How To Create & Restore QuickBooks Portable Company File

If you want to create or restore a QuickBooks portable company file, this blog is for you. A QuickBooks portable company file is a condensed format that allows efficient transfer back and forth. It is the preferred format when we need to perform work in your books that we cannot do in an accountant’s copy. Read the complete article to know the steps of creating & restoring the QB portable company files. Go through the article and get your solution to this issue. For more info contact our QuickBooks ProAdvisor toll-free: +1-844-405-0904

Important:

  • You should update QuickBooks before following these steps.
  • Only administrators can do this because you should log in as the Admin to create and return a portable copy. If you give someone a portable copy, this person will gain access to all areas of QuickBooks. They will have the ability to add or modify your transactions. They can also change your Administrator password.
  • Instructions for creating or restoring portable files vary depending on the QuickBooks Desktop version you use.
  • If you are trying to resolve data problems, don’t overwrite the original file while restoring the portable copy. The best practice is to rename the original file before restoring the portable company file.
  • If you are sending your company file to your accountant, consider using accountant’s copy. Refer to Accountant’s copy in QuickBooks Desktop: Overview

Creating a Portable Company File

  1. Go to your QuickBooks and make sure to log in with admin credentials.
  2. Next, go to the File menu and click on Create Copy.
  3. Later, look for the Portable company file and then click on Next.
  4. Here you need to give a unique name to a portable company file. This will make it easy to tell apart from your regular company file.
  5. Now, choose the location to save your portable company file. Choose a folder you can easily find where you need to work with, like your Windows desktop.
  6. When all the steps completed, click on Save, and next click on OK.

Now, you are good to go with the portable company file so that you can send online your company file or also keep it in a USB. The format will look like [Unique company file name].qbm.

Note: This company file is password protected and if you share this file with anyone, they will require the password to open the company file.

Restoring a QuickBooks Portable Company File

  • 1. Go to the File menu and choose Open or Restore Company.
  • 2. Select Restore a portable file and click Next.
  • 3. Click the (company name) .qbm file saved to the location you chose and click ok to open.
  • 4. In the “Where do you Want to Restore the File” window, make sure to read the message, then click Next.
  • To the “Save Company As” screen, select the location where your QuickBooks company data file is stored. This generally defaults to the C:\Program Files/Intuit files\Intuit\QuickBooks, although your data file may be stored in a different location.
  • If you use Windows 7, the storage is most likely in a different location, try C:/users/public/documents/Intuit/QB/Company Files. Please make sure before you save it that you see them.QBW file you used most recently and click on it to correctly name the restored file. This will overwrite the old company file, which you want to do.
  • If you don’t get the message that asks you to type “yes” to delete permanently the old file, stop and call us before you do any work in the file, or else you may end up with 2 working copies and lose data.
  • After restoring the file, if it is not obvious that our changes are included in the restored file, contact us to get a check figure before you do work in the file so that you can be sure you are working in the correct file.

Open a portable company file

Here are the steps to open the portable company file

  • Go to your QuickBooks and make sure to log in with admin credentials.
  • Next, go to the File menu and click on Create Copy.
  • Later, look for the Portable company file and then click on Next.
  • Here you need to give a unique name to a portable company file. This will make it easy to tell apart from your regular company file.

Note: Make sure, not to give the same name of the regular file to your portable company file and regular company file. If in case, you give the same name then the portable file will overwrite the regular one. So avoid doing this.

  • Now you need to read the notes on the Where do you want to restore the file page, and then click on Next.
  • When you are ready to open your file, click on Save.

Whenever you try to open your portable company file, that time QuickBooks automatically re-indexes your data. This helps to fixes various data issues.

Solution: Unable to create or restore a portable company file

Copy the QuickBooks company file on the desktop

  • Open the folder where your file is saved.
  • Right, click the file and select Copy.
    • For creating a portable file, always copy a them.QBW file.
    • For restoring a portable file, always copy them.QBM file
  • Right-click anywhere on the desktop and select Paste.
  • On your keyboard press and hold the Ctrl key then double-click the QuickBooks icon to get the No Company Open window.
  • Try creating/ restoring a portable file.

Thanks for visiting us. Hope, the article would have help you. If you are looking for further support or finding a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, you should call our toll-free helpline number +1-844-405-0904

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