changing cogs or income accounts without effecting prior history

Hello there, @Matts2.

Let's utilize the Rebuild Data tool to resolve any data issues with your company file in QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) and manage your income transactions accordingly.

QuickBooks will still notify you if you want to use the new account for all existing transactions when changing the account associated with an item. Please see the screenshot below for your reference.

You may have a minor data issue with your company file. With this, I'd recommend utilizing the Rebuild Data tool. It's a built-in tool that can help automatically fix data issues with your company file. To do this, here's how:

1. Go to the File menu.
2. Select Utilities, then choose Rebuild Data.
3. On the QuickBooks Information window, select OK. Follow the onscreen steps to save a backup.
4. Let the tool repair your file. It may take some time.
5. When the tool finishes, select OK.
6. Go to the File menu.
7. Select Utilities, then choose Verify Data.
8. Let the tool check your file for data issues.

In case the issue persists, continue performing the recommended solutions in this article, starting with Solution 2: Fix data damage on your QuickBooks Desktop company file.

On the other hand, you'll also want to ensure your QBDT software is updated to the latest release. This way, we can guarantee the program is running with the newest fixes and patches.

Also, you can track customer transactions in different ways with QuickBooks. You may want to check out this article as your reference to help you organize your cash flow, sales, and profitability in QBDT: Get started with customer transaction workflows in QuickBooks Desktop.

Please feel free to leave a comment below if you have other concerns about managing items and income transactions in QBDT. I'm always ready to help. Take care, and I wish you continued success, @Matts2.

@Matts2  RE: when changing a cogs account or an income account Quickbooks use to ask us if we wanted to change the account moving forward

There is nothing wrong with your data, which Intuit should know when they answer questions here, but for some reason they don't:

QuickBooks asks the question for an item's Income account, but does not ask it for the COGS or Inventory accounts for inventory items. It actually can't, at a design level...

Because of the way QuickBooks saves the transaction data when you sell inventory items, it actually can't ask whether you want to impact historic data or not. This is because QuickBooks actually only saves the income accounting row in the database when you make a sale. The other rows, for the COGS and Inventory amounts, are actually manufactured at report time and in other cases, such as when viewing the inventory asset account register. When it does this, the accounts used are gathered from the inventory item in real time. As a result, there isn't a way to use two different accounts over time for an item's COGS or Inventory accounts.