In this two part series, we will look at the enhanced condense utility feature within 2023 QuickBooks for Mac. The functionality that QuickBooks for Mac 2023 provides is almost identical to that found within QuickBooks Desktop Accountant or QuickBooks Enterprise in terms of the options available.
As of 2023, the QuickBooks for Mac Condense Utility gives users three primary options:
- Remove the audit trail info to date
- Remove all transactions (keep lists and preferences)
- Remove transactions dated —Prior to (a specific date) or between (specific dates)
Each function begins by selecting the Condense Data option from the Utilities menu under the File menu option of QuickBooks for Mac 2023 (seen below).
Graphic developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content.
Removing the audit trail info to date
This option can substantially reduce the size of your Company file without losing your transactional data. It keeps all your transactions, but removes the audit trail information to date (from the beginning of the audit trail until the date of the actual condense).
Graphic developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content.
The Audit Trail can be a significant contributor to Company File size. For example, the Audit Trail may represent 30% of the total file size in many files. Therefore, condensing the file by removing the Audit Trail may be a far better option than reducing the file by eliminating transactional or list data that may be needed regularly.
Removal of all transactions (keep lists and preferences)
This option removes individual transactions within your file and routinely replaces them with one or more general journal entries that summarize all of the transactional histories. But you have options for how the transactional removal is accomplished and how transactions should be summarized.
Graphic developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content.
While the "Create one summary journal entry" (shown below) is the recommended method and may give you balances identical to those you had to condense before, it certainly will not give you the kind of financial reporting you had before the process. It will be like all your prior business took place on the date it was condensed.
Graphic developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content.
But if you can arrange to perform this condense at the end of your fiscal or the calendar year and maintain your prior archived file available for look-back and reporting, this form of condense may work for you.
Another option is to "Create a summary journal entry for each month" of your file. This removes all of the transactions, but summarizes them every month in 12 monthly journal entries for each year of your business.
This option allows you to still produce reports that compare prior fiscal years, even previous months, which is a better option from a financial reporting standpoint.
From a technical standpoint, this option will directly be dependent upon how clean your data is in the first place.
The last option is "Don't create a summary" at all. This removes all transactional data from your file and only leaves your lists and preferences. It essentially is just like you had set up a brand new file the way you wanted your file to be, with all your customers, vendors, items and accounts ahead of time to start a business on day one.
You will be starting fresh with this type of file condense, but because QuickBooks for Mac keeps an archived backup of your company file as part of the condense process (shown below), regardless of the method you choose, you will have that backup to review your history.
Graphic developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content.
In part two of this series, we will look at the third option—"Remove transactions dated: Prior to (a specific date) or Between (specific dates)"—which essentially permits you to create a period copy of your QuickBooks for Mac data.
Footnotes and Disclosures:
Materials within this feature, including graphic illustrations, were developed from Intuit QuickBooks website content. All such source materials were adapted by Insightful Accountant solely for educational purposes.
Some materials within this feature, including some graphics, may have been developed from pre-release versions of QuickBooks for Mac 2023. Therefore, the final product version you may acquire may appear, act, or be functionally different from that illustrated or described herein.
As used herein, QuickBooks and QuickBooks for Mac (2023) refer to one or more registered trademarks of Intuit Inc.; a NASDAQ publicly traded "INTU" corporation headquartered in Mountain View, California (USA).
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