What are usage limits in QuickBooks Online?

Learn about usage limits and what your best options are if you reach one.

In early 2019, usage limits were added to QuickBooks Online plans in the U.S. These affect how many users, classes and locations, and chart of accounts elements you can have.

For the first six months after we introduced these changes, you were able to stay in your current plan even if you were over those limits.

Starting in October 2019, QuickBooks Online will no longer support accounts that exceed their plan’s usage limits.

What do I need to do?

Important: Take action before October 28 to be sure you can access your account.

First, sign in to your account to see if you're over a limit:

1. Go to the Settings ⚙ icon and select Account and Settings.
2. Select Usage.

To avoid any disruption, reduce your usage, or upgrade to QuickBooks Online Advanced.

Starting Monday, October 28, accounts that are over a limit may be suspended on your next renewal date.

For example, if you use QuickBooks Online Plus and have 251 chart of accounts, you'll need to upgrade to Advanced to match your usage needs or reduce your data to within the limits for Plus.

Notes:

• If you subscribe through your accountant, contact them for any changes to your plan.
• If you have multiple companies, you’ll need to check the usage for each company.

What are my plan’s usage limits?

These are the usage limits for QuickBooks Online. Usage limits depend on your plan. To see which plan you have:

1. Go to the Settings ⚙ icon and select Account and Settings.
2. Select Billing and Subscription, then check your plan details.

Notes:

• Only active accounts, classes, and locations count towards the limit.
• The user limits also count pending invites you’ve sent (until they're automatically removed in 90 days).
• Billable users are admin, standard, and custom users. Learn more about user types.

How do I know if I’m over the limit?

There are a few different ways to check if you’re below or above the limit. Here’s how:

List view

To help you understand which items count towards limits, we are introducing a new filter in the Lists view for Chart of Accounts, Classes and Locations. This will show a list of all the items that counts toward the limit:

1. Select either Chart of Accounts, Classes, or Locations.
2. Beside the Filter by name field, select the drop-down.
3. Choose Counts toward limits.

Limit indicator banner

If you’re in either the Chart of Accounts, Classes, or Locations page, an indicator banner at the top of the page will tell you if you’re below limit or exceeded your limit.

Usage Limits dashboard

Your usage limits dashboard will show you how many items you have for each usage limit. To open the dashboard:

1. Sign in to QuickBooks Online and select the Settings ⚙ icon.
2. Select Account and Settings.
3. Select the Usage tab.

Note: If you don’t see the usage tab, contact the admin user.

What happens if my account is suspended?

To reactivate your account after it’s been suspended, you’ll need to call us.

While your account is suspended:

• You'll be able to see your QuickBooks data and transactions for a year. But you won't be able to add new transactions or change anything.
• You can’t reduce your usage.
• You can export data to Excel or a desktop version of QuickBooks.
• If you signed up for QuickBooks Online Payroll through your QuickBooks subscription, your Payroll subscription will also be suspended.

How do I upgrade?

If you’re ready, upgrade here.

If you'd like more info, you can find out about QuickBooks Advanced features and pricing. Or if you're curious about what QuickBooks Advanced looks like and can do, you can always test it out for free in Test Drive.

If you upgrade but then downgrade back to QuickBooks Plus, Essentials, or Simple Start, you’ll need to reduce everything to their usage limits when you downgrade.

How do I get below the limits?

See these articles for steps.

• You can manage classes and locations. Or if you're using classes to track projects, now you can use the Projects feature instead.
• Make an account inactive for the chart of accounts.
• You can also manage account users.

What are classes, locations, and chart of accounts?

Classes and locations

Location Tracking and Class Tracking lets you track your income and expenses in QuickBooks Online Plus or Advanced. Class tracking specifies a different class for each detail line of a transaction. Location tracking allows you to assign a location to an entire transaction.

Chart of accounts

The chart of accounts is the backbone of accounting software. All assets, liabilities, income, and expenses are recorded here in an account or sub-account.

Chart of Accounts, Classes and Locations are counted towards limits when they are:

• Added by you or someone with permissions in your QuickBooks Online account.
• Generated by a third-party application you or someone with permissions has connected to your QuickBooks Online account* (these apps are allowed to add above the usage limits).

They do not count towards limits when they are:

• Generated by QuickBooks Online at sign up or from usage of services such as:
  • Sales tax
  • Shipping
  • Multi-Currency
  • Etc.
• Generated by QuickBooks Services that you or someone with permissions has connected to your QuickBooks Online account, such as:
  • Intuit Payroll
  • QuickBooks Online Payroll
  • Etc.
• Imported into QuickBooks Online from QuickBooks Desktop

Third-party apps can continue to add to your chart of accounts above the usage limit. But you won’t be able to manually add to your chart of accounts, classes and locations beyond the usage limit and will have to upgrade to QuickBooks Online Advanced or reduce list in these areas.