Editing Opening Balance Equity

I got you covered, @DebHC.

Changing the detail type of an account to “Opening Balance Equity” or change an “Opening Balance Equity” to another detail type is not possible.

As a workaround, we can delete/make inactive your Credit Card Expense type in your chart of accounts and create a new one. Ensure to select Opening Balance Equity as the detail type of the account to avoid any errors. Let me show you how.

Before we proceed, I recommend working with your accountant for additional guidance in deleting your account. This way, we can ensure your accounts are well accounted for after making these changes. If you're not affiliated with one, you can visit our ProAdvisor page and we'll help you find one from there.

When ready, you can now start by following these steps: 

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select Chart of Accounts.
3. Find the account you want to delete.
4. Select the Action drop-down and select Make inactive.

You can also check this article for more details: Delete an account on your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online.

Once done, you can now create your Opening Balance Equity account. When everything is all set, you might want to check these articles that can guide you in your future tasks:

• Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online
• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online

I’ll be around to help you whenever you have other queries. Just leave a reply in this thread and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a great day and keep safe.

Thank you for your reply.  Before I got your message I did some things and wonder if they are a viable alternative.  I deleted the transaction from my chart of accounts register for Opening Balance Equity.  I then created a new transaction as a journal entry and chose the account "Opening Balance Equity."   In creating the new transaction I used the + New option which requires me to pick one of a number of types, such as expense, deposit, credit card credit, credit card expense, journal entry, etc.  Does the way I did it make sense?

Thanks for keeping us updated, DebHC.

Deleting the mistakenly recorded entry and reentering the correct one would also do the trick. Great job on that.

To fully complete the process, you'll have to manually mark the journal entry as reconciled so it will serve as an opening balance during reconciliation. This balance is the starting point for the account. It summarises all the past transactions in your bank account up to the opening balance date. Here's how to do it:

1. Select Accounting from the sidebar menu.
2. Go to Chart of Accounts.
3. Find the account holding the transaction, then click View register. 
4. Click the journal entry to expand the view.
5. From the Checkmark column, keep clicking the checkbox until the box you see R. This will mark the entry as reconciled.
6. Select Save, then close the account register.

To learn more about how opening balance works, you read this guide: Enter an opening balance for an account. I've also included an article that will help you keep your accounts balanced and up-to-date:

• Reconcile an account
• Fix issues the first time you reconcile an account
• Fix issues at the end of reconciliation

Do let me know if you need more help in accomplishing your other tasks by leaving a comment below. I'll always have your back.

That is very helpful on the opening balance equity.  Now that I've fixed that I find I have another problem with the beginning balance.  When I reconcile QBO asks for the beginning balance, the ending balance and the ending statement date.  The beginning balance is wrong and cannot be edited.  How can I edit the beginning balance so it matches the beginning balance on my statement?

I've got you covered, DebHC.

You can modify the beginning balance by going to the Chart of Accounts page.

Here are the steps:

1. Go to Accounting > Chart of Accounts.
2. Locate the account, then go to the Action column and select View register.
3. Find the opening balance entry. Tip: If you've got the Date column sorted from newest to oldest, the opening balance entry may be at the end of the list.
4. Click the opening balance entry and edit the amount. Tip: If you're not able to edit the amount directly on this screen, in some cases you can edit by selecting the Edit icon.
5. Hit Save. Your change will not be saved if you navigate away from the register without saving.

Please see these sample screenshots for a visual reference:

Once done, you can continue reconciling your account. 

I've got these articles for more details:

• Edit an incorrect opening balance
• What's an opening balance?

I'm just a post away if you need more help with your QuickBooks Online account. Take care and stay safe!

I did do a  journal entry to enter the opening balance in the account (-$5498.68).  For the first reconciliation that is also the beginning balance for the first statement.  I'm in the middle of reconciling a credit card account.  It shows an imbalance of -$52.18) even though all the charges and payments are the same in QBO and in the bank.  When I select "Edit info" it tells me the beginning balance is -$15,366.60.  Shouldn't it be -$5498.68?   Something is preventing me from reconciling this account.  Can anyone help?

Don't sweat, @DebHC. I'm here to help get your beginning balance accurate upon reconciling accounts in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Firstly, I want to appreciate all the efforts you exert to fix the issues of reconciling accounts. Let me provide several reasons why your beginning balances have a discrepancy and know how to get this resolve. Here's a list of some of them:

• You entered an incorrect opening balance when they created the account in QuickBooks.
• You added transactions that are older than the opening balance but didn't edit the original opening balance entry to reflect the change.
• You edited, deleted, moved, or unreconciled an already reconciled transaction. This changes the ending balance of your last reconciliation, which impacts the beginning balance of the next one.
• You manually reconciled a transaction, so it didn't show up on the next reconciliation.

To get this fixed, let's take these steps to correct the beginning balance:

Step 1: Review the original opening balance.

Step 2: Check your bank statement.

Step 3: Match and categorize downloaded transactions.

Step 4: Review any discrepancy reports.

For detailed information on each step, you can read this article: Fix issues for accounts you've reconciled in the past in QuickBooks Online.

You might also want to check out this article to learn more about the reconciliation workflow: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Please post a reply below if you need further assistance on reconciling accounts in QuickBooks Online. I'll be more than happy to assist you again. Have a great day and take care always.

The credit card balance i opened at $0.00

How do I change this. Every post copies and pastes "click the gear, chart of accounts, find the account, view register, and edit"

But you cant. the opening balance says $0.00 with no place to edit. and there is no entry for "opening balance equity" because the account was incorrectly started at $0.00. It starts its first entry with a $42 charge on 1/2/22. but the previous balance on the card was actually $6,922. Id like to make this balance show for the correct statement date without having to do an adjusting journal entry.

Why are we not able to change this. We pay over $50 a month for this program, and there is a surprising lack of control we actually have when we maneuver through it.

Hi, rr32.

I see the duplicate post of your concern. My colleague already responded and shared some information on this issue.

Please check this link for your reference: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/payments/re-how-to-categorize-job-recruiting-expen....

The Community is always here to help you out. Don't hesitate to drop a reply below.