When you create a new QuickBooks Online account for one of your customers, Intuit helpfully populates it with a full Chart of Accounts. Which is probably really nice in a lot of situations, but most bookkeepers and accountants would rather set up their client’s chart of accounts themselves. So I thought I’d share the (sort of) secret back door to creating a new QuickBooks Online account without a chart of accounts.

  1. Start by creating a new QBO account the way you normally do. Then open that new QBO account. Hint: if you want to get rid of the setup wizard that appears, check the “I’ve been using QuickBooks Desktop and want to bring in my data.” box – even if it’s not true.
  2. Once you’re on the dashboard of the new QBO account, click into the browser bar and delete everything after the word “app.” Replace it with /purgecompany and hit return.
    QBO Purgecompany
  3. On the next screen, you’ll see a message asking if you’re sure you want to do this. Type “YES” in the little box in the lower right corner and click OK.
    Really delete the QBO Chart of accounts?
  4. On the next screen choose a type of business from the drop-down. This is required, but it doesn’t really matter what you choose in #1 because in #2 you will choose “Create an empty chart of accounts.” Then click the Wipe Data button.
    QBO yes delete the chart of accounts
  5. The Chart of Accounts will now be (almost) empty; there is no way to get rid of (or make Inactive) those last five default accounts. You’re all set to import your own Chart of Accounts – but that is a different blog article!
    QBO Empty Chart of accounts