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elleholub
April 26, 2022
Question

Parent Account preventing linking of SubAccounts

  • April 26, 2022
  • 2 replies
  • 0 views

Hello,

 

I've been using QB Online to manage our companies' finances for a while, with no issues. We bank through SunTrust which is now Truist, and during the merge, have had issues on both the Truist end and the QB end.

 

All of our employees have personal credit cards, which are sub-accounts of the Control Account Card (or Parent account in QB). Under banking, I only pull the records from the Control Account, but then categorize them in expenses as one of the sub-accounts for their personal cards. This worked fine because SunTrust displayed all transactions under the Control Account. 
Truist wasn't doing this. The Control Account only showed the total balance on all the cards and any payments made toward that balance. I had to enter into each individual's card to see the transactions. We made them aware of this bug and they have since fixed it. I now can retroactively see all transactions in all control accounts in Truist, but QB still isn't displaying them retroactively, only the transactions made after the fix (mid April). I tried un-linking and re-linking the account, and changing the date to pull transactions from with no success. The control account card still only shows payments made. So I have hundreds of un-reconciled transactions from those months. Because of this, I tried to link the CC sub-accounts in QB banking to pull the transactions, but QB won't let me because "The account, xxxx, has a parent account that is already connected to an account at one of your banks." I understand the logic behind this, as when banks behave properly, this prevents duplicate transactions from being pulled, but I'm frustrated that there doesn't seem to be an option to tell QB to do it anyway since Truist was behaving illogically for a time.

Is the only solution un-linking the control/parent account? I don't want to do this because then I lose the ability to track all my CC payments, but that would be better than not tracking any other transactions... Can I un-link the parent account, link all the subaccounts and record their transactions, and then un-link them and re-link the control account? Along that same track, is it safe to un-link my SunTrust accounts now or will that screw up the categorized/reconciled transactions in the past?

 

Thanks,

Elle

 

2 replies

R
Rasa-LilaM
April 26, 2022

Hello there, elleholub.


This isn’t the kind of experience I want you to have when using the online banking features. Let me help ensure the connected accounts will show all the correct transactions.


Based on the scenario, you can disconnect and reconnect the accounts. Performing these tasks won’t change the existing data (categorized or reconciled transactions in the past).


To unlink an account:

 

  1. In QuickBooks Online (QBO), tap the Banking or Transactions menu on the left panel and choose Banking.
  2. From the list of accounts, click the Blue tile icon and choose the one you’re working on.
  3. Press the Pencil icon and select Edit account info to open the Account screen.
  4. Navigate to the Connected to section and tick the box for Disconnect this account on save.
  5. Click Save and close.


After disconnecting all accounts, you can start connecting each one in QBO. Here’s an article that will walk you through the process: Connect bank and credit card accounts.


For additional resources, the links will guide you on how to set up a bank account or credit card account with multiple cards associated with it. You’ll also learn about classifying and matching downloaded data.

 


If you have further questions or need a helping hand in managing online banking entries, let me know in the comment section below. I’ll jump right back in to assist further.  

N
NRCI
September 27, 2022

So are you saying that in order to link the sub account after the parent is linked the only way to do this is unlink the parent connection and then reconnect making sure to link all sub accounts at the same time?

 

If that’s the case that is extremely unfriendly, and had I known that I would have done them all at once, but being a noob to your product thought I’ll just add the sub account later. 

 

BRUTAL.

    briansweat
    briansweat
    March 6, 2025

    We've had Bank of America business cards for years and found this to be the best approach. Unfortunately, QuickBooks Online doesn't let you connect both the parent and sub-accounts to bank feeds. Here's the solution we found works well.

     

    Initial Setup (Credit Cards and Bank Feeds)

    1. Create a main Credit Card account for the Corporate account (e.g., "BofA 1234 Unlimited"). At one point, we had 3 corporate accounts with multiple cards below each one. We had both Unlimited and Customized Rewards cards, so including a description is a good idea.
    2. Create the Credit Card sub-accounts for each individual credit card under that account with a friendly name like "Brian 6789". Credit Cards will display like "BofA 1234 Unlimited:Brian 6789" for transactions.
    3. Link account and/or Manage Connections in Bank Transactions (QuickBooks Online). Match each individual Credit Card sub-accounts. DO NOT Match the "parent" corporate account.
    4. Now, when looking at the parent corporate account, QuickBooks will combine all of the transactions, which is really nice for a quick glance and tracking the overall open balance.

     

    Statement (Journal Entry)

    1. Create a new Journal Entry when the credit card statement is received each month.
    2. Use the Statement Date as the Journal date
    3. Use something like the "BofA1234 2025-03 STMT" as the Journal no.
    4. Add a Journal Line for each individual card with its statement balance in the Debits column.
    5. [Optional] Enter any Journal Line(s) for additional corporate account level rebates, fees, or discounts.
    6. Add a Journal Line for the New Balance (from Statement) in the Credits column.
    7. Click Save

    BONUS: You only need to create these journal from scratch ONCE. In the future, just grab last month's statement journal and choose More > Copy, adjusting the Date and Amounts.

     

    Payment

    We like to schedule the payment immediately when the Statement is received. We schedule the payment at our bank's Online Banking website, but record it in QuickBooks too.

    1. In QuickBooks Online, use the Pay down Credit Card feature and choose the parent corporate account when prompted, Which credit card did you pay? In QuickBooks Desktop, we just used a Check transaction. We found entering a Bill seemed unnecessary, since the payment is already scheduled.
    2. Set the Date of payment to be in the future, based on when you scheduled the payment to process.
    3. The payment should Match in your Checking account once it's processed, assuming that's also connected to bank feeds.

     

    Reconciliation

    I wanted to share the above information in this thread, but I'm not going to walk you through the reconciliation process. At least with Bank of America, you'll be reconciling the parent corporate card account. Unfortunately, you can't download statements since your bank feeds are connected at the individual cards, but that's usually not a big deal. If you're sync'ing the individual card transactions, the monthly reconciliation process should be a breeze!

    N
    NCIS0110
    May 13, 2025

    I would really like to know how to do that please. The parent account was created and connected when we first opened this company. Other authorized users' credit cards have been added after but since the parent account is already connected to QBO, there is no way to create them as subaccounts. So I can see 4 different credit cards in the "Bank Transactions" screen and they all sync to their respective accounts on my chart of accounts. But I only have one statement, for the parent account, and it seems impossible to reconcile them correctly.

    J
    JamesDuanT
    May 13, 2025

    We can still reconcile these credit card accounts, NCIS0110. The process can be tedious, but it will allow us to correct the account setup.

     

    First, let's categorize the remaining downloaded transactions in the Bank transactions page. Then, we'll need to disconnect the affected credit card accounts, along with the parent account, from the Online Banking. To do this, please refer to the instructions provided in this article: Disconnect accounts connected to online banking in QuickBooks Online.
     

    Next, let's go to your Chart of Accounts and correct the account setup of your credit cards. Here's how:

     

    1. Go to the Chart of Accounts and look for the credit card account that we need to correct.
    2. Click the drop-down arrow next to View register, and select Edit.
    3. Mark the Make this a subaccount box.
    4. Enter the Parent account.
    5. Save the changes.
    6. Repeat the Steps 1-5 for the other credit card accounts.

     

    After correcting the subaccounts setup, we can now reconnect them to your bank websites in the Bank transactions page. We only need to connect the subaccounts. Make sure the parent account is no longer connected to Online Banking. With this, we can assure that we are only downloading the transactions specific to the subaccounts. You can visit this article to know more about the setup: About bank or credit card subaccount setup.
     

    When reconnecting your subaccounts, it will download 90-days worth of transactions. You can exclude those transactions that were already added to your register and continue categorizing the others.

     

    Lastly, we can start reconciling the parent account using your statement.

     

    Are you looking for ways to take your QuickBooks experience to the next level? I'm excited to share that you can connect with our QuickBooks Live Expert Assisted team. They are here to help you manage your transactions and ensure the data integrity of your account. Let us support you on your journey to financial success.

     

    Moreover, closing your books will complete the accounting process.  We can already start a balanced data for the upcoming months.

     

    Feel free to reach out if you need further help with managing your bank accounts and transactions in QuickBooks Online.

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