuickBooks: If this option is enable, QuickBooks checks for updates every time you start your computer. You can improve the performance of your QuickBooks file by turning off this option.

Avoid using Google Desktop: Google desktop consume significant memory resources and degrade performance of QuickBooks.

Check if firewall security is interfering with your QuickBooks file: Firewall setting can effect how QuickBooks access payroll and other updates online. So make sure your firewall application is configured properly.

Clear all open windows every time you exit QuickBooks by setting User Preferences: To do this follow below steps:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks account.
2. Go to Preferences-> User Desktop View
3. Select the “Don't save the desktop”.

Disable Reminders: If you have set some reminders in your QuickBook for memorized transactions then it also affect the performance, so it is recommended you to disable all those reminders. Following are the steps to disable reminders:

1. Open your QuickBooks file.
2. Go to Preferences-> Reminder.
3. Uncheck “Show Reminders”.