Something you're trying to use has been made inactive. Check the fields with accounts, customers, items, vendors or employees.

Hello @Everestongrand: 

Check your bank/credit card acct. used in the transaction.

Lynda

I am getting this error message when trying to submit payroll.  

Hi Lee-Ann,

This error occurs when an employee, vendor, customer, or account has been made inactive in QuickBooks Online. What we can do is check the Audit Log to see if there are reports regarding the changes.

Here are the steps:

1. Click the Gear icon located in the upper right-hand corner.
2. Under Tools, click Audit Log.
3. Click the Filter drop-down menu, choose All User under User drop-down list.
4. Select All Dates from the Date drop-down list.
5. Under Events, select Show only these events and check the Lists box.
6. Click Apply.

You can view all the edited employees, customers, vendors and accounts in this page. If you see an asterisk before the employee's name, that indicates that they have been made inactive. For customers and vendors, you'll see (deleted) after their names.

Once you have found what has been deleted, let's make it active and then submit your payroll again. If you're unable to make them active, or if you see that nothing has been deleted, please contact Customer Support. They have the tools to investigate this error.

To get their contact information, click Help located at the top, and from the Help window, click the Contact Us button.

Please reach out to us for other concerns about QuickBooks Online Payroll. Thanks.

Same here 

I reactivated every account in my chart of accounts just to be sure and have checked everything possible. spent 2 hours on a call with qb but no resolution.  did you find a solution???

Hi amberm,

You'll normally get this error once you pay an inactive employee in QuickBooks Online (QBO). Let guide you on how to check for inactive employees so you can reactivate them.

1. Click Workers from the left menu.
2. Choose Employees.
3. From the Employees List drop-down menu, select Inactive Employees.

Please check this article on how to make an employee active: Add, Edit, Or Inactive An Employee.

However, if you're still getting the error message, I suggest contacting our phone support team so they can investigate why you're still getting the error message. They have the tools to pull up your account in a secure environment. Here's how to reach them.

1. Sign into your account.
2. Click Help.
3. Click Contact Us.
4. Type your concern.
5. Click Let's talk.
6. Select Get a callback.

I have this Help Articles in case you have other questions about QBO.

Please keep in touch if you need anything else. I'll make sure to help.

I get this message as well. They say the engineers are working on it, but I think it just has to do with set up. Unfortunately, 3 hours of phone conversations with people who can't help has me 2 pay periods behind processing.  I am exhausted.

Thanks for joining this conversation, @Eric27. 

I hear your sentiments and I'd feel the same way if I'm in your situation. I'll be with you in getting past this error so you can continue paying your employees.  

The error message you're getting occurs if there are employees, vendors or customers named differently, missing items, or out-of-sync between the payroll & QBO database.

To begin with, review these following information below if you have any duplicate, deleted, or inactive items in your QB account:

• Customers
• Employees (Payroll)
• Employees (QBO Lists)
• Vendors
• Items (Products/Services)
• Accounts (in Chart of Accounts)
• Classes (Class Tracking)

If you found an identical name, I'd recommend you edit the display name or make it inactive if no longer in use. For more detailed steps, refer to this help article: Error: Something you are trying to use has been deleted or made inactive. It will guide you through changing or make customer, vendor, or employee inactive. 

You can also follow the steps provided by my peer @RenjolynC in checking the audit log. If there are large number of employees that are set to inactive in QBO but are active in payroll, I'd suggest you contact our Customer Care team again, and let them verify your data. They can use the employee sync tool to ensure that payroll & QBO are in-sync. 

I appreciate you for extending your patience about this issue. Let me know how it goes, @Eric27 by leaving a comment below. I'm always around to help if you need further assistance. 

I’ve worked with 3 people already. The first for an hour and 15 minutes. I assure you this was a person that had zero knowledge of QuickBooks who seems to be outsourcing virtual services on a tight budget. We did all troubleshooting steps and I was told that the engineering department would take my case. I reached out to someone a week later and tried to troubleshoot again, but they cut me short and said engineering was working on it. I opened up a complaint with QuickBooks; no one called me back. I tried to call again today and the agent was surprised by my story and said my case had little to no relevant info in it. We opened a new case and He worked with me for 2 hours and brought additional people on the call to make sure nothing was missed. We ran out of time so he is calling me back Monday. This problem is bigger than you think. I know another person in my city having the same problem exactly. This has been going on since 11/23. Unfortunately, your troubleshooting guides are incomplete and I know I can’t be helped here so I digress.

I'm in the same boat as Eric27 regarding spending hours trying to find out why I can't update payroll accounts because something is awry on 10/23, 11/1, 11/6, and 11/20 (pinpointed the dates, gone through audit log, reactivated everything I can find ... meaning I'll have to inactivate old items, etc. once this is done) ... but I cannot get past these dates.  Given that the year is ending, it's very stressful.

And, I also empathize with Eric27 in dealing with several hour long phone calls to QBO Payroll support and having a case "escalated" to engineering.   For me, this was in regard to SCorp medical issues in QBO and I was assured I'd hear back several weeks ago.  I also have encountered the issue of spending time on the phone, then calling back with my case# only to learn that the second person I speak to has a completely different approach .... but, in the end, the problem(s) still exist.

Very frustrating, to say the least. :-(

I am having this problem while trying to attach a pdf to a transaction.  Your support is woefully inadequate, one of the reasons I don't recommend this software. 

Hey there, @cpryor. Thanks for reaching out.

I'm happy to help out here. I recommend checking the Customer, Vendor, or Account on that transaction and make sure they aren't inactive. If you go to one of those lists and don't see the name or account associated with the transaction, that's what is causing your issue. To make it active again, check out these awesome resources:
 

• Make a customer inactive and then active
• Delete an account on your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online

If you have any other questions for me, just hit the Reply button below. I'll be here to help. Have a good one!

Of course I've tried this.  There is nothing inactive. My work around it to shut down sign out, close the browser then sign in again.  I might get to attach 2 files without a problem before I get the error again.

Let me help getting rid of the error, cpryor.

What my colleagues mentioned to this thread is correct. The said error only occurs if there was an inactive accounts, customers, items or vendors when recording a transaction. I also appreciate sharing the workaround you've done.

With the use of Audit Log, we can check the changes made into your account. Also, I suggest contacting our Customer Support Team since you've verified that nothing has inactivated. That way, they can further investigate this and so they can create a case if needed.

1. Go to Help and select Contact us.
2. Enter the exact error message in the question field, then click Let's talk.
3. Choose either Start a message or Get a callback.

Hope I'll be hearing from you again. I'll always be here if you need more assistance.

If you're still looking for a solution to this error message in payroll, run an audit report and note any Chart of Accounts changes you've made. If you changed any of your payroll expense account names (perhaps you added a header account), you need to reassign it to the new account name within Payroll Settings. 

Hi,

I feel for the people on this thread who had this issue. 

I am not getting this error message when I try to match bills to bill payments from the linked credit card, along with another one that says "Something you're trying to use has been made inactive". 

What has been made inactive and by who? There is nothing in my file that is inactive. No account, no supplier is inactive. I have spent a total of 8 hours chatting with support and sharing my screen. Only to be told that I don't know how to match bills to bill payments properly. I have been doing the same thing for over a year and now I don't know what I am doing? I also have a case number....but nothing. 

I want you to know that helping you our customers are always our top priority, rktoor.

Let's isolate this case by clearing the cache. There are times when a browser's cache data becomes full of frequently-accessed pages, or it is damaged. When this happens, pages like match bills don't load properly. 

To better isolate if this is a browser issue or not, let's access QuickBooks Online (QBO) using a private or incognito window. 

Here's how you can access private browser: 

• Google Chrome: Ctrl + Shift + N 
• Microsoft Edge: Ctrl + Shift + P 
• Firefox: Ctrl + Shift + P 
• Safari: Command + Shift + N 

Then go back and try to match the bills. If it works, we can clear your browser's cache to delete those temporarily stored files and free some space on your browser's data. You can also do this task on other supported, up-to-date browsers like Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, or Mozilla Firefox. Clearing it will refresh the system, and you'll be able to work with clean trash.

Additionally, What has been made inactive, and by who? Let's go ahead and check your Audit Log report it lets you view all the changes made in your company file. It also shows who made them. It displays the 200 most current entries or changes made to your company data, by default. You can also easily see older instances by adjusting the date range in the Audit Log. You can refer to this article for more information: Use the audit log in QuickBooks Online. 

Please don't hesitate to visit us here in the Community if you have other questions. I'm always here to answer your inquiries. Take care!

Hi,

Thank you for your reply!

I cleared cache, tried incognito window, checked the audit log, updated chrome, tried Firefox. No change. 

The two error messages are still there. 

I forgot to mention that your link to "supported browsers" goes to a page that says Message Not Found. 

Thanks for keeping us updated how the troubleshooting went through, rktoor. 

I can see that there's a separate thread that has the same concern. Please go to this link so you can see the latest response and follow the steps provided by one of my colleagues: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/other-questions/anyone-know-how-to-click-on-an-exp....

Also, it looks like the link that was shared with you has already been archived. This is the reason why it says "Message not found" when opening it. Here's a new link to the updated article: System Requirements For QuickBooks Online, Accountant, And QuickBooks Self-Employed.

As always, feel free to reply to us again or submit more questions if you need more help with QuickBooks. 

I am having this issue with one employee only, when I process payroll the payroll works fine but I get an error email that says there was a journal sync error. This employee does not appear in the audit log - there is no entry showing when they were added or any changes made to their profile (their name doesn't appear anywhere in the log). Every other employee shows when they were added and edited, and I am not having any problems with their payroll being recorded in the journal. How is it possible that one employee does not appear in the audit log? This employee is the one I would have added first. 

Thanks for joining the thread, @ImagineMelissa.

Have you tried to check the employee’s status? There might be changes on their profile that create an impact.

If nothing changed, you can clear your main browser cache to start fresh. The online platform uses the browser’s cache to run faster. However, these can sometimes become corrupted, which affects the program functionalities.

Another way is to use other supported browsers, then utilize the Health Checkup Tool. It is used to check multiple aspects of the browser to ensure the application runs seamlessly.

On the other hand, you’ll want to contact our Technical Support team if the issue persists. They can check your account to ensure all related to this employee is set up and organized appropriately. With the help of their tools, they can determine the root cause of your concern. Here’s how:

1. On the QB Assistant window, type Talk to a human.
2. Select or type, I still need a human.
3. Type it again until you see a shortcut to connect with my human's option.
4. Click the Contact us link and select Get a callback.

Should you need any further assistance, just let us know. We’re always here to help you out. Take care.

I spent an hour on the phone troubleshooting with customer service. We did all the things you suggest. I wonder if it has something to do with adding the employee before adding other info to the database? I also did a clean start at the beginning (erased all database info), but I assume that employee data would have been erased in the process and that I would have re-added their info after that - could that be an issue?

I'm getting the error message in my Customers list when I'm trying to edit the customer information (name, address, number, etc).

What I am ultimately trying to do is make the customer "inactive". In order to do so, I need to open that edit window and click on the "inactive" tick box. But once I click on the Edit button, this error message displays.

Hi there, particle06.

Welcome to QuickBooks Community. I'll share troubleshooting steps on how to fix unusual behavior in QuickBooks Online.

Can you please provide the specific error message you encountered when trying to edit the customer's information or make them inactive? I appreciate any extra details so I can present accurate information.

In the meantime, I recommend logging in to your QuickBooks account using a private browser. Then, access the Customer's center from there, to rule out the possibility of a webpage issue since private browsing doesn't store local files or cache.

Use these keyboard shortcuts based on the browser you're using.

• For Firefox or Microsoft Edge, press Ctrl + Shift + P.
• For Chrome, press Ctrl + Shift + N.
• For Safari, hold down Command + Shift + N.

If it works in incognito, I recommend clearing the cache of your regular browser. This removes the history or log of sites so you can start with a clean slate. You can check this article to see the steps: Clear cache and cookies to fix issues when using QuickBooks Online.

If the steps above didn't work, use another supported browser as alternatives.

You can refer to this article to see additional steps on how you can make a customer inactive and make them active again: Make a customer inactive and then active.

Please refer to this article to see details of how the Sales page gives you a great at-a-glance view of the status of sales transactions, open invoices, and paid invoices: View sales transactions. You can also view, create, and edit sales transactions from within that page.

Please let me know how this works. I'll be happy to help you further or if you have any other questions about QuickBooks. Have a great day ahead.