opening balance equity

@Janet1981 

Equity is the answer to the math formula, total assets less total liabilities, it is automatically calculated with every transaction.

Opening balance equity is an account QB invented.  The only time it gets an entry is when you create an account with a balance.  And that is proper.  After all opening balance accounts are created you need to move OBE to owner equity with a journal entry.

Debit OBE for the balance and credit owner equity.

For a company taxed as a sole proprietor (schedule C) or partnership (form 1065), I recommend you have the following for owner/partner equity accounts  (one set for each partner if a partnership)

[name] Equity (do not post to this account it is a summing account)
>> Equity
>> Equity Drawing - you record value you take from the business here
>> Equity Investment - record value you put into the business here

@Rustler thanks for your input, but in my case, OBE account was created once i connected credit card to qbo. For every credit card BofA creates Corp account, basically, there are 2 accounts: CORP account as parent and credit card sub-account. Each has its own feeds: CORP is used for cc payments and finance charges and CC sub has purchases. So I assume that qbo duplicated the balance from cc sub and created the same balance in CORP with corresponding account of OBE.  

Hey, It happened the same to me. I deleted the Opening balance Equity balance from the register but I don't see any downloaded transactions. Why? I linked my CC account following the step by step from QBO but I don't see any transactions downloaded.

Thank you for joining the thread, @Monn88.

I can help you with downloading your transactions to QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Once your bank or credit card account is connected to QuickBooks, the system automatically downloads your bank transactions. If they're not showing up or added on the Banking page, then you may need to do a manual update to refresh their connection.

Here's how:

1. Open your QBO account, then click on Banking or Transactions at the left pane.
2. Go to the Banking tab.
3. Tap on Update.
4.  If you see a message about additional authentication, follow the onscreen steps to continue the update. 

For additional tips about fixing bank transactions that are not downloaded to QuickBooks, you can check out this link: What to do if you get a bank error or can't download transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Once the bank transactions are now downloaded into QBO successfully, here's how you can review and categorize them.

If you have other banking questions, please feel free to click the Reply button and add a comment below. I'll be right here to provide additional assistance. Wishing you and your business all the best!

I have a similar issue.  I have a client with a chase credit card account that has 2 users.  One users does the transactions, but the bank posts them to the other account (primary account I suppose).  In QBO I have a feed on both of them, however after categorizing the expense, I unmatch it, switch it to the primary account and save.  Then when it comes in the bank feed again for the secondary user I exclude it.

However, every time I click Update, QBO posts an opening balance equity balance on the secondary users card for the current open balance on the primary users card.  I have deleted this a dozen times, but it always reposts when I update to pull in new transactions.

To properly reconcile, I need the transactions on the primary users account.  Hence why I switch it, however QBO clearly doesn't like it.

Thoughts or ideas on how to do this differently?

Let me address your confusion about the opening balance that keeps downloaded and how we can start managing your bank transactions from multiple accounts, Retzlaff.

The reason why QuickBooks posts an opening balance equity every time you update your credit card is because it downloads to all accounts when connecting it. To make things right and start managing transactions seamlessly from multiple cards, I'd recommend adding the other credit cards as a sub-account. Doing so will enable their transactions to roll out, depending on where your bank sends the downloaded entries. 

Also, to handle your credit card with multiple associated cards, you can follow my suggestions above. Please know that we can't connect both the parent account and its sub-account, as you'll bump into an error that the account is already connected. Before we begin, you can ask your financial institution how they sent the downloaded transactions. If the transactions are downloaded to one account, connect only to the parent account. If the transactions are downloaded to individual accounts, connect the subaccounts and not the parent account.

At each subaccount level, certain banks might display the total bank balance. This occurs because the bank supplies us with a fixed balance for the complete account, rather than the balance for each subaccount. 

To add an existing account as a sub-account, you can refer to the steps below:

1. Go to the Gear icon and select Chart of Accounts.
2. Locate the account you want to add underneath the parent account and select the small arrow in the action column. Then select Edit.
3. Marck check the Is sub-account and then enter the parent account.
4. Select Save and Close.

After that, you can begin organizing your transactions to ensure they are placed in the appropriate category and reconciled to prevent any discrepancies. I will provide you with the necessary resources to guide you through this process:

• Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online
• Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online
• Fix issues at the end of a reconciliation in QuickBooks Online

Feel free to respond below if you have any other banking inquiries. We are always available to assist you. Take care!