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November 29, 2023
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How to Deactivate an Account Associated with an Inactive Product or Service

  • November 29, 2023
  • 1 reply
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I have a client who offers many different services. To see how each line of business is doing, each service category has it's own Income account associated with it. The client discontinued several services, so I made those inactive on the Products and Services list. Now, I want to also deactivate the associated income account from the Chart of Accounts. When I try, I receive an error message, "We can't make this account inactive. This account is used by a product or service."

 

I have reviewed all active products and services and none are using the account I'm trying to deactivate. Is there a way to make these accounts inactive?

Best answer by RHJ

Actually, this solution is incorrect. I called into QuickBooks customer support as instructed to add my name to the affected list of customers with this problem. The representative told me that was unnecessary. She told me all I needed to do was:

  1. Go to the products and services list
  2. Using the filter, change the status to Inactive, and click Apply
  3. Use the gear to add the “Income Account“ column to the list
  4. Sort the list by Income Account
  5. Identity the products and services using the income accounts you’re trying to delete
  6. Reactivate those products or services
  7. Return to the active product and services list
  8. Go to the ones you just reactivated and change the income account to one you’re keeping in your COA
  9. Then, deactivate those products or services

You should then be able to go back to the chart of accounts and deactivate the income account as per usual. That is the solution.

1 reply

November 29, 2023

Hi there, RHJ.

 

Currently, we have an ongoing investigation about not being able to inactivate an income account in QuickBooks Online. Rest assured that our engineers are doing their best to fix it as soon as possible.

 

I recommend contacting our Customer Care Support team so you'll be added to the list of affected users. This way, you'll receive email updates on the investigation's status and be notified once it's been resolved. I've included the steps to contact support below. 

 

  1. Click the (?) Help icon in the upper right-hand corner of the dashboard.
  2. Select Talk to a Human.
  3. Enter INV-88513 and press Enter.
  4. Click I still need a human.
  5. Select Contact Us to connect with our live support.
  6. Choose Get a callback.


I appreciate your patience as we work through this. If you have any other concerns, please don't hesitate to drop a comment below. Take care!

RHJAuthorAnswer
November 29, 2023

Actually, this solution is incorrect. I called into QuickBooks customer support as instructed to add my name to the affected list of customers with this problem. The representative told me that was unnecessary. She told me all I needed to do was:

  1. Go to the products and services list
  2. Using the filter, change the status to Inactive, and click Apply
  3. Use the gear to add the “Income Account“ column to the list
  4. Sort the list by Income Account
  5. Identity the products and services using the income accounts you’re trying to delete
  6. Reactivate those products or services
  7. Return to the active product and services list
  8. Go to the ones you just reactivated and change the income account to one you’re keeping in your COA
  9. Then, deactivate those products or services

You should then be able to go back to the chart of accounts and deactivate the income account as per usual. That is the solution.

AlcaeusF
December 13, 2023

Hi, RHJ.

 

Thank you for sharing the steps you've done to resolve this here in the Community. This will surely help other users as well in the future.

 

Stay safe and have a good one.