Hello there, Phil. Yes, you can definitely start fresh on April 6, 2026, without having to manually recreate last year's payments. Since you’ve already linked your bank, here is the easiest way to handle this, depending on how new your QuickBooks account is.
If you just recently created your account with less than 60 days old, you can completely reset it while keeping your bank connection active.
Here's how:
- Sign in to your QuickBooks Online Company.
- Once you're signed in, open this link, or modify the URL to include /purgecompany.
- For example: Change https://app.qbo.intuit.com/app/homepage to https://app.qbo.intuit.com/app/purgecompany
- The next screen will provide a summary of the items to delete. Type YES to delete the data, then select OK.
This wipes all your transactions and invoices, but keeps your company settings and bank links intact. Once purged, you can now enter your starting balance as of April 6 and start your bookkeeping from that day forward.
However, if you’ve had your account for a while in QuickBooks, the best way to handle this is by closing your books. Instead of creating individual invoices for everything owed to you, you can make a single journal entry dated April 6 for your total Opening Balance. This will capture your starting cash and total outstanding payments in one go.
To keep things organised, batch exclude all transactions dated before April 6, 2026, by selecting them and clicking on Exclude. This way, they won’t interfere with your new year’s records.
Once settled, you can then navigate to your Settings > Account and settings> Advanced > Edit in the Accounting section, then turn on the Close the books switch. From there, you can set a closing date of April 5, 2026, to lock the old data and prevent any accidental changes.
Feel free to reply to this post if you need further assistance.
