Question

Generate a PNL with all accounts but NOT inactive accounts

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 18, 2020
4 replies
28 views

I have multiple companies with the same chart of accounts. I want to export PNLs and compare them. Because they don't all fully utilize the chart of accounts the same, the PNL's don't line up, which requires a lot of manual manipulation to get them to line up. If I run a PNL using "All" accounts, then all the old inactive (deleted) accounts show up even though there is nothing in them.

I want to be able to export a PNL with the full "current" chart of accounts (ie without the inactive accounts) so that the PNL's all export identically. But I can't seem to find a way to do this.

QuickBooks Online

Rustler

Level 15

making an account inactive is just to get it off some lists

So if the account has transactions in the date range of the report, it will show on the P&L regardless of whether it is set to inactive or not. There used to be a setting for do not show zero balance accounts, that might help if the account fits the criteria. Other wise all you could do is create "unused dummy" accounts in one company so the listing will line up

Yes ALL accounts mean just that, all of them inactive and active.

katherinejoyceO

Level 9

Hi there, @barak.

I can help you export a Profit and Loss report that shows only all active full current Chart of Accounts. Here's how:

In the Profit and Loss report page, go to the Show non-zero or active only section.
Select Active in the drop-down list, then click Run report.
Click the Export button on the top right of the report.

For future reference, read through this help article: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online. It also includes a quick video clip to guide you.

Let me know if you have additional questions, @barak. I'm always around here to help.

B

barakAuthor

Sorry guys, I'm struggling with Quickbooks terminology. If "Active" Accounts are those with transactions associated with them, but "Inactive" refers to accounts that are essentially invisible that you no longer use, what do you call accounts that are NOT inactive but DON'T have transactions associated with them?

As an example, let's say I have a chart of accounts with 50 accounts I want to use, but only 30 of them have transactions in them. And I also have 20 accounts I've made inactive because I no longer want them. When I run a PNL, my only two options are to generate a PNL with only the 30 accounts with transactions in them (aka "active) or a PNL with all 70 accounts, including the 20 I made invisible, which I no longer wanted to see.

What I'm trying to figure out is how I run a PNL that is JUST the 50 accounts that make up my current chart of accounts. I want this because I have multiple companies with this chart of accounts but each company may have a different set of "active" accounts. Every time I consolidate them, it's a mind melting exercise in excel of scanning and adding rows missing rows, copying and pasting, etc. If I could export exactly the 50 accounts that comprise what I'm calling my "current" chart of accounts, the PNL's would line up precisely right out my quickbooks export and it would be a piece of cake to consolidate.

If this isn't possible, are there any other methods that make consolidation possible without taking years off your life?

Thanks for the help!

Barak

vpcontroller

Level 7

@barak

Since you're exporting Chart of Accounts COA from an existing company file with inactive accounts, there is no way to make this work as you want in QBO.

If these are all brand new companies with no data, you can wipe out and start QBO with an empty Chart of Accounts (w/few QBO default accounts only) and then import your formatted identical Chart of Accounts. This way you can consolidate the P&L report in Excel as you want.

Hope this helps!

B

barakAuthor

Sadly these are 2-10 years old and we've been refining our COA over the years, with a major revamp this January. I find strange that quickbooks wouldn't provide a way to export all your "current" accounts since these are the ones you actually use (or plan to use). Is my situation unique in some way? I watched bunch of videos on consolidation of QBO companies and they all do the same painstaking insertion of missing accounts to get everything to line up.

The workaround I've discovered its to start off the year by adding a zero balance transaction into each account in order to force QBO to show the account as part of the "Active" accounts. It's tedious, but you only do it once and and after that you can generate full PNL's and consolidate with almost a single cut and paste. I think I'll go that route.

Thanks for the help.

A

ayordy

I'm looking to do the same thing. I want to generate a report with ALL Active accounts, even with zero balances as I would like to see what the account structure will look like on each report. Has there been a resolution to this issue?

J

john675645

Most systems don’t have a clean “current chart only” toggle on the P&L — it’s usually either “active only” (which causes gaps) or “all” (which pulls in old, inactive accounts). The closest practical workaround is to standardize one master chart of accounts, temporarily re-activate only the accounts you still want shown, run the reports, then deactivate them again.

In multi-company setups, the real fix is process-driven: align and lock the chart structure across entities, not just the report settings. That’s the approach we’ve seen work best in similar situations at Ledger Labs — once the chart is truly standardized, the P&Ls start lining up automatically without all the manual cleanup.

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