Repairing QuickBooks Desktop Memorized Transactions

by

General Ledger

I have written about various forms of corruption involving memorized transactions on several occasions, both within Insightful Accountant and other publications and forums. The most common forms of such corruptions involve "orphaned" memorized transactions.

Others involve a corruption within the data itself, or even in the "template" associated with the transaction.

Generally, I advise QuickBooks users with "orphaned transactions" to simply ignore those messages in the QBWin.log (as shown below) or in the new (QB 2016/2017) Verify/Rebuild reports (as shown above).

The reason I counsel to "ignore them" is that it is a lot of work, as you will see, to deal with these issues. But if there is corruption within the actual memorized transaction data, you typically need to repair it.

In many of these cases, the "manual" steps outlined below have worked. But in some cases, they have not, and professional repairs were appropriate.

Unless you're eligible for, and rely upon, Intuit Data Services for free file data repairs (who frequently ignore "orphaned transactions as well), professional repairs from a qualified data repair specialist are expensive.

If you can repair a file manually, it's typically worth the savings, unless you have so many transactions of this type that it isn’t worth your time. I frequently tell other ProAdvisors that if you have 1,000 of these needing to be fixed, hire a college intern to do the work. (Well, you could probably get a professional file service to fix them for less than half of what an intern would cost for that many errors.)

By the way, but just as important, the steps below "do not work" for issues caused by a corrupted template associated with a memorized transaction. That's a topic we'll just have to leave for another article.

Step-by-Step

  1. With QuickBooks closed, double-click the time display in the Windows task bar and reset your computer's system date back one year (i.e., change Jan. 5, 2017, to Jan. 5, 2016)
  2. Start QuickBooks
  3. Login to the Company file as the Admin User
  4. From the menu bar, select File
  5. Select the option to Switch to Single-user Mode
  6. From the menu bar, select File
  7. Choose Backup Company file, select Local Backup
  8. When the Create Backup window opens, select the option for "no verification," hit OK
  9. Returning to the Create Backup window, select Finish1
  10. When the Backup is finished, select Edit from the menu bar, then Preferences
  11. When the Preferences window opens, select General from the left hand list
  12. Select the Company Preferences tab
  13. Uncheck the checkbox next to Save transactions before printing, click OK
  14. QuickBooks will display a dialog box asking you to confirm this change, click Yes, then OK again
  15. Select Lists from the menu bar
  16. Choose the Memorized Transaction List
  17. When the Memorized Transaction List opens, click View on the menu bar
  18. Choose Resort List, then YES in response to the confirmation question
  19. Close the Memorized Transaction List, then Reopen it again
  20. Repeat steps 17 and 18 above
  21. Now review the list to see which transactions contain a check mark in the Auto column; Double-click one of them
  22. When the transaction opens, Print it. (Note: QuickBooks will not prompt you to save the transaction prior to printing)
  23. After printing the transaction, close the transaction without saving it
  24. Repeat steps 21, 22 and 23 (above) for each transaction that has an automatic setting
  25. Within the Memorized Transaction List, click the name of an affected transaction
  26. Click the Memorized Transaction button at the bottom of the list
  27. Select Delete Memorized Transaction
  28. Repeat steps 25, 26 and 27 (above) for each transaction that has an automatic setting
  29. Exit QuickBooks
  30. Reset the system date and time settings on your computer to the current information
  31. Start QuickBooks
  32. Login to the Company file as the Admin User
  33. From the menu bar, select File
  34. Select the option to Switch to Single-user Mode
  35. From the menu bar, select File
  36. Choose Back-up Company file, then select Local Back-up
  37. When the Create Backup window opens, select the option for "no verification"2, then OK
  38. Returning to the Create Backup window, select Finish
  39. When the Backup is finished, select Edit from the menu bar, then Preferences
  40. When the Preferences window opens, select General from the left-hand list
  41. Select the Company Preferences tab
  42. Recheck the checkbox next to Save transactions before printing, click OK
  43. QuickBooks will display a dialog box asking you to confirm this change, click Yes, then OK again
  44. Reenter one of the deleted memorized transactions using the printed copy as your reference, then Memorize
  45. Repeat step 44 for each deleted memorized transaction that had an automatic setting

Notes:

1- Make certain to safeguard the backup files you create during these steps, remember they will be dated one-year prior to the actual date upon which they're performed, because they're being made after the system clock was rolled back.

2- Make certain to reset your local backup options to "full verification" prior to your next manual or scheduled backup.

DISCLAIMER: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an all inclusive guide to repair of QuickBooks (desktop) data files, including files with corrupted memorized transactions. Insightful Accountant accepts no responsibility or liability for any work performed based upon the material outlined in this article. Remember, always back-up your QuickBooks Company file before manually repairing any data. Always verify your data after repairing (or otherwise altering) your file, and restore the pre-repair back-up in the event you experience unexpected results or data irregularities.