Unable to switch product & services to new categories :: You can't merge [Product Name] because [Product Name] already exists.

Let's get rid of the error so you can change the category of an item in QuickBooks, Hanson.

There's a possibility that the item already exists. However, it's inactive in the system. 

Let's activate your inventory list on the Product and Services page. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Sales menu on the left panel. 
2. Select the Product and Services tab. 
3. Choose the Inactive on the Funnel icon drop-down list. 
4. Click the Apply button. 
    

Once done, all your inactive inventory will display. Locate the ones that you want to make inactivate.

You can either make it active. If you want to leave it inactive, consider changing the product name. This way, the system won't detect a duplicate entry when updating the category of the other item.

Also, the system only allows you to merge a service item.

I'm adding these links for future guide:
 

• Change product and service item types in QuickBooks Online
• Remove or merge a product or service.
   

Stay in touch with me if you need anything else aside from changing the category of an item. I'll be right here to help you.

Hello, Hanson. 

Thanks for getting back to us with the update and the screenshot. I'm here with the solution to help you fix the error message for your categories and items. 

Unusual behaviors in QuickBooks Online are caused by cache-related issues in the webpage. You can rule this out by using an incognito or private window: 

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + N
• Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + P
• Safari (new versions): Command + Shift + N

From there, categorize those items again. If you're able to do so, go back to the regular browser and clear the cache.

This removes the webpage data that's causing the error message. Close out any browser instances after clearing the cache to complete the process. 

Another solution is to use other supported browsers. 

If you're still experiencing the same error message, I would recommend contacting our support agents. They'll be able to dig deeper into the system and check what's causing the issue. Here's how to reach them: 

1. Click the Help menu.
2. On the chat box, select the Talk to a human option (type it in the chat box if prompted again). 
3. Select I still need a human.
4. Click the Get help from a human link, then choose how you want to reach us. 

After fixing the issue, do you want to start invoicing your customers? This article can help you with the process: Create invoices in QuickBooks Online.

I'm up and ready to help you out again if you have more questions about your inventory items. I can also help you with any other processes in QuickBooks. 

I'm having the exact same problem after migrating a client's data from desktop to QBO. I've contacted support but I'm not sure they even read what I write. I'd be really happy to find a solution to this problem.

Anyone find a solution to this? None of these suggestions resolve it. I would assume QBO support could have resolved it after a month. Thanks in advance.

P.S. Tech support, would have saved me a lot of time if you delete or mark inaccurate on all the posts in here. I appreciate willingness to help but unless you actually know the answer it's just a rabbit hole of wasted time.

Hi all. Encountered this problem tonight and was able to work through it as follows:

The first item that complained was LABOUR, which had about 20 sub-items. I created a new item called TEST and proceeded to move all 20 sub-items over by reassigning them from LABOUR to TEST. Once this was done, the merge continued.

After that, I hit a couple snags with smaller item lists. For those, I decided to try something different and just appended the item name to the front of the sub-item (e.g. the sub-item "Consumables" under "PARTS" got renamed to "PARTS - Consumables"), and then I unchecked the sub-item box - so essentially I moved all these items up a level in the tree, using a prefix to help me reclaim them later. I repeated this 2 or 3 times and eventually got the message "Excellent! You successfully switched from sub-items to Categories."

After the merge completed, I went to rename the category "TEST" to "LABOUR" and was told I couldn't because LABOUR already existed (it still did, as an item). So I found the LABOUR item, changed it's name to "LABOUR- OLD" set it to inactive then was able rename TEST to LABOUR without issue.

FWIW, QBO seems to work through the Products and Services list alphabetically. For some reason, even though I had items from B-K in my list, I didn't hit any problems until L (i.e. LABOUR). After that, it hit a problem with M, P and S (essentially any letter in my list that had an item with sub-items), so as I progressed, I was able to scan ahead and see how much work lay ahead. Again, after the merge, I went back - renamed the problem items to "M/P/S - OLD" and made them inactive.

Hope this helps! TBH, I'm pretty new to QBO, so I don't pretend to know why some items were problematic and others weren't, but getting results was more important than knowing why. Looking at a recent estimate (which has items from several of the affected categories), everything appears to be unaffected, so it seems my hackery didn't break anything :)

I had the same issue and after hours on the phone with customer support and no help at all I figured it out. I was getting an error that stated I could not convert bundles into categories. I had no "active" bundles. I changed all the names of the inactive bundles and that doesn't work. You have to go into each bundle, reactivate them along with their sub items. Edit the sub items so that they are not associated with the bundle then inactivate all of them again including the bundle. Super annoying that the system recognizes the inactive bundles and it's associated sub items, but it does and nobody will fix it.

I tried the conversion and ran into the same issue.  I do not have any bundles active or inactive, so that solution doesn't help.  I renamed the parent product to a unique name "2 Consulting", and the same error comes back.

You can't merge 2 Consulting because 2 Consulting already exists. To make this change, you'll need to give 2 Consulting a new, unique name or go to the Products and Services list to give the other 2 Consulting a different name

I had this problem and solved it. Perhaps this will be helpful for other folks, though I don't know if its the only situation that can cause the problem...

In my case, the product named in the error had inactive sub-products. After removing them, the error changed to accuse the next product with inactive sub-products of being a duplicate. Eventually, I was able to remove all inactive sub-products and successfully switch to categories.

Steps:

1. Change the filter in the "Products & Services" list to show "All" products, not just "Active".
2. Locate the first "Active" product that has "Inactive" sub-products. Helpfully, this is the product named in the error (unhelpfully, the error message does not correctly identify the issue).
3. Make the Sub-products "Active"
4. Edit each 'formerly inactive' sub-product to
   • uncheck the "is a sub-product" option
   • rename the sub-products so that they're easy to find in the next step. I put a 'z' in front: zProduct1, zProduct2, etc.
5. Make the sub-products inactive again.

I had already removed my active product hierarchy at this point, so I don't know if any sub-products will cause the issue. But I know the inactive ones did, so hopefully removing them will help folks out before they need to edit a long list of active sub-products...