Maintenance Release Update
Earlier today Intuit issued the Release 5 maintenance update for the QuickBooks 2014 and Enterprise 14. This release includes several changes and improvements as well as a number of fixes for ‘bugs’ associated with earlier releases. Let’s look at some of the major release changes (this is not a comprehensive list):
Accounts Payable – Some versions has been displaying an error message “Unable to add item to list’ when editing the cost of an item on an open bill if QuickBooks was in multi-user mode. This error has been resolved.
Accounts Receivable – QuickBooks had been doubling the amount of credits available when credits were unapplied to an AR transaction and then reapplied. R5 resolves this error. Additionally there had been an issue with QuickBooks not displaying payment methods from Visa or MasterCard if the payment method had been entered in all capital letters, this problem has also been resolved.
Administrator Issues – QuickBooks will no longer display an Unrecoverable Error and crash while changing the Administrator’s password.
Advanced Inventory Option (Enterprise Only) – R5 reportedly corrects an issue associated with the inability to turn back on ‘lot number tracking’ when it had previously been used and then turned off. The Minimum/Maximum stock status should now be reported as blank, rather than zero, when no Min/Max has been entered for a site, when reviewing the Inventory Stock Status by Site Report.
Advanced Pricing Subscription Option (Enterprise Only) – A new report, Customer Price List has been added. Prices should now round correctly on the Item Prices by Price Rule report when rounding is set to use the same rounding across all price rules. Users can now search for items within the price overrides window.
Application Performance Issues – QuickBooks will no longer display COM errors and crash while a user performs random or multiple tasks. This error was becoming widely reported, and has evidently been resolved with the R5 update. When the QuickBooks DB Cache had been set to unlimited, it was reverting to 512MB upon rebooting the computer; R5 reportedly resolves this issue and leaves the DB Cache settings unchanged from their configuration.
Backup Alert (QuickBooks Maintenance Alerts) – QuickBooks will now display a message in the Maintenance Alerts window advising that a backup should be made if a backup has not been made in more than 15 days.
Build Assemblies – R5 fixes some issues associated with text overlapping within the Build Assembly window. QuickBooks should no longer freeze when working within a Build Assembly transaction.
Condense Feature – An error in the condense feature had resulted in misstatement of some asset values; Intuit is reporting that R5 has corrected this issue.
Customer Center Crashing – Some users experience an Unrecoverable Error when opening the Customer Center. QuickBooks will no longer crash with an Unrecoverable Error when opening the Customer Center.
Email Functionality – Many users experienced issues with QuickBooks not being able to connect to an email server when trying to send a large number of emails, or send transactional forms via email. R5 has reportedly resolved this problem.
Enhanced Receiving (Enterprise Only) – Purchase Orders which have been manually closed should no longer appear as open when entering bills for a vendor.
File Issues – Some users had experienced an Unrecoverable Error when switching between company files or closing QuickBooks using the X button. This error, along with another in which QuickBooks would unexpectedly close if a user attempted to exit the program with a transaction open (rather than asking the user to save the transaction), has reportedly been resolved in the R5 update. A similar issue, in which QuickBooks would display an Unrecoverable Error when closing if the Make Journal Entry was open with some other window in the forefront, has also been resolved in R5.
Forms – The amount appearing in the cost column will no longer wrap to the next line when printing a Bill or Item receipt.
Help – The Help link in the Edit Item widow should now work properly if the Help dialog box is already open.
Inventory – QuickBooks should now update prices correctly according to the markup percentage while in multi-user mode. A number of issues regarding cost and price have been resolved with this release; for example, cost and price updates did not always occur when cost was changed even if the preferences were set to always update cost and price. QuickBooks will no longer change the price when the cost is changed in the edit item window. When the item markup preference has set to either ‘never update price’ or ‘always ask about cost changes’, the cost change window wasn’t being displayed when the cost was changed.
Reports – QuickBooks will no longer crash when opening the Committed Cost by Job report while using the Professional Services sample file, nor while using the Enterprise Solutions Accountant trial version.
User Permissions – Users with restricted permissions to only view items can no longer edit information regarding an item via the Inventory Center. Users with view only permissions will no longer be able to print a transaction history report.
So what do I think about R5?
I certainly have not had the opportunity to test all of these changes, and while my general feeling is to always avoid an ‘immediate’ upgrade to a major maintenance release for at least a week or two while ‘others’ find the bugs that may exist within the so-called ‘fixes’, there have been so many issues with the early releases of QuickBooks 2014/Enterprise 14 that many people have been waiting for R5 in hopes that it may resolve many of these errors. You can certainly see that most of this release is dedicated to resolving application issues, some of which were major and potentially creating other problems. If you have been hampered by any of the major bugs, such as the COM errors crashing QuickBooks, you should probably go ahead and consider upgrading to this R5 release right away; however, be certain to back-up and preserve a copy of your data in its’ current release in case you encounter problems and need to revert back. In addition it is critical that you insure that not only your QuickBooks workstations are updated, but the QuickBooks server prior to upgrading and using your file. Best of luck!