Solving error message "QuickBooks already has a company file open."

When connecting Commerce Sync to QuickBooks Desktop, occasionally you may see this "Can't Open QuickBooks" message:

We see this error even when just one company file is open. Basically QuickBooks has opened too many versions of itself up and can't close those back down successfully.

If you close QuickBooks and the Commerce Sync for Desktop application, you will then run both as administrator. To do this you will right click on the desktop shortcut (or on the app in Start Menu for Windows), then select the "run as Administrator" option. This often bypasses the above error to get you connected, but you may need to try the troubleshooting steps below.

On the phone with Intuit Support, we followed these instructions to solve this:

  1. Open your computers Task Manager (right click on the task bar at the bottom of your computer)
  2. Navigate to the Processes or Details tabs looking for multiple instances of QuickBooks processes running.
    • The QBDBMgrN.exe is the culprit here in the Details tab
  3. Right click to close down the processes, leaving one open.
  4. Try the steps you were on again in the Commerce Sync connection

 If you are still having issues, please click the Submit a Request below.

Was this article helpful?
11 out of 29 found this helpful