Modifying, Hiding, Merging and Deleting Quickbooks Accounts

 

Modifying Accounts

 If you stick to your account numbering and naming conventions, you’ll have few reasons to edit accounts. But the Edit Account dialog box lets you tweak an account’s name or description, adjust its number to make room for new accounts, or change its level in the chart of accounts hierarchy.

You’re not likely to change an account’s type unless you chose the wrong type when you created the account. If you do need to change the account type, back up your QuickBooks file first, in case the change has effects that you didn’t anticipate. Also, note that QuickBooks has several restrictions on changing account types. You can’t change an account’s type if:   

• It has subaccounts.

• It’s an Accounts Receivable or Accounts Payable account. (You also can’t change other types of accounts to AR or AP accounts.)

• QuickBooks automatically created the account, like Undeposited Funds.

To modify an account, in the Chart of Accounts window, select the account you want to edit and then press Ctrl+E. (You can also open the Edit Account dialog box by clicking Account at the bottom of the Chart of Accounts window and then choosing Edit Account from the drop-down menu.) In the Edit Account dialog box that appears, make the changes you want, and then click OK.

Hiding and Deleting Accounts

 If you create an account by mistake, you can delete it. However, because QuickBooks drops your financial transactions into account buckets and you don’t want to throw away historical information, you’ll usually want to hide accounts that you don’t use anymore instead of deleting them. The records of past transactions are important, whether you want to review the amount of business you’ve received from a customer or the IRS is asking unsettling questions. For example, you wouldn’t delete your Nutrition Service income account just because you’ve discontinued your nutrition consulting service to focus on selling your new book, The See Food Diet. The income you earned from that service in the past needs to stay in your records.

Hiding Accounts

 Hiding accounts doesn’t mean withholding key financial info from prying eyes. When you hide an account in QuickBooks, the account continues to hold your historical transactions, but it doesn’t appear in account lists, so you can’t choose it by mistake with a misplaced mouse click. Hiding and reactivating accounts (Figure 3-5) also comes in handy when you use QuickBooks’ predefined charts of accounts. If QuickBooks overwhelms you with accounts you don’t think you need, hide those accounts for the time being. That way, if you find yourself saying, “Gosh, I wish I had an account for the accumulated depreciation of vehicles,” the solution might be as simple as reactivating a hidden account.

Deleting Accounts

You can delete an account only if nothing in QuickBooks references it in any way. An account with references is a red flag that deleting it might not be the right choice. If you try to delete such an account, QuickBooks displays a message box telling you it can’t delete the account and recommends making it inactive instead. If that red flag isn’t enough to deter you, the sheer tedium of removing references to an account should nudge you toward hiding the account instead. If you insist on deleting an account, here are the conditions that prevent you from doing so and what you have to do to remove the constraints:  

Ac• An item uses the account. If you create any items that use the account as an income account, expense account, cost of goods sold account, or inventory asset account, you can’t delete the account. You have to edit the items to use other accounts first.

• The account has subaccounts. You have to delete all subaccounts before you can delete the parent account.

• Payroll uses the account. You can’t delete an account if your payroll setup uses it. Chapter 14 explains how to modify your payroll and payroll liabilities accounts.

 • At least one transaction references the account. If you create a transaction that uses the account, either edit that transaction to use a different account or hide the account if you want to keep the transaction the way it is. Top: To hide an account, in the Chart of Accounts window, right-click the account and choose Make Account Inactive from this shortcut menu. The account and any subaccounts disappear from the chart of accounts. Bottom: To reactivate a hidden account, first display all your accounts by turning on the “Include inactive” checkbox at the bottom of the Chart of Accounts window. QuickBooks adds a column with an X as its heading and displays an X in that column for every hidden account in the list. To unhide an account, click the X next to its name. If the account has subaccounts, QuickBooks displays the Activate Group dialog box; there, click Yes to reactivate the account and all its subaccounts. Click to reactivate account Click to show inactive accounts in the list   

•‰â•‰â•‰Merging Accounts

• The account has a balance.

 An account balance comes from either an opening balance transaction or other transactions that reference the account. You remove an account balance by deleting all the transactions in the account (or reassigning them to another account). To delete transactions, in the Chart of Accounts window, double-click the account name. For accounts with balances, QuickBooks opens a register window where you can select a transaction and then press Ctrl+D to delete it.

For accounts without balances, QuickBooks opens an Account QuickReport window. To delete a transaction that appears in the report, double-click the transaction. QuickBooks then opens a dialog box related to that transaction (for instance, the Write Checks dialog box appears if the transaction is a check). Choose Edit➝Delete Check or the corresponding delete command for the type of transaction you chose.

After you’ve deleted all references to the account, in the Chart of Accounts window, select the account you want to delete, and then press Ctrl+D or, on the QuickBooks menu bar, choose Edit➝Delete Account. QuickBooks asks you to confirm that you want to delete the account; click Yes.

Merging Accounts

Suppose you find multiple accounts for the same purpose—Postage and Mail Expense, say—lurking in your chart of accounts. Rather than punishing your employees for messing up, it’s more productive to merge the accounts into one and then remind everyone who creates accounts in QuickBooks about your naming conventions. (If you haven’t gotten around to setting up naming conventions.)

When you merge accounts, QuickBooks sweeps all the transactions from the account you merge into the account that you keep. Each type of account has a distinct purpose, so you can merge accounts only if they’re the same type. As an experienced manager, you can imagine the havoc that merging income and expense accounts would cause in your financial statements.

 Note: If you find two accounts with similar names but different types, those accounts might not represent the same thing. For instance, a Telephone Ex. expense account probably represents your monthly telephone service, while the Telephone Eq. asset account might represent the big telephone switch that your mega-corporation owns. In this situation, the accounts should be separate, although more meaningful names and descriptions would help differentiate them.

Here’s how to eliminate an extraneous account:

1. Switch to single-user mode.

You have to be in single-user mode to merge accounts. Be nice to your fellow QuickBooks users by making these changes outside of working hours. If you have to merge accounts during the workday, remember to tell your coworkers they can log into the program after you’ve switched the company file back to multi-user mode.

 2. Press Ctrl+A to open the Chart of Accounts window. Then, in the chart of accounts list, select the name of the account that you want to eliminate and press Ctrl+E.

The Edit Account dialog box opens.

3. In the Edit Account dialog box, change the account number and name to match the values for the account you want to keep.

As long as you get the letters and numbers right, QuickBooks takes care of matching uppercase and lowercase for you. If you don’t remember the number and name of the account you’re keeping, drag the Chart of Accounts window and the Edit Account dialog box so you can see both at the same time. If QuickBooks won’t let you do that, you might have the One Window preference set

 4. Click OK, read the message informing you that the name is in use and asking if you want to merge the accounts, and then Click Yes.

In the chart of accounts list, the account you renamed disappears and any transactions for that account now appear in the account you kept.