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Changing G/L Account Information

Use the G/L Accounts window to change:

Account description
Account type
Normal account balance
Account status
Segment/account used in closing
Method of posting (detail, consolidated, or prohibited)
Account groups
Optional account fields
Optional transaction fields

After you turn on the quantity option for an account, you cannot turn them off.

Before you change account information

The account is not used as the default closing account for the company, or a retained earnings account for any account number segment.
The change will not cause the account to be in the wrong account group, if the company uses account groups.

Notes regarding changes

Account number. You cannot change the account number.To assign a new account number, you must add an account with the new number, transfer any account balances, make the old account inactive, then delete the account when it no longer contains account data for the period that you retain history.
Account type. You cannot change the type of an account that is specified as the Default Closing Account in the G/L Options setup window. To change the type for that account, you must first specify a new default closing account. More...
The Default Closing Account is the account to which closes all income and expense accounts that are not specifically assigned to another retained earnings account. If you have multi-segment account numbers, you can close income and expense accounts by segments, and assign a separate retained earnings account to each segment code, using the G/L Segment Codes window.

For example, you can do Year-End closing by the department segment, and assign a different retained earnings account to each department in your company. If any department lacks a retained earnings account, General Ledger uses the default account you enter on the Account tab of the G/L Options window.
- If you have single-segment account numbers, you can specify particular account numbers as the closing accounts for each of the accounts in your ledger.
- You can change the default closing account before or after doing Year-End closing.
- Changing an income statement type account to a balance sheet type account will cause problems in your General Ledger if you post batches to a prior year for the account.
Account group You can change the account group in an account record at any time. You can turn account groups on or off in the G/L Options window at any time. Any accounts that are added when account groups are turned off will belong to the Unclassified Account Group.