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Level 7
December 11, 2018
Solved

How do i change the default date?

  • December 11, 2018
  • 3 replies
  • 3 views
No text available
Best answer by SkinnyRaven

By default QB Mac uses your system date. Any changes to the date format would be done in your Mac system preferences.

3 replies

Level 6
December 11, 2018

By default QB Mac uses your system date. Any changes to the date format would be done in your Mac system preferences.

Level 7
December 11, 2018
My MAC date is correct but my bill dates do not change. Any other ideas?
Devon_H
QuickBooks Team
December 11, 2018

hi dragonflygarden,

Sorry to hear you are encountering problems with date entry.   The forum posts here mention bill dates and journal entries, but we cannot reproduce any date entry problems in either of those windows.  Can you describe for us what date field in a particular QBMac window where the date field clears out on you?  If you could provide specific steps for what window you go into, do you tab into the date field, type the date or use the date picker, tab out of the field, return, or click somewhere else in the window to get out of the date field.  Steps like that. 

Also, in your Mac's System Preferences > Language & Region preferences panel, what is the 'Region' selected?  For example, does it say, "United States" or does it say, "United States (Custom)".  If the word custom is on the selected region, select the 'Advanced' button and select the 'Dates' tab panel ... what format is show for your 'Short' date format?  Specifically, what does the format look like?  Is it something like "01 / 05 / 17", or is it "17 / 01 / 05", or "17 / 05 / 01" ?

Level 7
December 11, 2018
When in QB, I just want the ability to change the date to something other than the current date. Does not matter what I do in QB, once I change the date to the one I want, it switches my choice back to "today's date". I am not sure what that has to do with my OS, however both formats match each other
June 5, 2020

Hello,

 

I'm having the same issue whereby I cannot enter transactions with an older (previous) date. I've been using Quickbooks for over 10 years and this is the first version of QB in which I've encountered this problem. THIS MUST BE FIXED! Having to change the system date in your OS preferences is a ridiculous solution.

 

Thank you,

Greg

AlexV
Level 10
June 5, 2020

Good day, Greg.

 

I understand that you need to enter transactions with the previous dates. You'll want to perform the steps shared by JessT by disabling the option where QuickBooks uses today's date as a default. 

  1. Go to QuickBooks and click Preferences.
  2. From the Preferences pane, select Transactions.
  3. Disable this option: Use current date as default for new transactions.
  4. Close the Preferences window and enter transactions.

Another workaround is by importing an Excel file QuickBooks.  QuickBooks will use the date based on what's in the file.

I'll be here if you need anything else. Have a great day!

February 8, 2026

In Desktop Pro 2024 the setting is under Edit>Preferences>General.