budget reports

Hello there, @resourcewest.

An inactive account will show on the Budget Overview report if it contains transactions for that period. To verify this, you can review your Chart of Accounts. I'll guide you how.

1. Go to the Lists menu and then select Chart of Accounts.
2. Put a check in the Include inactive box.
3. Double-click the inactive account to open.

Once you've seen the transactions, you can either delete them or change the account it is associated with. Then, recreate the report and check if you can still see the inactive accounts.

If the inactive account has a zero balance, you can customize the report to exclude the zero balance accounts. 

Here's how: 

1. On the report's page, click Customize Report at the upper right of the page.
2. Select the Fonts & Numbers tab.
3. Put a checkmark in the Except Zero Amounts box. 
4. Click OK. 

Also, I've got some helpful articles for you to check out about Chart of Accounts and customizing a report:

• Understand the QuickBooks Chart of Accounts
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop

You can always reach back to me for additional QuickBooks related questions. It's my pleasure to help. Have a good one.

The problem is in the budget, it is adding inactive accounts that have zero actual activity and a budget number that I did not enter when I created the budget (from scratch)

Allow me to chime in, @resourcewest.

If the accounts you made inactive had a balance, QuickBooks creates a journal entry to move the remaining balance to another account, so it doesn't disappear from your books. This means your actual transactions in the account don't disappear and stay on your financial reports. The journal entries are created even if your accounts have had zero activity after you made them inactive. You can find more information in this article: Delete an account on your chart of accounts. 

Please don't hesitate to touch base with me here if you need any additional assistance. I look forward to hearing from you again.