Moving data from One Account to Another Account (Chart of Accounts)

#1

Hello I had a look and did not find exactly what I am looking for so would like to be pointed in the right direction please.
In a particular entity’s Chart of Accounts two similar accounts exist in the Profit and Loss Statement of the Chart of Accounts. See image below.

Account_Data

I wish to tidy up the CoA by removing one the “Billable Time - invoiced” accounts. Of course this can be done manually in each affected invoice until the one “Billable Time - invoiced” account is “Clear” and then it can be removed. However in this case it is not practical due to the number of entries.

  1. Can the “Bulk Update” or “Find and Recode” tools be used somehow to achieve this?
  2. Is there a way for us to accomplish moving account data to another similar account in the CoA?
  3. If possible will this action break anything? (Backups are done).

Appreciate any guidance, thank you.

#2

No, you cannot do this. In this case, one of the two accounts—probably Billable time - invoiced is hard coded into the program. It is part of the Billable Time tab’s functionality. The original transactions posted to it do not even provide the possibility of designating a posting account. The account is selected automatically by the process of invoicing the billable time from the Customers tab. You could very well break the functionality if you tried what you are suggesting.

A more beneficial course of action would be to figure out how anything was added to to the other account and correct those transactions.

As a side note, the Billable expenses - cost account really does not belong under Revenue. It is an automatic expense account related to invoicing of billable expenses, acting much like a cost of goods sold account.

#3

Thanks for pointing out the “Billable Expenses - Cost” … It was not used but is now in the correct place.

Looking at this again I found that the Built-in account “Billable time - Invoiced” is the Hard Coded one and for whatever reason it cannot be selected under custom reports for reporting purposes. So I believe that may be why the second “Billable Time Invoiced” account was setup two years ago. Just checked again and the Billable Time account is the only Billable Time account that comes up / reveals itself in custom reports.

Kind of off topic now but is this correct behavior under custom reports?

#4

It is difficult to know what is “correct behavior” for custom reports, as the new capability is continually being changed and upgraded. I suspect the reason Billable time shows is because that is where all billable time transactions are initially posted. Other accounts—Billable time - invoiced, Billable time - cost, and Billable time - movement see only automatic postings. The entire operation of both billable time and billable expenses functions is quite complex.

#5

Cheers Tut - Thank you