Problems Importing into Quickbooks

Shawn in Alabama Asks:

I am a QuickBooks novice. I have recently imported accounts into QuickBooks, but during the import it required the accounts to be imported into different ‘companies’. I want to consolidate my multiple ‘companies’ into one, so that all of these accounts show up under a single ‘company’. How do I move an account from one company to another? Thanks so much for any input.

Answer:

A lot of my response should be based on what software you are importing into QuickBooks. Without knowing that and trying it myself; my answer cannot possibly be detailed enough.

What I do know is this. During your initial import into QuickBooks you shouldn’t have allowed it to create two companies. I don’t know why QuickBooks required this …unless the previous software you were using held your information in separate companies.

I also know that you will not be able to “Consolidate” separate QuickBooks files into one.

That all being said, and without knowing the specifics of your situation, here is what I would suggest.

Pick one of your two companies, preferably the one with the most transactions already recorded, and the chart of accounts that you find to be most complete.

Go into the chart of accounts of the company you have selected. Add any accounts that are in your second company (the “old one), that are not in the one you picked (the “new” one).

At this point all you would need to do is add any account balances that are in your “old” company to your new one. The best way to do this is to run a “Trial Balance” report (Reports -> Accountant & Taxes -> Trial Balance). Select this calendar year as the range of dates. Print this report.

Go into the “new” company. And make a journal entry using the information on the trial balance report. (Company ->Make Journal Entry).

The other option is to simply start from scratch by setting up a new QuickBooks company using the easy step interview. Frankly, If you don’t have a ton of data already entered this may be your best bet.

If you have further questions please post them on the comments thread.