More About Target-chaining Errors in QuickBooks Desktop

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In response to last week’s Thursday Techno Topic article someone sent me some questions about the ‘target-chaining’ errors I included within the article.  One of the questions asked was if this problem was “new to QuickBooks 2018?”

While target-chaining errors seem to be increasing in frequency as of late they certainly are not new to QuickBooks Desktop. In fact, target-chaining errors have been around a long time in QuickBooks Desktop. 

Below is an example of a target-chaining error in a QuickBooks 2009 (Desktop) product. While the QBWin.log formatting of this error is different than the way the data is presented in newer versions of QuickBooks, the error is essentially the same.

In the following example, which I have excerpted from last week’s article, the data file was running in a QuickBooks 2017 (Desktop) product.

Even though the two examples above are for entirely different (types) transactions, you can see that the same information is basically present in both depictions.  The noted exception is the presence of transactional target_ID numbers (which is an 'internal identifier only not seen in the QuickBooks displayed data) in the newer report.

But sometimes, the QBWin.log or Verify reports provide little identification of the corrupted transactions other than the target_ID target numbers.

This can be especially true if the corrupted transaction is so severe that it stops either the Verify or Rebuild routines with a fault and the remaining identification data is not written to the QBWin.log file.

In these cases, tracking down the offending transaction can be very difficult for ProAdvisors and almost impossible for typical users.

Because these types of errors started becoming more prevalent in 2016 I started research ways for users to deal with them either, on their own, or via professional file repair methods. In terms of self-repair there needed to be a way for ProAdvisors and other technical consultants who work with QuickBooks Desktop files to trace out the transactional references in the newer messages.

Since there is no real place a user can go to see the internal target_ID numbers identified in the error messages I discovered that they could be found using either ODBC reporting or the Custom Reporting tool for Enterprise.  This article summarizes the use of that tool to identify key components of target-chaining errors.  The illustration below shows how that tool is configured.

If you are not familiar with this tool, then you should research Intuit QuickBooks Enterprise website to find the user documentation on use of this tool.  Insightful Accountant has also published a couple of articles about using this tool for ‘reporting’ purposes, but they will both guide you through the initial configuration of the tool.

Now, let me get back to using this tool for target-chaining identification purposes. Unlike the 2009 example, it seems the most common form of target-chaining errors involve Vendor Bills and Vendor Bill Payments (either Vendor Bill checks or Vendor Bill credit-card transactions).  So, we are going to make the assumption that we will be dealing with a Vendor Bill.  In this case you would use the Custom Reporting tool to open the bill line detail table (as shown in the illustration below).

Within that table displayed in Excel you should find a target_ID column that will correspond to the target (pointer numbers) for each of the transaction components header and lines.

Once you find the targets that match, then you can scroll across and find a column that contains the ‘trans_num’, this number corresponds to an actual number you can locate in the QuickBooks GUI (graphic user interface).

Armed with the information related to the transaction you should proceed with creating a Transaction List by Date report from the Accountants section of reports with ‘All Dates’, and add the Trans # column to the report, then sort by the Trans # column.

Now you should be able to quickly find the transaction you are looking for. You maybe able to resolve the transaction in one of two ways:

  1. By ‘duplicating the transaction’ and changing everything in the way of dates (etc.) to match the original, and then deleting the original ‘corrupted’ transaction as a whole, or
  2. Deleting the individual lines within the details, saving the transaction, re-opening the transaction and re-entering the line data, then saving again.

Once you take either approach, then run Verify again (not Rebuild) to see if your ‘manual fix’ worked, if not then try whichever of the above (1 or 2) you didn’t try the first time.

This ‘manual repair’ approach works for a few pesky target-chaining transactions, but if you have hundreds (or thousands) then you are probably going to need a professional repair.

Intuit Data Services recently told a client of mine that ‘they’ could not repair Target-chaining errors, but each case maybe unique so you may still want to check with them prior to hiring a File Repair service. Some of the Professional File Repair services also report on their own websites that they are not able to repair this type of damage. 

While this article is NOT intended to be an advertisement, I will say that I have had some luck building repair routines for my own file diagnostic and repair application that will resolve some Target-chaining errors, but other variants of these errors go unresolved by my system.  Still the same, I am always happy to visit with a ProAdvisor about a specific case and potentially offer a ‘file analysis’ to see what might be possible.

With that said, even with a fix of these corruptions it doesn’t mean that the underlying cause is resolved and that more errors of the same type won’t rear their ugly heads again.

In the long run, it maybe that QuickBooks Desktop users with significant target-chaining problems may be better off considering a new file and using their current file (with the target-chaining error history) only for look-up purposes rather than day-to-day data entry.