How to exclude inactive accounts from General Ledger.

I was hoping that there would actually be an easy way of doing it. Maybe something Intuit could fix in the future.

I was hoping there would be an easy way of doing it. Maybe Intuit can fix it in the future.

@Anonymous

Please Learn from this input.

@tomlhall

If you made Accounts Inactive in the Chart of Accounts, you told the program to Stop Showing them. @Anonymous This is why your guidance won't work; they Do Not Show in the pop up, once made Inactive, for customizing that report.

@tomlhall

Make Inactive doesn't prevent accounts with Values from showing in reports. It prevents you from continuing to use them Manually or see them for your own use.

The reporting that has the function of "Advanced Customization" to include or not include "Active" accounts is a different use for the word Active. Here, the work Active means "had activity" or not. example:

In a prior year, you had Rental Expense. For the current year, you might still want to see it as Rental Expense = 0, so you either include All, or only Non-Zero, because this account is not Active in the current year from a Fiscal Activities perspective, which has nothing to do with whether you left it Visible or not, as per Basic List Management of "make inactive."

I'm not seeing this got resolved and I am having the same problem.  All of my inactive zero accounts are showing on my general ledger.  I already went into Customize Report, Display Tab, Advanced and selected "In Use".  It still didn't get rid of them.  How the heck do I get rid of these accounts on my report?

Thanks for joining this thread, jgagnon.

I understand the urgency of hiding accounts with zero balances on the General Ledger report.

I also appreciate you for customizing the report by selecting "In Use" to hide them.

It's possible those accounts with zero balances have transactions in them. That's why you're unable to hide them.

You can only hide accounts that don't contain transactions, not the ones that have data with zero balances.

Knowing the source and targets is important when filtering reports. Check this out: Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop to learn more about adding or removing information on your report.

Keep me posted if you have follow-up questions and I'll get back to you.

I have the same issue of inactive accounts showing in my GL reports.

Five old bank accounts that haven't been used since 2010 or earlier. All have zero balances and haven't had any transactions in over a decade. They all had final reconciliations once closed. All five are marked inactive in the chart of accounts list.

In the GL report, I use customize/advanced/"In Use" but two of the five inactive bank accounts still show every month with no transaction lines.

QB  Desktop Pro 2021, have run verify & rebuild multiple times.

Let me add a few pieces of information concerning the report, 888jay.
 

You may see inactive accounts in the General Ledger report. The account status will not change what appears on it. 

The report will include a section for every account, even the inactive or unused accounts for the reporting period. It's how the program works. 

I'll share this blog about General Ledger to help you learn more about it: What is a general ledger, and why is it important?.

If there's anything else that you need, the Community is available 24/7. Don't hesitate to visit us any time. Take care!

Then why does it include only two of the unused, inactive bank accounts, and not all five?

Hi there, @LHOA1.

Thanks for getting back to us.

I've replicated the steps that you've made in the General Ledger report. After filtering the Advance filter by In use, I've found out that the report will still show all of the accounts, including the inactive ones.
 

In your case, the report doesn't include all of the inactive banks. There might be a minor data issue in your file that's causing this behavior. 

To clear this out, let's run some basic troubleshooting steps. Before we start, update QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) to its latest release. This will help you refresh your data and fix some file issues. Here's how:
 

1. Go to the Help menu and select Update QuickBooks Desktop.
2. From the Update Now tab, click Get Updates to start the download.
3. Once the download finishes, restart QuickBooks.
4. When prompted, accept the option to install the new release.

If it doesn't fix the report, run the Verify and Rebuild Data tools. This way, we can identify the cause of the issue and fix it using the Rebuild Data tool. 

If the issue persists, run the repair tool for QBDT for Windows.

You can also check out this article for further guidance in customizing reports in QBDT: How to customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop.

Let me know if you need further assistance in handling your reports. I'll be here to help. Enjoy the day. 

Hi @ReymondO,

1) QB is up to date.

2) Verify Data found no issues.

3) Rebuild Data found no issues.

4) Ran the repair tool and problem persists. (FYI, this is a new-ish install of QB on a new computer. Problem occurred on my previous pc's as well.)

You mention that the G/L report "will still show all of the accounts, including the inactive ones", however, I have probably 20-25 inactive accounts besides these five bank accounts. None of the other inactives show on the report except the two bank accounts. It's behaved this way for years.

Cheers,
Jay

Thanks for updating us, 888jay.

To successfully exclude inactive accounts, I'd recommend contacting our Technical Support Team. They're equipped with tools that can help you with the process.

Here's how to connect with them:
 

1. Select the Help menu.
2. Click QuickBooks Desktop Help.
3. Hit Contact us. 
4. Enter Exclude inactive accounts from General Ledger, in the Tell us more about your question box.
5. Tap Search.
6. Choose either Call us or Message us.
   
   

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

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

If you need further assistance excluding inactive accounts, please post a reply below. I'm just a post away to help you​​​​​​​

Hi @DebSheenD 

I spoke to a tech support rep this morning and did a screen share. She was unable to resolve the issue and reached out to advanced support. A ticket was submitted for a bug fix. Apparently, this is a known issue that has been going on for a long time.

Cheers,

Jay

Hi there, 888jay.

I appreciate you for coming back to the thread to share what you've done to see the cause of the issue you're experiencing. With this, I'll be providing information on what happened after submitted a specific problem to our engineers.

Since you already contacted our support team and a ticket has been raised, rest assured that you're now added to the list of affected users. You'll receive updates through email once the issue is resolved. You can also send or reply to them using the existing email to check for the status of this matter. Also, you may reach out to our support again if you need more details about the case.

Please refer to this article to view different details on how various accounts in the chart of accounts categorize your transactions on everything from sales forms to reports to tax forms: Learn about the chart of accounts in QuickBooks.

Keep me posted if you have any clarifications about several accounts in QBDT or other concerns related to QuickBooks. I'll be happy to answer them for you. Have a good one.

Let me share some information about how the General Ledger report works, 888jay

As mentioned above, this report will populate all your accounts, including the inactive or unused accounts. If you need to exclude the inactive accounts, you'll have to select all the active accounts from the Multiple Accounts filter. Here's how:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. Go to Accountant & Taxes, then choose General Ledger.
3. Click the Customize Report button.
4. In the Display tab, click the Advanced button and then choose In Use.
5. In the Filters tab, select the Account filter. 
6. Choose Multiple Accounts from the drop-down menu, then select all the active accounts you want to show on the report.
7. Hit OK to apply the customizations.

I'm also adding these articles to help streamline the reporting process in QBDT:

• Customize reports
• Create, access, and modify memorized reports
• Set up and modify Scheduled Reports

Drop me a comment below if you have any other concerns or additional questions. Have a good one.

I'd find out what that data issue is and apply it on all I don't want to see in my GL...

Thank you so much!  Solved my problem.

""then select all the active accounts you want to show on the report.""  This is the part I want to eliminate. If I have an account marked "Inactive" it should NOT show up in the GL.