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Intuit: QuickBooks
Verify Utility - No Problems Found
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QBWin.log Error - Out of Balance Account
Several times I have written about information you can obtain from the QBWin.log when either the Verify Utility fails, or you use the Rebuild Data utility. I have also discussed using the QBWin.log in order to judge performance for certain tasks you performed based upon the log’s reporting of activities using the system clock.
In this article I want to briefly cover another aspect of using the QBWin.log file. Most ProAdvisors and QuickBooks ‘techy types’ only look at the QBWin.log when the Verify ‘fails’, or after the Rebuild Data completes. They go looking for information when the message at the end of verify says something like “A data problem prevents QuickBooks from continuing…”, or “Your data has lost integrity.” Chances are that they would never look at the QBWin.log file if they got the message, “QuickBooks detected no problems with your data.” In so doing you may give-up a valuable source of information regarding issues with your QuickBooks data that don’t rise to an ‘error level’ sufficient to generate either a fault or failure of the Verify Data utility.
For example; “how often would you recognize that the displayed value of an account shown in your Chart of Accounts window was actually different from the ‘computed’ value which QuickBooks would compile if you ran a Balance Sheet?” I would say that most people do not know that a balance sheet account is out of balance until they actually run a Balance Sheet report and find that the Assets DO NOT EQUAL the sum of the Liabilities & Equity. If you ran the Verify Utility you might very well find that it returns the ‘no problems’ message, and yet the QBWin.log file would indicate that you had an error in which the Calculated Balance of an account did not equal the List Balance for the same account. The log message would appear similar to the one shown in figure 2 of this article.
It appears that some QuickBooks ‘data issues’ don’t warrant a displayed error message at the end of the Verify Utility even if that means that your ‘financial data’ is wrong. The above noted example is an actual case reported to me just yesterday even though the Verify utility finished normally. Sure enough the Accrual Basis Balance Sheet was out of balance by $949.00, which represents the difference between the List Balance and the Calculated Balance shown in the QBWin.log excerpt.
Obviously if you relied on the Verify Data utility to give you a heads-up in this case, you would be out of luck, because it reported ‘no problems’. I make it a practice to always review the QBWin.log “EVERY TIME” I run Verify. If you don’t do the same already, my tip is that you Review the QBWin.log even after a Normal Verify.
By the way, running the QuickBooks Rebuild Data utility 'corrected' this out-of-balance account.
Murph