QuickBooks Desktop 2020 Company File Search

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Intuit just released QuickBooks 2020 Desktop, and over the next few days and weeks, QuickBooks ProAdvisors (for Desktop), Enterprise Users, and QuickBooks Pro/Premier 'Plus' subscribers will be notified about the availability of the initial release of the software. Soon thereafter, QuickBooks Desktop 2020 versions will start appearing on retailers' shelves. 

Insightful Accountant has been privy to various pre-release versions of these products for months, and has had multiple communications with Intuit personnel, including product managers and developers, so we can help you learn about the new products. This article takes a closer look at one or more of the features released as part of the QuickBooks Desktop 2020 (and associated) product updates.

If case you haven't read my article summarizing the Desktop Products then the chart below, courtesy of Intuit, reflects which new features are available in which QuickBooks releases. Of course, I would encourage you to read 'My QuickBooks Desktop 2020 Summary article'.

Be certain to tune in for the September edition of QB Talks scheduled for 2 PM Eastern on September 18, 2019 to hear about QuickBooks 2020, there will be more information about that webinar outlined in a future article. You can register HERE.

Company File Search

While Intuit refers to this feature as ‘Company File Search’ I chose to call it ‘Find Company Files’ in my Summary of the new features. I took this name from the fact that the feature is centered around the addition of a new ‘Find a company file’ button on the No Company Open window. While you will see this new feature in all U.S. versions of QuickBooks Desktop 2020 including Pro, Premier, Plus, Accountant and Enterprise v20, it isn’t (yet) available in either the Canadian or U.K. products (maybe Intuit thinks they don’t lose their files as easily as we ‘Americans’.)

Believe it or not, Intuit found in their analysis of customer support data that many QuickBooks users report they can’t locate their Company File(s) after either installing or upgrading to a new version of QuickBooks or relocating QuickBooks to a different computer. I myself have experienced countless numbers of QuickBooks users in past years who contacted me through the ‘Find a ProAdvisor’ Initial Free Consultation program needing help with this exact thing, they simply couldn’t find their Company files.

In some cases, QuickBooks users were having difficulties identifying which files were the correct files to open due to multiple copies or backups. I once helped someone who had decided to put their Company file on their Windows Desktop, the trouble was they also put every one of their QuickBooks Backup files on their Desktop too, and they didn’t limit the number of Backup copies they were making. When their Desktop files got re-sorted, they couldn’t figure out which file was their actual Company file, because always before they launched QuickBooks by simply clicking on the Company file rather than opening QuickBooks first. Even when I remoted-in to their Computer they had so many Backup Copies on the Desktop (all with the same name) that even I had a hard time figuring out which was the real Company file. Ultimately, I moved all the Backup copies off the Desktop and taught them to always Open QuickBooks first, after moving the actual Company to the proper QuickBooks company file default directory.

But, getting back to this new Company File Search feature (as Intuit calls it) released as part of QuickBooks 2020 Desktop, it adds that Find a company file button to the No Company Open dialog box (as shown below) that should make it much easier for any user to find and open their Company files even if they don’t remember the file’s location or name.

When you click the new button QuickBooks quickly searches (and I do mean quickly, I have found this to be a lot quicker than 'Windows searches for *.qbw files) for all your company files across the different file sources of your computer (hard drive, attached storage, connected media, etc.) and lists all identified QuickBooks company files found (as shown below) with key information to help you identify the correct Company File(s) for your situation.

There are a couple of things of interest in this new feature... in the view above you can see that there is an optional checkbox just below the list of files that allows users to qualify their search to 'Only view files compatible with current QuickBooks version'. If a users has multiple versions of QuickBooks on their Computer and Company files associated with 'other versions' this option permits users to only display the Company files that are appropriate to the search version being used (at present that's QuickBooks Desktop 2020 or Enterprise v20).

Apparently this new Find a Company File window is dynamic because another variation of the messaging in this window is directly dependent upon files having been set-up with multiple users and therefore being single-user or multi-user, because like the 'Open a Company' window, this new Find a Company File window will display a checkbox to allow the user the option to 'Open file in multi-user mode' (as shown in the excerpt from the Find a Company File Window, below).

Users can choose to limit the search to specific media, and they can refresh the results of the search if they choose to limit their selection based on media or compatible QuickBooks versions only. Once the list of QuickBooks files has been displayed, users simply select their file from the list and click Open, then they are “Ready to Rock-n-Roll, QuickBooks style” so to speak.

What more can I say about Company File Search, I mean this should really streamline the search for Company files no matter what the set-up, or how many files a user has (and remember I found it to be super quick too). There's a lot more in QuickBooks 2020, that's why you should head over to my QuickBooks Desktop (for Windows) 2020 Summary here for a full review, and also check out my companion QuickBooks for Mac 2020 Summary which can be found here. I will also be continuing this series on the individual QuickBooks 2020 features so be sure to check back in our Insightful Accountant headlines every day for the next week or so.

Editor's Acknowledgements

By the way, my very special thanks go out to Laura Madeira who helped cross-check my work with her own to make certain that we were consistent in providing accurate information regarding this 2020 release. For the official Intuit version of “QuickBooks Desktop 2020 – What’s New and Improved” you will find Laura Madeira's article posted at this Firm of the Future blog website. 

I also want to thank the following Intuit personnel for their dedication not only in providing information, briefings and responding to questions, but in guiding the actual product developments within QuickBooks Desktop and this release: Chetana Arakanakere, Rachna Arya, Nipun Bhatia, Aditya Dixit, Varshitha Gokari, Sumit Poddar, Raman Verma. Of course there are entire teams, composed of hundreds of Intuit personnel, behind these people that make the magic happen and too often we forget to say, thank you, to them as well; so to all involved, "THANK YOU"!