Quickbook desktop 2021 only using 1 CPU core. Does the QB Desktop 2022 version uses multiple cores?

How did you notice this?  How can I check 2022?

Hello, DesktopPayroll2021.

I'd like to give some information on QuickBooks Desktop's core usage, and how you can fix those performance issues. 

QuickBooks Desktop is generally a single-threaded application, so the 2022 version uses a single core. 

Although, the slowdown can be attributed to a number of factors. 

There will be a significant performance impact if your company data gets too big. You can consider making a new company file and import the outstanding customer and vendor balances. Use the old company file as an archive. 

Another option is to use the Condense Data Utility tool. 

More details about improving QuickBooks Desktop's performance can be found here: Resolve QuickBooks Desktop performance issues: Manage your data file.

In terms of hardware, make sure your computer specs meet the recommended requirements to run QuickBooks Desktop.

It's also recommended to install and boot QuickBooks on a Solid State Drive to get a boost in performance (an NVMe SSD is preferred). 

If you'd like to verify your financial data in the future, you can use the preset reports in QuickBooks. Check this article to know more about what reports you can run: Understand reports.

Feel free to visit the Community space again if you have any other questions regarding QuickBooks Desktop. If you have other tasks such as pulling up reports or recording transactions, let me know by replying below. I'm here to help. 

Hi BigRedConsulting, 

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@BigRedConsulting wrote:

How did you notice this?  How can I check 2022?

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see attached screenshot for reference, and see instructions below.

This is how you can check the number of CPU cores currently used:

1) Open Windows Task manager > go to the Performance tab (make sure the graph display each single core, if not right-click on the graph > Change graph to > Logical Processors

2) Close all other apps and browers to reduce CPU utilization to minimum.

3) Start a long and high processing Quickbooks Desktop task: for example Employees > Payroll Setup (this gives you time to observe CPU utilization.)

4) Observe the CPU performance graph. As you can see from my screenshot, my multi-core CPU only show 1 core utilized. That's why, even with the most powerful computer setup, Quickbooks Desktop 2021 is always going to be slow. 

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@jamespaul wrote:

Hello, DesktopPayroll2021.

 

I'd like to give some information on QuickBooks Desktop's core usage, and how you can fix those performance issues. 

 

QuickBooks Desktop is generally a single-threaded application, so the 2022 version uses a single core. 

 

Although, the slowdown can be attributed to a number of factors. 

 

There will be a significant performance impact if your company data gets too big. You can consider making a new company file and import the outstanding customer and vendor balances. Use the old company file as an archive. 

 

Another option is to use the Condense Data Utility tool. 

 

More details about improving QuickBooks Desktop's performance can be found here: Resolve QuickBooks Desktop performance issues: Manage your data file.

 

In terms of hardware, make sure your computer specs meet the recommended requirements to run QuickBooks Desktop.

 

It's also recommended to install and boot QuickBooks on a Solid State Drive to get a boost in performance (an NVMe SSD is preferred). 

 

If you'd like to verify your financial data in the future, you can use the preset reports in QuickBooks. Check this article to know more about what reports you can run: Understand reports.

 

Feel free to visit the Community space again if you have any other questions regarding QuickBooks Desktop. If you have other tasks such as pulling up reports or recording transactions, let me know by replying below. I'm here to help. 

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Thanks for the reply. I am using a modern and very fast computer. Quickbooks Desktop 2021 is 32-bit and is designed to use only 1 core, and it won't use more than 4GB of RAM. This makes the program slow, no matter what computer specifications you have.

After many years of CPU development and multi-threading technology, Quickbooks still uses single core and 32-bit (limited to use 4GB of memory RAM). Instead of beign a multi-core 64-bit application.

W
When intuit limits the DB server in Enterprise to a single core and 1GB of memory, how can they say it is an Enterprise product with a straight face?  This has been an issue since the 1st release of QBE, and this is really just a bad joke.  So if you have 384GB of ram and 24 xeon cores on you QBE database server, it will perform no better than an 8 year old laptop with an SSD as the DB engine server.  Why after all of these years we can't have a DB backend on MS SQL or even MariaDB or MySQL is just beyond any logic.  We don't want to train our accounting dept on another platform but if this doesn't change soon we will bit the bullet and do just that.  It has become unbearably slow and I really don't care to hear Intuit tell me to compact the database.  Intuit needs to make this an actual enterprise level performance product rather than something akin to being pulled from a box of Cracker Jacks.  END OF VALID RANT.

I have Enterprise 2023, and there was an increase in speed moving to it.

We just updated our SSD's to Samsung 990 Pro's and I have them mirrored so that on my PCI 3.0 bus I'm getting (I believe) around 7,000 on reads and maybe 3,200 on writes.  It's up quite a bit from the 970 EVO's I had prior, and the writes at near double speed are interesting (PCI 3.0 tops out at 4,000 -- so it's using two channels to get the speeds up above 4,000).

We have a fairly large file at 4.5GB, and while it's not as snappy as some of our smaller files, it runs pretty good.  It's also somewhat amusing to see how fast it backs up the file -- much faster than before.  Maybe 2.5x faster.

I have a Dell T340 server, and it doesn't boot off of the NVME's unless you use their BOSS card and speciality SSD's, so i boot off of SATA SSD's, but still -- moving the Data, Quickbooks and Swap Files over to the Samsung 990 Pro do really make them move.

We're using Remote Desktop.  And from reading here it seems I won't need to go dual core other than to offload Windows to one core.  So, I guess I just wait to update to PCI 5.0 and faster drives -- in about 3 more years when I can get the computer used at a deal.

Has there been any update on this for 2024?  We still suffer with poor performance even though it is on a very fast server (lots of cores may not help).  I am considering a new server and would try to optimize it for single thread if indeed that is still the case. 

@EdNewman 

Try changing your static IP address of the server in the drive map e.g \\192.168.1.30\quickbooks

to become using FQDN or \\PCNAME\Quickbooks

That has nothing to do with how many cores the server side application uses.

We found changing the map drive was one of the workarounds. Another option, run the Condense Data utility to remove all data prior to 1/1/2024 to isolate the problem.

It may fix other issues you have, but will not change how many cores QB uses.  The same applies to condensing and archiving old data.  It will help the performance, but does not change how well (or how poorly) this application scales on a server.

In my opinion, after their product development team focused on QB Online years ago, they deliberately did not enhance QB Desktop with the latest technology. You can see that they don't care about virtualization, storage (e.g. NAS) or networking (e.g. VPN).

Sadly I agree that is true.  That said, QBO still is not even close to being ready to replace QBDE.  We have been told we are "too big" for QBO and it lacks a number of key features we utilize.

What do you mean with "too big"? Is it regarding your file size or else?

What kind of business do you run? Manufacturing or else?

Counts in certain lists I believe.  Too many items, to many sales transcations, etc.

As well as overall file size.

Manufacturing.

You may have 2 options if you consider switching to QBO:

1. Run the Condense Data utility to lower your Total Target up to 350K (if you choose QBO Plus) or 750K (if you choose QBO Advanced). Then you will keep using QB Desktop to access historical data.

2. Purchase a 3rd party service to convert the whole data.

QB Online doesn't provide the assembly feature for manufacturing companies. You should have a 3rd party manufacturing app to integrate with QBO.

1. For simple assemblies (https://go.zoho.com/H3R)

2. For complex assemblies (https://psref.katanamrp.com/quickbooks)