What do I do about history if I change chart of accounts from year to year

why would you do that, the chart of accounts is supposed to be a standard

but if you do, keep the history with the new account name

@fnycnfp 

QB allows you to change account names and numbers anytime, which is not a good internal control but it is convenient.  All of the historical entries will change too. However, it is not a good practice to be changing account names or numbers after sending out reports to anyone, especially outside the company. 

@Rustler 

Not sure what you mean by "standard" COA, since accounts differ by company as they should.

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@Teri wrote:

@Rustler 

Not sure what you mean by "standard" COA, since accounts differ by company as they should.

 

Basically I am saying what you did, that the companies chart of accounts should be the standard set up year after year.  

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@Rustler 

Yes, I agree, companies should not be changing COA once they have a good one setup. Always ok to add accounts as needed, but should not be happening without thinking it through. Most large companies have formal process for adding new accounts so only certain people have access. Most accounting systems do not allow you to just "change" accounts or account numbers when setup so to change accounts, you would need to move all of the entries to the new account. This is an internal control for many reasons but for starters, the financial statement users, such as management who may be comparing a year to a prior year and won't be able to line them up and same for your tax preparer who needs the same. 

I have setup over 100 COA's because they are critical in the GovCon industry and key to have correct. Even more so for GovCon in QB since they do not have the functions needed to compute indirect rates so must pull data from QB into Excel to compute indirect rates and then must do manual entries back into QB to post those allocations to projects to come up with crude project cost accounting also audited by DCAA.