File Size and Data Limitations in QuickBooks Online?

Posted January 31, 2019

I recently came across these nuggets of information relating to file size and data limitations in QuickBooks Online (QBO) and wanted to share them with you…

THE INTUIT STORY ABOUT QBO FILE SIZE AND DATA LIMITS

Let’s start with this Intuit support article that discusses:

File size and feature limits of QBO?
What are the technical limitations of QBO?
Character limits of fields in QBO?
What are the size limits when exporting a QBO report to Excel?
What should I do if QBO is running slowly?

A FOCUS ON FILE SIZE AND FEATURE LIMITS

As you’ll see in the support article, Intuit is stating “there is no file size limit in QBO” , “you don’t have to worry about entering too many customers, accounts or items”, and “there are no transaction limits”

Ok, got it.

THEN WHY THIS?

I’m hoping someone can help me reconcile this QBO issue recently encountered by a colleague with the information provided by Intuit above:

“Date range is too long when running calendar year GL (general ledger)”

Here is the reply from one of the “Intuit Support Specialists”

“This happens if the report holds too much transactions, CZ.

As a workaround, you can run the report quarterly.

Here’s how:

Open the General Ledger report.
Click the Report period drop-down arrow, then choose Custom.
Change the dates manually.
Click Run report.”

QBO can’t run the full report because there is too much data?

SEE A CONFLICT HERE?

On one hand, Intuit is saying “don’t worry, there are no limits in QBO”. Then they say “wait, there are limits within QBO”

In many cases, outside accountants and auditors want a full year of ledger information in one file.

So, if you have too many transactions (no idea what the actual maximum number is here), your accountants are out of luck.

What other similar situations may be lurking in QBO?

NOTE THE EXCEL LIMITATIONS CAREFULLY TOO

According to the support article, when it comes to exporting from QBO to Excel, here are the limits:

Max of 1024 columns displayed
Maximum 400k cells with data
Max 10MB worth of data

I am unsure if these limitations have been increased recently, but I have seen client files that have much less data than this encounter significant trouble and limitations when exporting to Excel. We ended up having to do the same thing as suggested above -run smaller reports and copy/paste the results.

ARE YOU EXPERIENCING THESE ISSUES WITH QBO?

Would love to hear some “on the ground” reports of issues or troubles you may be having with “too much data” types of concerns with your QBO. Please drop them into the comments box or send them over via my contact form and I’ll be sure to get them posted here for others to see as well.