In QuickBooks it is possible to merge accounts. Many times various accounts are made to represent the same type of item or expense.
As an example I often see two expense accounts in the same chart of accounts called Repairs and Repairs Expense.
Most likely the repetitive account was set up by another user that was not keeping consistent with the previous person handling the bookkeeping.
Inexperienced QuickBooks users have a tendency to want to re-code each transaction and then delete the unwanted account.
A much faster solution to this resolving this issue is to merge the accounts.
Here's how:
- Go to your chart of accounts
- Right-click on the account you want to keep and click Edit Account
- Copy the name of the account you want to keep
- Go back to your chart of accounts and right-click on the account you want to merge with the account you are keeping
- Paste the name of the account you are keeping over the name of the account you want to get rid of
- Click Save & Close
- QuickBooks will display a message that says: "This name is already being used. Would you like to merge them?
- Click Yes and your accounts will be merged
This little QuickBooks tip will help save you time and keep a nice clean and organized chart of accounts. You can also merge other things in QuickBooks like customers or items.