Add/Edit multiple list entries vs manual item updates

Hi, @906Truck.

Thanks for letting us share some insights on your concern. I can provide information with why the previous transactions were not affected by the changes you made on the account for the inventory items.

When making changes in the Add/Edit multiple list entries window, you'll be prompted that "You have changed the account associated with this item. All future transactions referring to this item will use this new account." This means that the update will take effect for the transactions you'll be creating moving forward.

This option will only show up if you have updated the item manually from the Edit Item window. There's not a way to do this in Add/Edit Multiple list entries since QuickBooks wants to avoid any batch mistakes if you edit the account by batch and it's also irreversible.

Here are some reminders when changing inventory items:

• Make sure to use the date that is after the date of the last transaction that uses the item in the "as of" date.
• You cannot always change an item back because the types of items that can be changed and what they can be changed to are limited. 

However, you may go directly in all previous transactions and manually do the update. Pull up a Transaction History report and open every transaction that need to be edited.

For future reference, please look into this article: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Inventory-and-projects/Add-edit-and-delete-items/td-p/201687.

That should provide information about Add/Edit multiple list entries versus manual item updates. Let me know if you have further questions and other concern with QuickBooks Desktop. I'm always here to help. Wishing you and your business continued success.

You can address the Account, not the item. It isn't clear why someone wants you to change to subaccounts. You don't typically need more Accounts in QB. But here is an example:

You have an Other Asset account for inventory, and someone wants a structure. You Edit the existing account to Rename it and Renumber it and assign it as Subaccount of the new parent. Done. You never had to change Any Items.

Thank you for getting back to us, 906Truck.

I appreciate you sharing the specific problem with your inventory items. Let's get these items moved to the right accounts.

Since you're unable to change the accounts on the items using the Add/edit multiple items window, you'll need to manually edit the item and toggle the account to update all other existing transactions.

Here's how:

1. Go to Lists and select Item List.
2. Double-click on the item you want to update.
3. Open the item, change the account (to dummy or different account).
4. Click Yes if you'd like to update existing transactions for this item.
5. Open the item again change the account to the correct account.
6. Save then Yes to update all existing transactions.

You may find this article helpful: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/community/Inventory-and-projects/Add-edit-and-delete-items/m-p/201687#....

If you'd like to go through this over the phone, you can call our dedicated team who will be happy to assist you. Our contact details can be found here along with our opening hours:

1. Go to: https://help.quickbooks.intuit.com/en_US/contact.
2. Choose your QuickBooks Product.
3. Select your QuickBooks version.
4. On the Contact Us page, click a topic.
5. Click on the Get Phone Number button to see the support number.

If you require more information about inventory items, don't hesitate to let us know. We'll be here to help you out.

Hi, 906Truck.

I've already updated the steps above.

Please let me know it goes, I'll be around to help you. Have a good one.

Glad to have you again, @Anonymous.

Allow me to share additional information with you on how to update the account associated with your inventory items. 

Everytime you update the account where your inventory items are connected, it will prompt you whether you want to update all the transactions or not. You will see a prompt once you click the OK button.

Please refer to the screenshot below:

That should do it! Let me know if you have other questions about managing your inventory item list. I'm always here to help.

I have a similar problem but with Non-Inventory items (00,000+) where in the past the items have been imported with only a single account (debit or credit but not both) causing numerous financial reporting issues.

I've spent a good 24+ hours as well trying to correct these deficiencies with the last 12 hours focused on correcting all of the items via Add/edit multiple list entries.  Unfortunately discovering that the changes are not reflected in the historical financial statements.

Now that the accounts have been changed....am I correct in my analysis of previous recommended solutions...that I now have to individually change the items (one by one) to a dummy account and then back to the correct account in order to have the corrections apply historically?

To 11,000+ items???  Not to mention one has to be in Single User Mode thus meaning work has to be accomplished after normal hours and on weekends?

This is the best Quickbooks has to offer?

The best reference for your Chart of Accounts is the tax form you file; there is only One Reporting Line for inventory. You only need One Income, One Inventory and One COGS. If you decide to use more, that is your clarity and instead of micro-managing the chart of accounts, you would be running, for example Sales Reports and Item reports and Profit reports and other analysis reports. These exist to help you avoid micro-managing the chart of accounts, which is not needed.

It adds about 3 seconds to an Edit Item and do two moves, if you realize I want to Edit an item to move the existing data. If you used Add/Edit Multiple, it didn't move anything. So, you Edit an item, as you would have done anyway. You Map it to one account, let it Move, then map it to the right account, and let it move.

Many times, you can "fix the accounts" and not Edit Items at all. Example:

I see a file with 8 COGS accounts (1 per vendor name) and we decide to combine them = Merge Accounts, not Edit item.

Your response does not reference or resolve my question and issue.

Greetings GYoung,

First and foremost, I want you to know that your voice matters and I agree with what you've mentioned on your duplicate post for this issue. Your time is very valuable to me, and there should be a seamless way to update these items in QuickBooks.

This isn't the impression that I'd like for you to be left with. The updates and changes to QuickBooks are largely the results of feedback provided by users, just like yourself. That said, I'm making it my top priority that your feedback reaches our engineers. After all, enhancements and improvements to QuickBooks functionalities are largely the results of feedback provided by users.

Please don't hesitate to touch base with me here in the Community if there's anything else I can do for you. I assure you that I'll do my best to help you out.

Thank you for your thoughts AldrinS!

While I appreciate your intent the reality is Quickbooks software for manufacturing is fundamentally broken.  At some point in time (or many many times) a company will need to move a small/large number of items to a different account in the Chart of Accounts.  Typically to improve financial reporting by changing the categories of financial measurements.  Whether to clean up historical data or simply change the financial reporting to better match the companies activities and costs....from changing product lines to changing cost centers/categories.

Quickbooks doesn't create the same handicap with the Chart of Accounts.  Changes can be made quickly and are applied historically without issue or multiple steps.

Same should be the case with items and mapping those items to the Chart of Accounts.

Unless there is another option to make changes to item lists effecting historical financials without doing it one transaction at a time in multiple steps in off hours Single User mode...Quickbooks is fundamentally broken and this is a deal breaker for manufacturing leaving me no other option than to recommend to the corporate stakeholders that the company transition to a new accounting software provider.

What happens when you need to break out all of the items from that one account into separate accounts to reflect different cost centers?

I hate to give up on Quickbooks since there are many other valuable time saving aspects of the software.  As such, are there any recommended 3rd party applications that can handle this task.

I currently have Transaction Pro 7.0 for importing items from our inventory software.  I have reached out to their customer support to see if their application will work.  Are there any others?

Thank you in advance!

Hi there, @GlenYoung007.

I found your original post. Please refer to this link to get the details: Here. Have a good one.

This function: "into separate accounts to reflect different cost centers?"

Is available by using Class Tracking. You set up Classes, for Cost Center, Divisions, Departments. That reveals the additional cross-reference field on all data entries. Now you can run P&L by Class and Balance Sheet by Class. Open Help and read about Class tracking. This allows you to avoid micro-managing the chart of accounts. The best reference for the chart of accounts is the tax form you file. It doesn't have multiples of the same account type.

Yes separating data by class is a useful tool.  That said, it doesn't resolve Quickbooks Enterprise Manufacturing edition core problem of needing to map multiple inventory or non-inventory items to a different account that is reflected in the historical financial statements.  The only feasible method is ONE BY ONE.  When you have 00's to 00,000's of items that need changed....Quickbooks is fundamentally broken as an accounting software for manufacturing companies or other entities needing to track, manage, and manipulate 000's of items.

@GYoung

@GlenYoung007

You posted this multiple times; you have learned that the program offers to move the data only if you Edit each item individually. You seem to be beating a dead horse; you seem to have learned the answers. It doesn't help to badger your peer users on the community forum about something no one here controls; there are no Intuit Programmers on the peer user community.

Thank you for the new information.  I'll quit beating the dead horse here and focus instead on finding a new accounting software provider.

Thank you for the new information.  Several respondents appeared to be associated with Intuit and Quickbooks.  Since you are not associated my apologies for beating what appears to be a very dead horse.  I'll instead focus on finding a new accounting software package.