Change the income account to a product or service item

I'll share some insights about changing the account for a product/service item, 1baradas.

When we change the account of a product or service, QuickBooks will prompt us if we'd want to update the past transactions or not. For service and non-inventory items, the program will provide us the Also update this account in historical transactions checkbox if we'd like to apply the changes to all of the transactions that use the item.

For inventory  items, the checkbox doesn’t appear since inventory items track quantities on hand using First In, First Out (FIFO) method. FIFO affects your assets and Cost of Sale (COS) differently from service and non-inventory items. If we change the income account for inventory items, it will only affect the new transactions. If you want to update all the past transactions, we can create a new item with the correct income account and use it to replace the old item. 

I'll guide you how:

1. Select Sales from the sidebar menu, then choose Products and Services.
2. Click the New button, then select Stock.
3. Enter the necessary information, then click Save and close.
4. Go back to the Sales menu, then select Invoices.
5. Choose the invoice that you want to update.
6. Select the delete icon at the end of the line of the old inventory item.
7. Add the new inventory item, and enter the corresponding quantity.
8. Select Save.
9. Repeat the same process for the past transactions that you want to update.

Here's how to change the income account for your items:

1. Select Sales from the sidebar menu.
2. Choose Products and Services.
3. Select the appropriate item, then click Edit in the ACTION column.
4. Choose the account that you want to use from the Income account drop-down menu.

In case you need to track your best sellers or the total sales for each product or service, you can refer to this article in utilizing reports to see your sales and inventory status.

Feel free to drop a comment below if you have further questions about this matter. I'm always available here and ready to help.

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@KlentB wrote:

...When we change the account of a product or service, QuickBooks will prompt us if we'd want to update the past transactions or not. For service and non-inventory items, the program will provide us the Also update this account in historical transactions checkbox if we'd like to apply the changes to all of the transactions that use the item. ...

I am not prompted as to whether I want to update past transactions after changing the income account of a service item.

Hello there, Tom_von_Alten,

You'll want to check if the past transactions are automatically applied. Check the bank register to see.

Furthermore, if it didn't update past transactions, you can toggle it to a different account. Then, toggle it back to its correct account.

Here's an article for reference: Change the account for a product/service item.

Let me know how it goes, and don't hesitate to leave a reply if there's anything else I can help you with.

If I change the product's income account and apply to historical, will this update the sales prices on all those previous transactions? My pricing wasn't standardized before now. 

Hi,

I tried changing the income account for the product but it's still not updating the historical info..

I can think of one reason why the historical information didn't update in QuickBooks Online, Lily. I'll share some ideas and guide you through what to do.

As KlentB mentioned, QBO will ask if you'd also want to update past transactions or not when modifying the income account of your Products and Services. If you're trying to do it for your services and non-inventory items, make sure to tick the  Also update this account in historical transactions checkbox. The changes will then be applied to previous data. See the image below for reference:

On the other hand, the checkbox isn't present for the inventory items. This is because inventory items track quantities on hand using the First In, First Out (FIFO) method. This affects your assets and Cost of Sale (COS) differently with services and non-inventory items. Changing the income account for inventory items only impacts new transactions. As a workaround, you can create a new item with the appropriate income account and use it to replace the old item. This will update all the past transactions.

I'll show you how:

1. Open the Sales menu, then hit Products and Services.
2. Click the New button, then choose Inventory.
3. Enter the necessary information, then hit Save and close.                                                                        
4. Go back to the Sales menu, then navigate to the Invoices tab.
5. Choose the invoice that you want to update.
6. Click the delete icon at the end of the line of the old inventory item.                                                                                            
7. Add the new inventory item, and enter the corresponding quantity.                   
8. Hit Save.
9. Repeat the same process for the past transactions that you want to update.

For future use, feel free to read this guide about adding sales taxes to your products and services: Set up and use automated sales tax in QuickBooks Online.

You can always get back to us by leaving a comment. We'll make sure to respond as soon as we can if you have other concerns with this topic or QuickBooks in particular. Have a great rest of the week!