Why Did FlexBooks Create a Duplicate Income Account?

If you use account numbers in your QuickBooks Chart of Accounts, and your income has started arriving in a second account with almost the same name as one you already had, this article is for you.

The usual symptom is a Profit and Loss that has split in two. You click into one of your income accounts for a recent month and it comes up empty, while an account you don’t recognise, with the same name and no number, holds everything from the last few weeks.

Why this happens

In QuickBooks, an account’s number and its name are two separate fields. An account you think of as “4100 Yoga Classes” is really an account numbered 4100 whose name is Yoga Classes. QuickBooks displays them side by side on your Chart of Accounts, so they look like one thing, but they are stored separately.

FlexBooks matches your MindBody Revenue Categories to your QuickBooks Income Accounts by name only. It never reads the account number, because the number is a QuickBooks field and your Revenue Category doesn’t have one.

So if your QuickBooks account is numbered 4100 and named Yoga Classes, and you name your Revenue Category “4100 Yoga Classes” to mirror it, the two don’t match. FlexBooks looks for an account named “4100 Yoga Classes”, doesn’t find one, and creates it.

This catches people out precisely because they are being careful. Putting the number in front of the name looks like the most faithful way to mirror the two systems, and it is the one thing that guarantees they won’t match.

Capitalisation is the only difference FlexBooks forgives, so “Yoga Classes” and “yoga classes” match each other. Everything else counts, including spaces, punctuation, and any number you’ve put in front.

How to tell whether this has happened to you

Open your Chart of Accounts and sort by name. Two accounts with the same or nearly the same name, where one has a number and the other doesn’t, is this. The one FlexBooks created is the one without a number.

How to fix it

Three steps, and the order matters. Read all three before you start. If the months involved are already closed or filed, talk to whoever prepares your taxes first, because step two changes what your Profit and Loss reported for those months.

1. Fix the name in MindBody first.

Rename the Revenue Category in MindBody so that it exactly matches the name of your QuickBooks account, with no account number in front. In the example above you would rename “4100 Yoga Classes” to “Yoga Classes”.

Do this first. If you skip it, your next sync will create the duplicate account all over again.

For instructions, see Can I change my revenue categories after making sales? in MindBody’s help center.

2. Move the income that has already landed in the wrong account.

The income goes to the duplicate account because of how your Products and Services are mapped, so that is where you change it.

In QuickBooks, go to Gear icon > Products and Services.
Find a product or service whose income is going to the duplicate account and click Edit.
Under Income Account, choose your original, numbered account.
Tick Also update this account in historical transactions. This is the step that moves the income you have already recorded. Without it, you only fix sales from today onward.
Click Save and close.
Repeat for every product or service pointing at the duplicate account.

3. Make the duplicate account inactive.

Once step two has emptied it, go back to your Chart of Accounts and make the duplicate inactive.

Do this last. An account that still holds a balance will keep appearing on your reports even after you make it inactive, so emptying it first is what actually takes it off your Profit and Loss.

How to check it worked

Run a Profit and Loss for a month that had sales in the duplicate account. The duplicate should now read zero, and your original numbered account should carry the full amount for that month.

Can I just merge the two accounts instead?

You can. Either way, rename the Revenue Category in MindBody first, or the duplicate account will come back on your next sync.

How do I stop this happening again?

Name your MindBody Revenue Categories to match the names of your QuickBooks Income Accounts, and leave your account numbers out of it entirely. Your numbers keep working exactly as they always have inside QuickBooks. They simply play no part in how the two systems find each other.

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