Performing a mid-year QuickBooks® cleanup is a smart habit that small business owners and bookkeepers can adopt to stay ahead of their financial responsibilities. Waiting until year end to review your accounting records can lead to unnecessary stress, missed deductions and preventable errors.
When you need to update your QuickBooks lists — such as the chart of accounts, customers and vendors — the software provides methods for inactivating, deleting and merging list entries. Here’s how to freshen things up.
Inactivating: Hidden but still accessible
If your records have become cluttered with unused accounts, consider inactivating some list entries. QuickBooks will keep the information associated with an inactive entry. So you can still access the information if you decide to view or reactivate the item later. But the record is hidden in the list and won’t appear on any related drop-down lists. For example, if a job has been completed, making it inactive will shorten the customer list and prevent accidental use on an invoice or payment window.
However, there are some precautions for inactivating list entries that still have open balances. For instance, if you’d like to inactivate an inventory item, be sure to adjust the quantity on hand to zero. If a customer or vendor has an outstanding balance, resolve it and adjust the balance to zero before inactivating the name. Additionally, inactivating a list entry doesn’t prevent it from being included in a memorized transaction that was previously created. Be sure to update those recurring entries as well.
Deleting: A clean slate
If you’re sure you won’t need to access an unused item again, QuickBooks allows you to delete a list entry permanently. However, if you attempt to delete an item that’s used elsewhere in the company file, QuickBooks won’t allow you to delete it. Instead, a warning message will be displayed.
Important: To delete a customer, you must first delete or inactivate all associated jobs. However, if any job has linked transactions — such as invoices, time entries or payments — it’s generally advisable to inactivate the job instead of deleting it. Once all jobs are inactive or deleted, and the customer has no remaining linked transactions, the customer may be deleted.
Before an item is deleted, QuickBooks will ask you to confirm the deletion. And, if you delete a list entry in error, you can undo it — but this only works in the desktop version and immediately following the accidental deletion, before saving.
Merging: When less is more
Duplicate entries happen for many reasons. For instance, different users may inadvertently enter the same account into the software multiple times, or your supply chain partners might combine into one company. The merge feature in QuickBooks allows duplicate entries within the same list to be combined.
While this is a useful function, merging two list entries is an irreversible operation. To safeguard against any mistakes made during merging, consider backing up the file first in case you might need to restore it to its original state.
We’re here to help
Working with cluttered accounting records can be cumbersome and frustrating. A mid-year review can give you a fresh start and minimize headaches when it’s time to prepare your financial statements and tax returns. Contact us for help updating your QuickBooks lists. Our team can guide you through the steps to delete, inactivate and merge list items.
