Merging Entries on a List

If you tried to delete an entry from one of your lists and were prevented from doing so, it is because the entry was used at some time in the past on at least one of your company's forms. QuickBooks does not allow you to remove any member of a list that appears on a form. In lieu of deleting, you can make that list entry inactive by hiding it (see "Hiding Entries on Lists" previously in the chapter), or you can merge the entry into another entry on the same list. When you merge, you combine the unwanted entry into a different entry that you want to keep. For example, say you have a customer named Redland Farms, but when you originally set up the customer you entered the name as Redling Farms and used that name on an invoice form. Create a new customer named Redland Farms, and then merge Redling Farms into Redland Farms. All activity of Redling Farms is now part of Redland Farms, and Redling Farms no longer exists in your records. If you open the invoice that was prepared for Redling Farms, you will now see that the customer name has been changed to Redland Farms.

Open a list. This example uses the Customer List.

Click the customer name you want to remove from the list but can't because it has been used before.

Right-click the customer name and then select Edit Customer:Job from the drop-down menu.

TIMESAVER

You can press Ctrl+E instead to get to the Edit Center window.

Did You Know?

You can't delete an entry from a list if it has been used previously. If you try to delete the entry by pressing Ctrl+D, you will receive an error message telling you the entry cannot be deleted.

When the Edit Customer window appears, change the Customer Name at the top of the window to the name of the customer with whom you want to merge this customer information. In this example, the customer name is changed to Redland Farms.

IMPORTANT

Be sure to spell the name of the customer correctly. When merging one customer's information into another's, or when merging any two list entries, take extra care with the spelling and, if applicable, the punctuation of the name. QuickBooks recognizes a merge attempt only when the name matches exactly the name of the entry to which you are merging.

Click the OK button.

Click Yes to execute the merge. The unwanted customer name is removed from the customer list and all transactions from that customer are transferred to the customer into which you merged.

Click Yes if presented with an alert telling you that this change will affect closed periods and previous financial reports.