Manage default and special accounts in your chart of accounts

Find out which default or special account can be deleted, edited, or merged in QuickBooks Online.

When you create a company, QuickBooks Online creates specific accounts by default. Other special accounts are created when certain features are turned on in the settings. We’ll show you the accounts you can delete, edit, or merge.

Looking to remove an account from your chart of accounts? See Remove accounts you no longer use.

Accounts that can’t be deleted #

The following default accounts are created automatically. You can’t delete them or use them for any other purpose.

  • Undeposited Funds: This holds funds from payments to your company until you deposit them to your bank account. You can’t delete this account as it’s required to properly record payments before they are deposited. Note: If for any reason you’ve created your own Undeposited Funds with an incorrect detail type, QuickBooks Online will not auto-generate the undeposited funds.
  • Opening Balance Equity: This is the default account for adjustments. You can only edit the name of this account, if necessary.
  • Retained Earnings: This account is for reporting retained earnings on the Balance Sheet report. You can change the name of the Retained Earnings account if, for example, you are a non-profit that prefers to use another name for retained earnings. But in all other cases, the name shouldn’t be changed.
  • Inventory/Stock Assets and Cost of Goods Sold/Cost of Sales: If you try to edit or delete these accounts, any edits to Products/Services will recreate them.
  • Reconcile/Reconciliation Discrepancies: This is used to report when your transactions in QuickBooks Online don’t match the transactions reported on your bank statement.
  • Unapplied Cash Payment Income: This is used to report cash basis income from customer payments that were received but not applied to a sales form.
  • Sales of Product Income: This is used to track sales for inventory items and can’t be deleted. This account only appears when Inventory is enabled, and at least one inventory item under Sales is added.

  • (Sales tax agency name) Payable: This is created when you set up sales tax and reports the sales tax for every transaction.

Accounts that can be edited, but not deleted or merged #

The following accounts can only be edited, but not deleted or merged.

  • Services: This is the default income account in QuickBooks Online. It operates the same as any other income account, but neither it nor the corresponding Product/Service item can be deleted, but you can edit the names of both to reflect your main income type.

    To edit the name of the Services account:

    1. From the left menu, select Accounting then Chart of Accounts.
    2. Locate the Services account in the list.
    3. From the Action column drop-down menu, select Edit.
    4. In the Account dialog, update the Name to reflect your main income.
    5. Select Save and Close.
  • Uncategorized Expense and Uncategorized Income: These accounts are created automatically when you enter an opening balance for a vendor or customer and record any expense or income transactions that can’t be matched to an account.
  • Uncategorized Asset: This account records any asset that can’t be matched to an account.
  • Owner’s Equity: This account represents the cash or assets you’ve invested in the company.

Accounts that can be deleted by merging #

You can delete the following accounts by merging them into the Services income account:

  • Billable Expense Income
  • Markup

To merge these accounts:

  1. From the left menu, select Accounting then Chart of Accounts.
  2. Locate the account to be merged in the list.
  3. From the Action column drop-down menu, select Edit.
  4. In the Account dialog, change the name of the account to Services, or the name assigned to the Services income account.
  5. Select Save and Close.
  6. When prompted whether you want to merge the accounts, select Yes.

The accounts are merged and the original accounts can no longer be used.

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