How do I change the parent of a customer? I used to be able to do this and now the system does not let me.

Hi there, prairiestreetaut.

The error means, you cannot change who this customer bills with because there are invoices for the parent that include charges for this customer, or there are payments from the parent that pay off invoices for this customer. that's why you're unable to change the parent customer.

I suggest editing the transaction where the parent customer linked. This way, to make sure all payments and invoices are unlinked from the parent before changing their parent customer to a new customer.

Here's how:

1. Click the Sales at the left panel and choose the Customers tab.

2. Select the transaction that linked to the parent customer and double click it to expand the page.

3. From the customer's box, select new customer.

4. Hit the Save and close button.

Once done, you can now change the parent customer to a new customer. please follow the steps below.

1. Select the Sales at the left panel and choose Customers tab.

2. Choose customer and click the Edit button.

3. Choose a new customer from Enter parent customer drop-down list.

4. Click the Save button.

Please check this article on how add, delete, merge, and restore customers in QuickBooks Online: Manage your customer list.

Please let me know if you have other questions related with QuickBook. I'm always here to help you.

Thank you for the post, but the notes you gave are the same as are in the help section.  The issue is that this used to work before and no longer works.  

The resolution you gave disconnects all of the history, which needs to stay with the two independent records.   This process work before and all accounts were balanced along with each retaining the history.  The question is whether there is a way to do this today, or has QB broken my process?

Thanks for getting back to us here in the Community, @prairiestreetaut.

I scrolled back to your main post to understand more about the problem you encounter during the changing process. I've tried to replicate on my test account, and everything is working as expected.

I'm able to transfer the sub-customer (w/ transactions) into a different parent. As initial troubleshooting, please start with logging into your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account using a private browser (incognito).

There are times that the browser is full of frequently accessed sites, causing some unusual behavior. Here are the keyboard shortcut keys:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + N (Google Chrome).
• Ctrl + Shift + P (Firefox or Internet Explorer).
• Control + Option + P (Safari).

If it works, switch back to your current browser and clear its cache. Sometimes, it becomes overwhelmed with older data, which can lead to viewing and performance issues.

Performing the clearing process will refresh the system, and you'll be able to start QuickBooks in a clean slate. However, if the issue persists, I suggest using other supported browsers.

Please know that I'm only a few clicks away if you have any other issues or concerns. I'll be happy to help. Have a great one.

This is still an issue.

We used to be able to uncheck and check the sub-customer box. Some of our clients pay their invoices and sometimes the parent company pays those invoices. 

We used to be able to remove them in order to create an accurate statement, but now the same error pops up.

I've spoken to at least three different people and literally no one was able to reply without suggesting awful answers that made no sense.

You're

Thanks for joining the thread, @sarahi.wilson.

Based on the information you provided, when adding a sub-customer to a parent account, you need to choose the bill with parent option. This will allow you to have both the parent and sub customer charges show up on the invoice. By using this method, you'll be able to create more accurate invoices. The screenshot below will show you where the option:

You may also want to check out this article: What does the bill with parent feature let you do on Invoices? It'll explain how you can bill the customer and sub customer separately or together on your Invoices.

Please let me know if this gets you back to business. I'll keep an eye out for your response.

The point here is that we have clients set up as subclients (with the bill with parent option set and numerous invoices and payments paid by the parent) that we need to move out to be independent clients.

In the past (meaning up until about 2 months ago) we were able to simply uncheck the "Is sub-customer" checkbox.

We cannot do that any more due to this error:  "You cannot change who this customer bills with because there are invoices for the parent that include charges for this customer, or there are payments from the parent that pay off invoices for this customer. Delete all payments or invoices to this customer's parent which link to this customer."  

And we absolutely need to be able to do this.

So... was this an intentional change, or is this a bug that has been introduced with an update somewhere along the way?

Sarahi

Thanks for getting back with us, @sarahi.wilson.

I'm here to clarify on what the error you're receiving means. QuickBooks Online has checks in place to prevent errors when moving or editing information. Since there are existing transactions linked to the sub-customer you're trying to move to it's own parent, you'll need to go into each transaction for that particular sub-customer and change the assigned customer to the parent, then you'll be able to uncheck the box. There are a few things we need to remember when moving the transactions:

• You'll need to edit one transaction at a time.
• Changing the customer name on a transaction might unlink associated payments and other data.
• Re-apply the associated payments and other data or transactions.

Here's how to change the customer name on the sales transaction:

1. Select Sales on the left menu and go to the All Sales tab.
2. Open the transaction you want to update.
3. Change the customer name and click Save and close.
4. Click Yes to confirm the action.

You can also update the transactions through the customer profile (under the Customer tab).

Let me know if you need more help with this. I'll be here to help.

You are suggesting that I go in and edit thousands of transactions to do something that I used to be able to do by unchecking a single checkbox... I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

It's annoying as heck that these restrictions were just put in place 2 months ago. My entire billing process, which has been in place for 4+ years now, has to be completely reworked to get around this change.

For one silly checkbox.

If it helps anyone else, I guess my only option, other than spending countless hours editing transactions, is to create a copy of the sub client (without a parent in my case... and probably with a new parent in the OP's case) and deactivating the original.

Obviously, this screws up all the billing history (as I now have to look in TWO places to see a client's payment history) and generally wastes a ton of time. Though not as much as the suggested "solution."

This would be some much easier (for at least the customers in this thread!) to just make the stupid box uncheckable again!

Sarahi

Your systems don't work anymore. Just like the others it is absolutly horrible that this was changed and makes me extremely irritated. I have to be able to change the Parent customer without loosing all the records when switching to a another parent company. Just as the others in the conversation. This use to work and someone had the bright idea of changing it. I am not going to do as you say and make thousands of changes, this is very impractical. Change it back please and allow us to change the parent customer as we feel fit. If you want,give a warning what the effects could be but don't block us. The methods I read about from the Quickbooks representitives do not work.

I appreciate you joining in the thread, @DarrenSimons.

Currently, there are no updates about the process when making changes to the parent customer. You can still modify the parent customer in QuickBooks if there are no transactions linked to the sub-customer. 

If the payment is under the parent's name while the invoice or bill is under the sub, the system will automatically recognize this when attempting to uncheck the Is sub-customer box. That's why there's an error prompt. Be sure there are no linked transactions on both sides before changing the parent customer.

As Michael K suggested, the only way to uncheck the box is to edit the transaction that is linked.

Let me know if you have further clarifications about the process. I want to help however I can. Take care and have a good one.

Why did you change it to begin with. I need to be able to have all the records follow from one customer to the next by changing the Parent customer. This worked for us many times and then all of the sudden it does not. I must be able to do this since this happens to me on a regular basis. This way all the service records follow a paticular vehicle which is listed as a sub customer.

This use to work why was it changed. It does not now, I need everything to follow to the new parent customer like it use to.

Still doesn't work. I used to be able to uncheck the "Is sub-customer" box and send statements to the individual stores. Then I'd make them a sub-customer again so when the payments are received from corporate I can easily enter  them. Now I can't do that and my customers a asking for their statements. I deleted MONTHS worth of payments trying to resolve this. How can I tell which payments or invoices are causing the problem??? WHAT IS THE FIX???

Thanks for the response, @eyecanfixthat.

I recommend reaching out to our Online Support to further investigate this behavior. Rest assured, they have tools that can get you on a screen share with them and perform some troubleshooting. Here's how to get in touch:

1. Go to the (?) Help icon at the top-right of your account, then Contact Us.
2. Type in your question or concern in the Description Box then hit Let's Talk.
3. Choose how you want to get contacted.

You'll hear from an agent shortly. They can guide you on the right path with your transactions.

Let me know how the conversation goes! I'll be here. Have a beautiful day.

I reached out to support and got nowhere. I was supposed to be contacted by another higher level support person but it hasn't happened. I'm considering other invoicing and accounting options. Please FIX this PROBLEM.

I've tried to contact QB support twice now and I feel like they're reading from scripts but have no idea how to use QuickBooks.

As Sarahi has said this wont work i have thousands of transactions that would need editing. But also wont work as i need to switch ie. we do national account work so say banks fall under the parent account every 3-5 years these parent accounts change. Just using banks with 5 different banks and each with 30-40 locations with monthly billing and other billing thats about 3500 transactions per year i have to change when a parent changes so i can keep track of previous estimates etc. This change should of not been done as there is too much of a negative effect.

All your recommendations of what to do is irrelevant what we need is the code rewritten to have it like it used to be.

Please give us a response on what the devs are doing to allow for quick changing of the parent.

Thanks

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@sarahi.wilson wrote:

You are suggesting that I go in and edit thousands of transactions to do something that I used to be able to do by unchecking a single checkbox... I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.

It's annoying as heck that these restrictions were just put in place 2 months ago. My entire billing process, which has been in place for 4+ years now, has to be completely reworked to get around this change.

For one silly checkbox.

If it helps anyone else, I guess my only option, other than spending countless hours editing transactions, is to create a copy of the sub client (without a parent in my case... and probably with a new parent in the OP's case) and deactivating the original.

Obviously, this screws up all the billing history (as I now have to look in TWO places to see a client's payment history) and generally wastes a ton of time. Though not as much as the suggested "solution."

This would be some much easier (for at least the customers in this thread!) to just make the stupid box uncheckable again!

Sarahi

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Hi @GREG52,

I'm here to share insight on your query about sub-customers. 

As my peers mentioned above, if transactions are linking both the parent and its sub-customer, the option to change the sub-customer back into a customer won't be available. The workaround for this specific issue has been mentioned above as well. You'll have to edit those transactions related to both the parent and the sub-customer. You can make use of the Transaction List by Customer report, to get a view of the related transactions you need to edit. 

On the other hand, you can take a look at this article: Import customer or vendor contacts from Outlook, Excel or Gmail. It's a guide on how you can import your customers or vendors directly to QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

You can also keep an eye on this page: The QuickBooks Blog. This is where you can see a list of updates or changes to QBO, every month. 

Have other questions you'd like to ask? Post them below, and I'll be sure to get back to you.

This is insane we are talking thousands of entries. 

Need to let us decide. It use to work