I've created a journal entry to enter the COA balances from my trial balance to start a client in quickbooks online. It won't accept 'general' as the name for A/P.

Hi watsonkerianne,

Making sure you have the correct balances in your chart of accounts is key to having accurate books. QuickBooks Online makes entering journal entries easy and I can help you with this.

When creating an account in QuickBooks Online you're able to enter an opening balance when it's created. If you are past that point and want to add an opening balance from a journal entry you must make sure the correct accounts are credited and debited. If you're entering general as the name for an accounts payable it won't work as it needs a supplier name to assign it to. You can make a supplier with the general name but that will just give them the full balance owed.

Accounts payable is to track the money you owe such as suppliers and QuickBooks Online makes sure to track who is owed what to help you keep track. An easier way to track this would be to create suppliers and enter their opening balances to what is owed to them. You can do this by going to: Expenses>Suppliers>Add Supplier Manually. From there you can enter the supplier's information and their opening balance.

If you need further assistance I suggest reaching out to our support team as they have tools to better assist walking you through the program such as screen sharing. Their contact information can be found here.

Have a great day!