Update Service Item Income Account and History

This article addresses how to update the associated income account within a service item’s (within the “Products & Services” items list) profile in QuickBooks Online.

Here is a scenario:

You are reviewing your Profit & Loss statement for a certain time period and you are noticing that one of your lesser utilized income accounts has an exceedingly large balance. You did a little investigative work and discovered that one of your service items that you always use on your invoices to your customers is actually pointing to the wrong income account.

This is because, within the service item’s profile, the wrong income account was selected when this item was set up initially.

Now, you wish to not only update the income account associated with this item, but you also want to update the income accounting resulting from the previous usage of this item on all of those customers invoices from the past. In other words, you want to update the Profit & Loss statement as well.

So, to do this:

1. Go to your Products and Services items list: Gear icon > Lists > Products & Services.
2. Find the service item you wish to update.
3. Click on “Edit” on the far right side.
4. Now, within the item’s profile, scroll down till you find “Income Account”.
5. Now select the desired correct income account.
6. Now, Very Importantly, check the box that states “Also update this account in historical transactions”. Be careful in that this selection will indeed update ALL historical transactions that utilized this item.
7. Click “Save and Close”.
8. Now process the same Profit & Loss statement and verify the correct income accounting.

Note: AccuraBooks is a bookkeeping firm only, so please consult with your C.P.A. for verification and clarification about the contents of this article.