QuickBooks® Desktop file rebuilds

The best solution for your bloated QuickBooks file.

Condensing the file and starting over both leave you without your detail. Ledger Revival cuts your file at a date you choose and rebuilds everything from that date forward, line by line, in a fresh file. Every list, every item, every transaction, every open order. Everything before the cutover stays exactly as it was in your retired file. That is what makes the new file small, and fast.

The only rebuild service that carries your complete history. Not a summary. Not a condense. Not opening balances and a fresh start.

Start with the intake form See the comparison
  • 60,000transactions rebuilt
  • 35inventory sites
  • $0.00unexplained variance

Most recent rebuild: a 25-year-old Enterprise file, now a fraction of its old size. Read the case study.

Condense, start over, switch, or rebuild

Your options

When a QuickBooks Desktop file gets too big to run well, you have four options. Three of them cost you your history, your money, or both. One carries everything you still use into a fresh file.

Option 1

Condense

Never works right.

Fails or stalls again and again on an old file. When it finally finishes, your earlier detail is summarized away, your reports for those years go blank, and the file is rarely much smaller.

Option 2

Start over

Lose everything.

Your history stays behind. Your team re-keys lists and open orders, and goes back to the old file for anything before the start date.

Option 3

Switch to another system

Extremely expensive.

A new platform, a new chart of accounts, every integration rebuilt, a year of your team's time, and your QuickBooks history left behind anyway. The migration alone usually costs more than a rebuild, and the subscription never ends.

The best option

Rebuild it in full (Ledger Revival)

Keep what you use. Run fast.

The only rebuild service that carries your complete history. Not a summary. Not a condense. Not opening balances and a fresh start.

  • Every invoice, bill, payment and build, line by line
  • Open orders with their real items and quantities
  • Inventory by site, with average cost
  • Custom fields, price levels and templates
  • Your reports, from day one, as before

Who it is for

Who a full rebuild is for

Ledger Revival is for a business whose QuickBooks Desktop file has gotten slow or unreliable, and whose team still needs the history inside it.

  • Reports that take minutes

    Reports crawl. Your team waits on the file every day.

  • A condense that failed

    Verify errors. A condense that never finishes.

  • History you still use

    Your team pulls sales and inventory reports that go back years.

  • Inventory, assemblies and sites

    Bills of materials, pending builds, or stock in more than one site.

What comes over

The file your team works in, rebuilt line by line.

Everything your team uses today is in the new file, rebuilt from your cutover date forward.

How the file gets small without losing history

  1. You pick a cutover date. Usually the first day of your last fiscal year, so year-over-year reports work on day one.
  2. We rebuild everything from that date forward in a fresh file: the opening position at the cutover, then every transaction since, line by line.
  3. Everything before the cutover stays in your retired file, read-only and untouched. Nothing is condensed, summarized or deleted. It is one click away when you need it.

Twenty-five years of history is what makes a file slow. Two years of full detail, with the rest preserved where it is, is what makes it fast.

  • Lists

    Customers, vendors, accounts in your display order, classes and terms.

  • Items and BOMs

    Every item, and every assembly with its full bill of materials.

  • Inventory by site with average cost

    Quantities by item and by site, valued month by month.

  • Every posting transaction

    Invoices, bills, payments, builds and journal entries. Every line.

  • AR and AP by name

    Open balances tie by customer and by vendor, document by document.

  • Open SO, PO and estimates with the real lines

    The real items, quantities and rates. Closed lines stay closed.

  • Custom fields and price levels

    Carried with their values on the records that use them.

  • Form templates

    Your invoice, order and estimate layouts, ready to print.

What QuickBooks will not carry, and what we do instead

These limits are QuickBooks' own. They apply to every file and every service. Here is what we do about each one.

  • Document Center attachmentsStay with the retired file. As an optional add-on, we deliver them as a searchable archive your team opens in a browser and looks up by document number, name or date.
  • Links between transactionsLinks start fresh in the new file. We close every order your file shows closed and re-apply every payment and credit, so your aging matches.
  • Users, roles and permissionsYou set them up again at go-live. We hand you the list of current users and roles to work from.
  • Memorized reportsMoved one report or group at a time with QuickBooks' own export and import, for the reports your team runs.
  • Audit trail and "last modified by" historyStays in the retired file, which you keep read-only for reference.
  • Chart of accounts display orderCaptured at the start of the project and restored in the new file.

The full list for your file is in the document we send you before you sign.

Compare

What you get, and what the others leave behind.

A condense replaces your earlier detail with summaries, when it finishes at all. A summary conversion leaves the detail behind in the old file. Eight questions, answered for each option.

Condense or repair service, summary conversion and the Ledger Revival full rebuild, compared
Condense or repairtypically $300–$2,000 Summary conversiontypically $8,000–$15,000 Ledger Revival full rebuildfixed quote, from $9,500
Your history Error-prone. Fails or stalls again and again on an old file. When it finishes, detail before the date is replaced with summary entries and the file is rarely much smaller. The only way back is the archive copy, which is the old file again. Left behind in the old file. Only opening balances come over. Every transaction from your cutover date forward, line by line. Everything earlier stays readable in the retired file.
Open sales orders & POs Not part of the service. A dollar total with a placeholder line instead of your items. The real items, quantities and rates. Closed lines stay closed.
Completed invoices & builds Summarized into monthly totals before the date. The lines are gone from the working file. Not migrated. All of them.
Inventory Not part of the service. Opening quantities. By item and by site, with average cost, month by month.
Custom fields, price levels and templates Unchanged, but the detail they belonged to is summarized away. Lists only. Carried with their values.
Reports from day one Item and reconciliation reports go blank for the condensed period. History reports start from the conversion date. Sales by item, customer and rep, agings and inventory history from day one, as before.
Your team during the project The file goes offline while the service runs. Re-keying, and trips back to the old file for anything before the start date. Keeps working in the old file. One weekend to switch.
Proof and warranty None. None. A scorecard at every tier before the final payment, and a 30-day warranty on our work.

The cost of a slow file

Six people losing 20 minutes a day to a slow file: 2 hours a day × $45 an hour × 21 working days = $1,890 a month, about $22,700 a year.

Most of the files we see were costing more than a rebuild every year, long before anyone priced one.

How it works

Six steps. Your team keeps working the whole time.

A rebuild takes four to twelve weeks from signed quote to go-live.

  1. Assessment

    $995, credited in full. A findings memo, a fixed quote, a go/no-go.

  2. Rebuild

    A fresh file: lists, items, the opening position at your cutover date, then every transaction since, line by line.

  3. Load 1: your review

    Your team reviews it in a copy. We fix everything you raise, then you give the go-ahead.

  4. Load 2: catch-up

    Everything entered since Load 1, up to one day before. You confirm your approval.

  5. Final load

    Thursday or Friday. Every tier reconciled once more.

  6. Cutover

    Friday or over the weekend. The old file stays as your reference.

A written status at every checkpoint, quick replies, calls scheduled around your day, and a 30-day warranty on our work.

Pricing

Start with an assessment. Then a fixed price.

Every rebuild starts with a $995 File Assessment, credited in full, followed by a fixed quote.

Step one

File Assessment

$995credited in full to your rebuild

For every file, before any quote.

Typical timeline: about one week

  • Done on a copy. Your live file is untouched
  • A findings memo on your file
  • Your plan and a fixed quote
  • The schedule for your file
  • The document listing what comes over
  • A clear go or no-go

Full rebuild

Standard

$9,500–$14,000

One location. Service, contracting or distribution.

Typical timeline: 4 to 6 weeks to go-live

  • Full line-by-line rebuild
  • Opening balances and AR/AP by name
  • Every posting transaction
  • Open orders with the real lines
  • Three loads with your review in between
  • 30-day warranty

Full rebuild

Inventory & Manufacturing

$14,000–$22,000

Assemblies, or stock in more than one location.

Typical timeline: 6 to 8 weeks to go-live

  • Full line-by-line rebuild, AR/AP by name
  • Every posting transaction and open order
  • Inventory by site with average cost
  • Assemblies and BOMs
  • Three loads, your review, 30-day warranty

Full rebuild

Complex Enterprise

$22,000+

Decades of history, deep assemblies, many sites.

Typical timeline: 8 to 12 weeks to go-live

  • Full line-by-line rebuild, AR/AP by name
  • Inventory by site, deep assemblies and pending builds
  • Many sites and integrations
  • The assessment names anything unusual up front
  • Three loads, your review, 30-day warranty

Included in every plan

  • Every list, item, custom field, price level and form template
  • Every posting transaction, with payments applied to the same documents
  • AR and AP tied by name at your cutover date
  • Open sales orders, POs and estimates matched to your file's own open-order reports
  • The reconciliation scorecard, before the final payment
  • Three loads, with your team's review and approval
  • A cutover weekend fully staffed on our side
  • A 30-day warranty and an itemized audit trail your CPA can review

Fixed quote after the assessment. 50% at signing, 50% once you approve the rebuilt file, before the final load.

Two add-ons worth knowing about

List cleanup

$2,000 flat, any plan

Twenty years in one file leaves items nobody sells, customers who never came back, vendors you stopped using and accounts nobody posts to. They slow every pick list and clutter every report. The cleanup retires them before the rebuild, so the new file starts clean.

How we go about it

  • We date every record by its last activity and flag what has gone quiet.
  • Your team gets a keep-or-retire list, one per list, with the reason beside each name. You approve it. Nothing is retired on our say-so.
  • Anything on an open order, inside an active assembly, or tied to history that comes over is kept, no matter how old.
  • Retired means made inactive, not deleted. Anything can be brought back in seconds.
  • It runs as the last step of the rebuild, after every tier has reconciled, so the scorecard never changes.

Our bias: keep a few you no longer need before retiring one you still use.

Searchable attachment archive

$2,000 up to 2,500 documents · $3,000 to 10,000 · $4,000 to 30,000

QuickBooks will not move attached documents into a new file. We deliver every one of them as a searchable archive your team opens in a browser and looks up by document number, name or date. Years from now, when an auditor or a customer asks for the paperwork behind an old invoice, it is one search away.

What you get

  • Every attachment, matched to the transaction it was on.
  • A single page your whole team can open. No login, no software to install.
  • Priced by document count, so a small file pays a small price.

Extra loads, if your go-live date moves: $750 each.

Before you sign anything, we send you a document that lists exactly what comes over, what QuickBooks itself will not carry into a new file, and what your team does at go-live.

Case study

A 25-year-old Enterprise file, rebuilt in full

We rebuilt a 25-year-old QuickBooks Enterprise file: about 60,000 transactions, 14,000 items and 35 inventory sites. Eight weeks from start to go-live, and $0.00 unexplained variance.

Years in one file
25
Transactions
60,000
Items
14,000
Inventory sites
35
Start to go-live
8 weeks
Unexplained variance
$0.00

The situation

Twenty-five years in one company file, grown to multiple gigabytes. The built-in condense had failed repeatedly, so the file could never be shrunk, and the team lost time to slowdowns every day. The owners had been quoted a summary conversion that would leave every completed invoice and build behind and carry open orders as dollar totals with placeholder lines.

What we did

We cut the file at the prior year-end and rebuilt everything since: about 60,000 transactions, 14,000 items with their assemblies and bills of materials, 35 inventory sites with average cost, the open sales orders and purchase orders with their real lines, custom fields, price levels and templates. The earlier years stayed in the retired file, read-only. The team kept working in the old file throughout, with catch-up loads before cutover.

The result

Reconciled at every tier with $0.00 unexplained variance. The new file is a fraction of the size of the old one, with three years of history intact and every earlier year still readable in the retired file. About eight weeks from start to go-live, and one weekend to switch.

“Holy shit, this is fast.”

The owner of the file in this case study, first morning on the rebuilt file.

Figures rounded. Client identity withheld.

FAQ

Questions we hear first.

What people ask us before they start.

Can a QuickBooks Desktop file be rebuilt without losing history?

Yes. We rebuild the company file line by line in a fresh file, every transaction and every open order included. Each tier is reconciled to the penny against your current file, and you see that scorecard before the final payment.

What does Condense remove from a QuickBooks Desktop file?

Condense is meant to do what a rebuild does: pick a date, keep full detail after it and summarize everything before it. It works inside your existing file. Transactions before the date are replaced with monthly summary entries, so old invoices, bills and builds lose their lines and item and reconciliation reports go blank for that period. The original detail survives only in the archive copy Condense makes, which is the old file again. On a large, old file the process is error-prone and fails or stalls again and again. Even when it completes, the file is rarely much smaller, because anything open, unreconciled or tied to inventory stays, and you are still working in the same aging database.

How much does a QuickBooks file rebuild cost?

Every rebuild starts with a $995 File Assessment, credited in full. The fixed quote then lands in one of three plans: Standard ($9,500 to $14,000), Inventory & Manufacturing ($14,000 to $22,000) or Complex Enterprise ($22,000 and up). Payment is 50% at signing and 50% once you approve the rebuilt file. The list cleanup is a $2,000 add-on on any plan.

How long does a QuickBooks Desktop rebuild take?

Four to twelve weeks from signed quote to go-live, depending on the plan. The assessment sets the schedule for your file.

Does my team stop working during the project?

No. Your team keeps working in the old file the whole time. The switch to the rebuilt file happens over one weekend.

What does our team need to do?

Review the rebuilt file in a copy after Load 1 and tell us everything you see. We fix everything you raise. Your team is responsible for reviewing it fully before cutover. Once you approve the rebuilt file (an email is fine), we run the final load.

What is the difference between a rebuild and a summary conversion?

A summary conversion brings over lists and opening balances, and your history stays in the old file. A rebuild carries every transaction line by line, and open orders keep their real items, quantities and rates.

How do I know the rebuilt file matches my original?

You get a reconciliation scorecard before the final payment. It compares your file and the rebuild at eight tiers, including the trial balance at every month-end, inventory by item and site, and open orders. Each tier shows $0.00 or a named exception that you approve.

What does not transfer to a new QuickBooks company file?

QuickBooks will not carry Document Center attachments, links between transactions, users and permissions, or the audit trail into a new file. Attachments stay with the retired file, or come over as a searchable archive through an optional add-on. We rebuild payment applications so your aging matches. The full list is in the document we send before you sign.

Why is the rebuilt file so much smaller?

Because it only carries what you still use. You choose a cutover date, usually the first day of your last fiscal year. We rebuild every transaction from that date forward in a fresh file, and everything before it stays in your retired file. A file holding two years of full detail is a fraction of the size of one holding twenty, and it runs like it.

What happens to transactions before the cutover date?

They stay in your retired file, exactly as they are today. Nothing is condensed or deleted. You keep that file read-only, and your team opens it when a question reaches back further than the cutover. Your reports in the new file run from the cutover date forward.

What is the list cleanup?

Over the years a file collects items nobody sells, customers who never came back, vendors you stopped using and accounts nobody posts to. The cleanup dates every record by its last activity and gives your team a keep-or-retire list to approve. Anything on an open order, in an active assembly, or tied to history that comes over is kept. Retired records are made inactive, not deleted, so any of them can come back. It runs after the rebuild has reconciled. It is a $2,000 add-on on any plan.

What happens to attachments?

They stay with the retired file, which you keep. As an optional add-on, priced by document count, we put every attached document into a searchable archive your team can open any time. The documents do not reattach to transactions in the new file.

Is this cheaper than starting over?

Six people losing 20 minutes a day to a slow file costs about $22,700 a year. A fresh start adds its own cost: re-keying lists and open orders, and reports that stop at the start date, so every year-over-year question sends someone back to the old file.

Do you touch our live file?

Never before go-live. After go-live, only with your approval and outside your business hours.

What if something is wrong after go-live?

For 30 days after cutover, anything we did not get right we fix at no charge. Anything your team missed or did not raise during the review is handled as a change order.

Which QuickBooks Desktop editions do you rebuild?

We rebuild QuickBooks Desktop Pro, Premier, Accountant and Enterprise files. The rebuilt file stays in QuickBooks Desktop.

About

About Ledger Revival

Ledger Revival LLC is an Illinois company that rebuilds QuickBooks Desktop company files, line by line, for businesses across the United States.

What we do
Line-by-line rebuilds of QuickBooks Desktop company files, reconciled to the penny. The new file stays in QuickBooks Desktop.
Who we work with
Businesses whose QuickBooks Desktop file has gotten too slow or too unreliable to run on.
Where
Remote, anywhere in the United States. We work from backups and restored copies of your file.
How to start
Send the intake form below or email hello@ledgerrevival.com. The first paid step is the $995 File Assessment, credited in full.

Start here

Tell us about your file.

A few facts about your file. They tell us which plan it fits and what the assessment should look at. Ten minutes, and approximate is fine.

Do you use assemblies or bills of materials?
Integrations connected to the file

We read every intake ourselves and reply promptly.