starting over

Welcome to the Community, @speaklife. Let's work this out to have you back on track and start over again while ensuring all your data is in tacked and gets arranged inside your QuickBooks Online (QBO) company.

Although this is a long and tiresome process, I believe you can get through this situation because you're born for greatness and success. Before we do so, I'd like to clear out one thing about purging an account in QBO. This process doesn't cancel your QBO and payroll subscription and is only applicable if your company is less than 60 days old. With that said, you won't have to pay again to use our program once you've purged your company.

Now let's dig deeper into your concern. Since your QBO account is older than 60 days, know that purging it is not an option to start over again. In cases like this, you'll need to cancel your subscription and have everything back to square one. But since the account you have is running automatic federal tax payments and is already scheduled to do clearing next week, I recommend waiting for it to complete before you decide if you want to continue or cancel your company account. This way, we can avoid losing your latest data and making things worst.

Also, you've mentioned only two years' worth of transactions were available inside your company. To get around this, you can reach out to your bank so they can give you a copy of all the transactions you've done for the past five years. Doing this ensures you get to keep all your data and have them available on your QuickBooks Online company.

Please know that even if you cancel or continue with your company. The process is still the same. The only way to get a hold of transactions you have had for the last five years is by requesting copies from your bank and having them imported back into your account.

Once you're ready to import transactions, see this article for a step-by-step process: Manually upload transactions into QuickBooks Online.

To add up, you can visit this page to learn more about the proper formatting when getting downloaded transactions into your QBO account: Format CSV files in Excel to get bank transactions into QuickBooks.

@speaklife, please don't hesitate to get back to me if you need further assistance. I'm rooting for your success, and if you need help performing specific tasks inside your company, feel free to post here again. I've got your back. Take care!

Thanks KurtKyle_M but the reason my account only has 2 years is bc the bank and credit card company only keep 2 years available online.  I have the older transactions in QB Desktop files and in spreadsheets but was disappointed to learn how little info can be uploaded from spreadsheets and how much would have to be entered manually.  I have over 5 years of transactions that would need to be edited and categorized manually because of the 4 column limit.

I also wanted to know if my old data would reappear because the instructions state that QBO retains data for a year after deletion but I don't want the messed up data to reappear.  Is there a way for me to avoid restoring the old data?

Thanks for the additional information, @speaklife.

I'm here to provide additional information. 

I understand how seamless uploading your desired transactions in QBO. You'd be glad to know that you can send feedback about the feature you wish to have with QuickBooks Online (QBO).

This way, our Product Developer team can have a look and review it. There are always open for opinions as this helps improve our product to suits your business needs. To send feedback, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
4. Then select Next to submit feedback.

You can also see this link for more details: How do I submit feedback?

Additionally, QuickBooks Online keeps data for a year. And it will automatically be deleted after that. There's also no option to avoid it from showing unless you already purge your company. 
 

You can refer to this article in case you'd like to create or add another company file to QuickBooks Online in the future: Manage company files in QuickBooks Online.

Let me know if you have other concerns about managing your QBO account. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for your reply. Have a great day!

 I have over 5 years of transactions that would need to be edited and categorized manually because of the 4 column limit.

You can use a migration tool as a workaround.