I am tracking family expenses, no business. I upgraded from QB self-employed -> Online. All of my carefully categorized data now shows as "personal expense". Help please!

Hello there, jdfennell.

Although QuickBooks Self-Employed exports the file, QuickBooks Online may not keep them when you import the file. The categories in QuickBooks Self-Employed are based on a Schedule C, and QuickBooks Online doesn't use the same categories. 

You can create another account where to track your personal expenses categorize the transactions again within QuickBooks Online. Let me show you how:

1. Log in to QuickBooks Online.
2. From the Accounting menu, select Chart of Accounts. 
3. At the upper-right, click New.
4. Select Expenses or Other Expenses and specify the expense Detail type. 
5. Enter the Account Name.
6. Click Save and Close.

Then, you can categorize the transactions again to the account you just created. Just click the Banking or Transactions menu and select Banking. Click the bank and go to the For Review tab to start categorizing. 

You can check out these articles that will help you through converting your QuickBooks Self-Employed account to QuickBooks Online:

• Switch from QuickBooks Self-Employed to QuickBooks Online
• Import bank transactions using Excel CSV files

Always know that the Community is around to help you with anything that you need assistance with. Stay safe and take care!

Thanks for the quick reply.

Ideal for me would be getting back to my Quickbooks Self-Employed state. I just set things up yesterday and imported 2020 data from all of my financial accounts. I spent a couple hours categorizing. When I wasn't satisfied with the reporting I upgraded to Quickbooks Online and had all the category information (which is the most important to me) blown away.

I tried creating a new Quickbooks Self-Employed account and importing data from my accounts again, but even in Self-Employed those transactions are showing up as "Personal Expense" instead of, say "Shopping", "Travel", "Home Improvement", etc. Any idea why I can't get even that state back?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for coming back. I appreciate you for exporting your data from QuickBooks Online (QBO) into QuickBooks Self-Employed (QBSE). jdfennell.

The QBSE version is designed for freelancers or self-employed individuals, while QBO is for small business owners.

At this time, there isn't an integrated way to switch a QBSE account to QBO or vice versa. The imported transactions will show under the Personal Expense category instead of how you categorize them in QBO. This is because QBO doesn't use the same categories in QBSE that are based on Schedule C.

In this case, we need to manually categorize the Personal Expense transactions as Shopping, Travel, Home Improvement, etc. in your account. Just follow the steps and details in this article: Categorize transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed.

For more insights about managing your business in QBSE, visit our QBSE Helpful Articles page.

The Community will always have your back if you need anything else in running your business in QBSE. I'll be here to ensure your success. Take care always. 

@jdfennell 

QB is not for personal purpose. Explore Mint.