Completely deleting a prior year in QuickBooks Desktop

dcarey · ‎January 26, 2021

I started at our company on the premise that I was going to implement QuickBooks and modernize the way things are done financially. My predecessor did just about everything by hand and on spreadsheets. FY 2019 I started setting up QB and he kept doing things his way, so we had 2 sets of books. I started getting things set up in the way we wanted to see them going forward. There was a lot of trial and error as we figured out how to set things up in order to pull the reports we want. By the end of 2019 things were good as far as set up. I used QB FY2020 exclusively as my predecessor retired.

We used his books for taxes, etc. for 2019. My 2019 is not accurate due to the trial and error stuff. Is there a way to completely delete everything that was entered in the year 2019 without having to do Every. Single. Entry individually? It messes up my balance sheet and is just not useful at all for us. I want it out of there. Any way to do this more easily?

jamespaul · ‎January 26, 2021

Hello, dcarey.

I hope you're doing well so far since you've started. I can recommend a couple of ways to easily delete your 2019 data.

The first method is to create a new company file and export the lists and other data. You'll want to export only the 2020 data to the new one. Keep the old company file as a backup or an archive.

To export or import your lists:

Go to the File menu.
Hover on Utilities.
Choose either Export or Import.

Also, you'll want to look for a third party app to let you export those 2020 transactions. I've provided a link to our App Center below.

The second method is to use the Condense Utility tool. Due to its complexity, I do recommend reading this article to know more about the process: Use the Condense Data utility.

There are also other options out there. You can look for third party apps that can specifically delete those 2019 records at once. I recommend browsing in our QuickBooks Desktop App Center: https://desktop.apps.com/home.

Do you need help with your 2020 data? We have a variety of help content to guide you in managing your transactions and lists. Browse them here: QuickBooks Desktop general topics page.

If you have more concerns on managing your company data, do let me know in the reply section below. You can also add any other questions you might have for QuickBooks Desktop.

dcarey · ‎January 27, 2021

Thank you. I am going to try one of the 3rd party apps today. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fiat Lux - ASIA · ‎January 27, 2021

@dcarey

You may utilize a deleter tool

https://transactionpro.grsm.io/qbd

https://partners.saasant.com/affiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=5051_2

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Completely deleting a prior year in QuickBooks Desktop