QuickBooks Change Account Type: How to Edit an Account

To change an account type in QuickBooks Online, open the Gear icon, choose Chart of accounts, find the account, select the dropdown in the Action column, and click Edit. Pick the new Account type, then choose a matching Detail type, and Save. The change takes effect immediately and re-files every transaction in that account under the new type on your reports. You can switch most accounts this way, but default accounts QuickBooks created for you and subaccounts that must match a parent are the two cases where the type is locked or restricted.

Most type changes come from an import or setup mistake: a credit card brought in as a bank account, an expense filed as Other Expense, a loan posted as a bank balance. Those are quick to correct once you know where the limits are. When the underlying problem is that whole months are missing from the account so the balance looks wrong, changing the type will not fix it. In that case convert the statement PDF to a .qbo file with the bank statement to QBO converter above and import the missing transactions, then the account carries every line the bank does. Here is how the type change works in each version and what it touches.

How do I change an account type in QuickBooks Online?

Go to the Gear icon, select Chart of accounts, locate the account, and in the Action column open the dropdown and click Edit. In the panel, change the Account type field to the correct type, then pick a Detail type from the list below it, and select Save. QuickBooks warns that changing the type may affect your accounting and reporting; confirm to apply it. Every transaction already posted to that account moves with it.

How do I change an account type in QuickBooks Desktop?

QuickBooks Desktop does not let you freely change the type of every account. Open Lists, then Chart of Accounts, right-click the account, and choose Edit Account to see whether the Account Type field is editable. Bank, Credit Card, and similar balance-sheet accounts often cannot be converted to a different type in Desktop. When the field is locked, the practical fix is to create a new account with the correct type, then move the transactions over with a journal entry or by re-categorizing, and make the old account inactive.

What is the difference between account type and detail type?

Account type is the broad category that decides where the account lands on your reports: Bank, Credit Card, Accounts Receivable, Income, Expense, and so on. Detail type is a narrower label inside that category, like Checking or Savings under Bank, that QuickBooks uses for tax mapping and grouping. Changing the account type usually forces you to pick a new detail type too, because the old one no longer belongs to the new category.

Can I create my own detail type in QuickBooks?

No. QuickBooks Online does not let you add or edit the detail type list. When you create or edit an account you can only pick from the detail types Intuit ships with each account type. If none fits exactly, choose the closest match; the account type drives your financial statements, while the detail type mainly affects tax-line grouping, so a near match rarely changes your reports in a meaningful way.

Why can't I change the account type in QuickBooks Online?

Two situations lock the type. First, default accounts QuickBooks created automatically, such as Undeposited Funds, Sales Tax Payable, Retained Earnings, or the system-managed payment accounts, cannot be retyped because the software relies on them. Second, an account that has subaccounts, or is itself a subaccount, is constrained: a subaccount must carry the same account type as its parent. Remove the parent-child link or remove the subaccounts, and the type field opens up.

Can I change the type of a parent account with subaccounts?

Not while the subaccounts are attached. In QuickBooks Online every parent account and all of its subaccounts must share the same account type. To change a parent's type, first edit each subaccount to remove it from the parent (uncheck the subaccount setting), change the parent's type, then re-link the subaccounts under it. If a subaccount needs a different type than the parent, it cannot stay a subaccount of that parent.

Does changing an account type affect past transactions?

Yes. The change is retroactive, not forward-only. Every transaction ever posted to that account is reclassified under the new type the moment you save, so balance sheet and profit-and-loss totals for prior periods shift to reflect it. That is usually what you want when correcting a setup error, but check your reports afterward, and avoid retyping accounts inside a period you have already reconciled or closed without reviewing the impact first.

How do I move an expense from Other Expense to Expense?

Open the Gear icon, choose Chart of accounts, find the account, click Edit in the Action column, and change the Account type from Other Expense to Expense, then pick a matching detail type and Save. The difference matters on your profit-and-loss statement: Other Expense sits below your net operating income, while Expense counts toward it, so the switch changes where the cost appears in your results.

What happens if I change a bank account to a credit card account?

The account keeps all its transactions, but its place on the balance sheet flips from an asset to a liability, and its normal balance sign reverses. If the account was connected to a live bank feed, expect the connection and any pending downloads to need attention after the switch. Reconcile the account against a statement after retyping it to confirm the running balance still reads correctly under the new type.

How do I fix an account imported with the wrong type?

Edit the account in the Chart of accounts and set the correct Account type and Detail type, then Save. If the account also has wrong or missing transactions from the same bad import, fix those next: remove duplicates, and backfill any period the bank feed skipped. The feed reaches back only about 90 days, so older months often have to be rebuilt from statements rather than re-downloaded. If the account was set up as the wrong type in the first place, review how to set up a credit card account in QuickBooks before you import anything else into it.

Is changing an account type reversible?

Yes. Unlike merging or deleting an account, retyping is not permanent. You can open the account again and switch the type back, and the transactions follow each time. Because every change re-files past transactions, though, flipping types repeatedly will move your reported totals back and forth, so settle on the right type, verify your reports, and leave it.

Once the account type is right, the rest of the cleanup is straightforward. If several accounts are wrong rather than one, it is usually faster to rebuild the list, and our guide to the chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online covers the types, a sample template and the import route. To re-file individual transactions rather than a whole account, see how to reclassify transactions in QuickBooks, and to remove the extra entries a bad import leaves behind, follow how to fix duplicate bank transactions. When a period is missing entirely, import old bank statements into QuickBooks and then reconcile the account against each statement. If you also keep records in a spreadsheet, a bank statement to Excel converter lays every line out for review, a CSV to QBO converter handles accounts that only export CSV, and recurring vendor bills are easier to keep straight with accounts payable automation.