Merging duplicate items and/or accounts in QuickBooks is preferable to making journal entries.
It is a common occurrence over time, especially if you have had numerous bookkeepers; to discover that you have duplicate items in your QuickBooks Item List or accounts in your Chart of Accounts.
Rather than performing journal entries to move the money all into one account and then making the duplicate account inactive – it’s easy to merge the two accounts together.
BEFORE you attempt this procedure – make a backup of your QuickBooks company data file and run any necessary year to date reports for comparison after the merge.
Let’s say, for example, in your Chart of Accounts you have an account called Delivery and another one called Postage & Delivery; you’ve decided that you want all of the dollars you spend tracked under the Postage & Delivery account.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
Edit the “Delivery” account (Chart of Accounts -> right-click on Delivery -> choose Edit Account); changing the Account Name to Postage and Delivery and the number to 6610.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
When you are finished editing, click the Save & Close button. QuickBooks will display a message box indicating that the account number is already being used and asks if you would like to merge them. Select Yes.
Right click on the image to enlarge it.
The two accounts are now merged into one.
This same procedure can be utilized for duplicate customers, vendors, items, etc.
Related Posts
QuickBooks Tip – Understanding Your Chart of Accounts
The QuickBooks Chart of Accounts is a complete list of a businesses accounts and their balances. You will use it to track how much money you have spent, how much money y...QuickBooks Tip – Construction Accounts Payable
If you think that job costing is all it takes to have a good construction accounting system – think again! You need a firm handle on your costs and QuickBooks when prope...QuickBooks Tip – An Audit Trail for Accounts Receivable
An "audit trail" for Accounts Receivable in QuickBooks is only one of the many complexities faced by government construction contractors. Learn various ways to get this ...QuickBooks and the Myth of Do-It-Yourself Accounting
You feel the lure of those seductive little marketing messages that they whisper to you, but be careful about falling for that "do-it-yourself" myth, because these sedu...QuickBooks Tip – 5 Reasons To Use QuickBooks Group Items – Part 2
Before QuickBooks had a Unit of Measure option - I think it was introduced with QuickBooks 2007 - we had to rely on QuickBooks group items to perform Unit of Measure calc...QuickBooks & Your Construction Business – What’s Your Gripe?
We’ve talked with contractors who are frustrated with QuickBooks only to find that they aren’t utilizing many of the features that would provide them with the information...Learn To Use QuickBooks In Your Construction Business
Learn to use QuickBooks in your construction business is a new support and training site provides answers and techniques that are not available in the QuickBooks® Help fi...Bookkeeping/Accounting Tasks and Employee New Hire Packet
Free checklists for keeping track of bookkeeping/accounting tasks and the information needed when you hire a new employee. Helps you meet important deadlines....QuickBooks Tip – Creating a Pre-Set Estimate With Standard Items
Creating an estimate that includes the same items can be automated in QuickBooks by memorizing it....QuickBooks Tip – Creating Lien Waivers & Contract Documents
A QuickBooks Tip for creating Lien Waivers, Releases, and other Contract Documents from within the software using the Letters function....How to Set Up Timetracking – #QuickBooks Tip
How to set up timetracking and use QuickBooks timesheets is a question that I see nearly every day on the Intuit Community forums. There are several ways in which you ca...Top 10 Tuesday QuickBooks Tips From Around the Web – 3/15/2011
Top 10 Tuesday picks includes posts from One Hour Bookkeeper, CPASiteSolutions, The Bottom Line, Top Notch Bookkeeping, Business-Keepers Consulting, Nerd's Blog, the Quic...QuickBooks Tip – How Much Data Can QuickBooks Hold?
How much data can your QuickBooks company file hold before it becomes "stuffed", overflowing like a file cabinet, and SLOW? This is a very good question that most people...QuickBooks Tip-What Account Should I Use?
Frequently you will run across a transaction that you just aren’t sure which account you should be posting it too. Often times you end up “just picking one”, and tell yo...QuickBooks Tip – Correcting a Job Assigned to Wrong Customer
A common conundrum for some bookkeepers is to create a job prior to receiving the contract paperwork, so that materials could be ordered - and then finding when the actua...
4 Responses to QuickBooks Tip – Merging Duplicate Items and/or Accounts
Leave a Reply
Good point Charlie, thanks for bringing it up.
Be CAREFUL doing this with your item list, though. If you have inventory part or inventory assembly items, and you merge them, you COULD be making changes to your financial statements. You are changing the way that costs are received, you are changing the balance on hand on specific dates, and this affects how costs flow through the balance sheet.
Michael, you are correct – you really don’t need to change the account number in order for this to work.
Your tip for merging accounts works without having to put in both the name and account number. Just use the same name and don’t worry about the account number and it also works.