Revising a chart of accounts

Welcome to the Community, @rovieng.

Before anything else, we'd like to thank you for allowing us to help you with your concern. Also, we'd want to share a few things about managing accounts in your Chart of accounts inside QuickBooks Online (QBO). Please know that in QBO, you can only create a maximum of 250 accounts in your COA. That said, if you choose to keep your old accounts and continue to make new accounts, there's a possibility that you'll reach the maximum limit for the number of accounts you can create and will have trouble managing them in the future.

 Now, if you choose to make an account inactive and want to secure those cleared transactions for future use, you can have it transferred to a new account before making it inactive. This way, you can still see your previous data when running reports for your business.

You can visit this page to learn more about the data usage limit for QBO: Learn about usage limits in QuickBooks Online.

If you wish to proceed with making an account inactive, we'll gladly write down the steps to get you going:

1. Access your QuickBooks Online company.
2. Go to Settings and select Chart of accounts.
3. Find the account you want to delete.
4. Select the Action ▼ dropdown and select Make inactive.

See this article for more details: Make an account inactive on your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online.

Also, if you choose to continue creating new accounts inside your COA, you can visit this page for further guidelines: Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online.

Furthermore, we've got these articles to help you create accounts, manage special accounts inside COA, and modify your business reports, as well as keep your current setting for future use:

• Manage default and special accounts in your QuickBooks Online chart of accounts.
• Run reports in QuickBooks Online.
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

@rovieng, we'll be happy to have you here again in case you need help accomplishing a goal or performing tasks inside the program. We've got you covered, and we'll make sure to get back to you right away. Take care, and have a good one!

Thanks @Kurt_M 
Good to hear about the account limit as that will factor into my decisions. 
Also good to know that if i make an account inactive, those transactions aren't available anymore.
How do i transfer these transactions to the new account?
What are the implications of renaming (and renumbering) accounts? I imagine that my record keeping will then be messy as old source documents ref to the old account only?

You're welcome, @rovieng. It's our pleasure to help!

Making an account inactive in QuickBooks Online (QBO) doesn't remove its transactions. Transactions associated with any deactivated (inactive) account stay intact. 

You can move the balance of that old account to the new one by creating a journal entry. Here are the steps:

1. Go to the + New button and select Journal entry.
2. Enter your debit and credit amounts. 
3. Click on Save and new or Save and close.

Also, please take note that there are special and default accounts that can't be deleted or inactive. These are accounts that were set up by QuickBooks when creating your account. Refer to this article for more information: Manage default and special accounts in your QuickBooks Online chart of accounts. 

Renaming old accounts will reduce the usage of your Chart of Accounts and you no longer need to transfer transactions from the old one to the new one. Here's a guide on how to turn on account numbers and assign them to your accounts: Use account numbers in your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online. 

Here's how you can create and manage projects in QuickBooks Online to create and track your project’s profitability. It'll guide you with adding new and existing transactions to the project.

Let me know if you have further questions about your Chart of Accounts. I'm always glad to help in any way I can. Have a great rest of the day!

THanks! Yes, I know all about journal entries and transferring the balances. I thought there might be some other way you transfer the transactions there in their entirety. 
Thanks for explaining about the inactive accounts. I think i get what you all mean now.

I'm finding the ability to go back and do whatever i like in previous periods is a bit dangerous and i forget about the old ways of accounting and properly transferring balances from here to there. 

gthanks!