Setting Up New Financial Statements

It's my duty to ensure you can use QuickBooks effortlessly, @Bill 5. Let's work together to guarantee that your financial records are accurately set up and ready for the coming year.

To get started, let's generate and download your current financial statement report to secure a snapshot of your organization's financial data before we make any significant changes to your account. To do so, please follow the steps below:

1. Open your QuickBooks Online account.
2. Go to the Reports tab.
3. In the search field, find the following report: General Ledger, Profit and Loss, and Balance Sheet.
4. Once on the report page, customize and ensure the Report period is correct.
5. Click the Export dropdown above the report's title.
6. Choose between Export to Excel or Export to PDF

You can check out this screenshot for reference:

Afterward, we'll need to close your books to ensure your financial data is accurately recorded and protected from any unauthorized changes.

Once done, we can proceed to establish a new chart of accounts that aligns with your specific needs and the structure of your organization. To do this, follow the outlined steps below:

1. Go to the Gear icon, Chart of accounts.
2. In your upper right corner click New.
3. Enter an Account name. 
4. Select the correct Account type, then choose the Detail type from the dropdowns. If this is a subaccount, select Make this a subaccount and choose the Parent account it belongs to.
5. For Bank, Asset, Credit card, Liabilities, or Equity accounts, enter the Opening Balance and starting date in the As of field. You can also add a Description for more details about the account.
6. Once everything is done, select Save. 

Check out this screenshot for reference:

Refer to this article for more details: Add an account to your chart of accounts.

Moreover, you can explore or bookmark this article for comprehensive guidance on efficiently closing your fiscal year in QuickBooks Online: Year-end guide for QuickBooks Online.

If you require additional guidance or assistance with setting up your financial information in QuickBooks, don't hesitate to reach out on this forum, @bill5. I'll be here to help.

@Bill 5  

That's easy enough for your P&L (income statement) which is a report over a certain time period.  Just modify your income and expense accounts as desired and begin posting to them on Jan. 1. That can be easy or tedious depending on how many products/services/inventory/non-inventory items you have, vendor default expense categories, etc.

It's a little trickier with your balance sheet (BS) accounts.  You will need to close out the existing BS accounts you don't want to use to the new BS accounts you do want to use.  That can be done with a journal entry(ies).  There are a few default BS accounts that you can't close such as Retained Earnings, A/R, A/P, Inventory Asset, and possibly one or two I'm missing.  Those are default accounts in QBO.      

Thank you for the post SheandL!

Thank you for the reply SheandL!

Thank you Rainflurry!