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Step 2. Set up General Ledger (G/L) Account in QuickBooks Desktop
Depending on your preference, you can either track your assets using the Minimal account setup, where a limited number of accounts is used or the Ideal account setup where individual accounts are set up per fixed asset.
Minimal Account Setup
Fixed Asset Account | Fixed Asset |
Accumulated Depreciation Account | Fixed Asset |
Depreciation Expense Account | Expense |
Ideal Account Setup in Chart of Accounts (CoA)
You have to record manually any depreciation data in Pro/Premier edition. Consider upgrading to Premier Accountant edition instead.
That's not an answer. There is no account type called Accumulated Depreciation. I don't need a more expensive program just to enter depreciation. I can do that myself, but Quick Books does not have an account type labeled Accumulated Depreciation. The account type carries a Credit balance year to year. There is an account QB created on set up called Accumulated Depreciation Expense, but that is an expense account that is cleared, like all expense accounts, at the end of the year.
jump to step 2 for your reference
What step 2? There is no step 2. There is no way to select an account type, "Accumulated Depreciation." It isn't in the list of accounts.
I shouldn't need to set up some tax accountant to set up an accumulated depreciation account for each asset.
This is getting ridiculous. When setting up my accounts I cannot create an Accumulated Depreciation account for the general ledger. Quick Books doesn't even have that option.
How is it I can set up every other type of account, but I'm unable to set up an account for accumulated depreciation? I can easily do it in other accounting programs, but not QB. Why?
Step 2. Set up General Ledger (G/L) Account in QuickBooks Desktop
Depending on your preference, you can either track your assets using the Minimal account setup, where a limited number of accounts is used or the Ideal account setup where individual accounts are set up per fixed asset.
Minimal Account Setup
Fixed Asset Account | Fixed Asset |
Accumulated Depreciation Account | Fixed Asset |
Depreciation Expense Account | Expense |
Ideal Account Setup in Chart of Accounts (CoA)
This suggestion is the only work around that exists. I'm going to give you credit for finding the only way to make it work, but first I'm going to rant on how bad Quick Books is.
There are two problems, first when I was entering the account balances, I thought they would be credit balances, but instead were debit balances and I could neither change the balances, nor delete the account. I would of had to credit the accounts with double the amount to get the right balance and I suppose debit my owner account as that value was way out of whack.
This is an abject lesson to Intuit. The object of a computer program is to simplify the process and to make it easier to do the task at hand, not make it confusing and stressful. Their interest should be in making our lives and jobs more simple and easy. Unfortunately, I think their focus is to make money at our expense.
I want to thank you for your help. I was finally able to actually talk to an Intuit representative and they told me there was no way to do what I wanted to do. Quick Books doesn't allow you to create an Accumulated Depreciation account with a credit balance, UNLESS I was using the accountant's version or paid an accountant to actually set it up on my version. So not only didn't Quick Books not work as it should have, I would have had to pay even more to someone else to make it work properly.
Unfortunately, the Intuit representative couldn't even come up with this work around and simply gave me a refund. I had to delete Quick Books from my computer. I'm now back to where I was before.
The first time I purchased Quick Books, I spent 40 hours trying to get it to work as I needed it to on an completely different aspect. Interestingly, I think I was actually able to set up an Accumulated Depreciation account on that version. After spending hours with my accountant and $500 for his help, we gave up and I ended up never using the program I paid for.
I hope Intuit reads this. We shouldn't have to spend hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars, just to do the accounting for our small businesses. They should put us first, instead of their profit margin. I wasted my entire Thanksgiving holiday trying to get their program up and running. UNBELIEVEABLE!
I just had the identical experience with Desktop Pro 2020. After entering all my accounts and starting balances, all the accumulated depreciation showed up on the balance sheet with positive values. Of course, balance sheets don't work that way. After much trial and error I found a way to make the accumulated depreciation show up as credits not debits.
The ultimate best way is to enter the opening balances as a negative when you first enter your data. For whatever reason, no person or source is telling us to do that. If you are like me and you unknowingly entered all your accumulated depreciation as a debit, here is how to change it to a credit value:
Open Chart of Accounts. Highlight an accumulated depreciation with a debit value and click "Edit Account".
Click "Change Opening Balance". This will open up a general journal entry. On the top line, the one with the date the opening balance was made, you will see two columns to the right. One named Decrease and the other Increase. Your debit value should be in the Increase column. Leave it alone and enter the identical value in the decrease column. Do not use a - sign, just the number. You now have the same value in both columns.
Click "Record". A box will pop up and inform you that what you are about to do is "Not a good idea". Ignore their advice and click "Yes". You may have the "Past Transactions" box pop up. If it does just click "Yes".
The value should now reflect the correct negative number in red. If it does, close the page and return to the Chart of Accounts and verify that the number is now a credit. Repeat as necessary.
After I did this, my QuickBooks balance sheet reflected the exact same numbers and totals as my old Peachtree balance sheet did.
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