QuickBooks Business Bookkeeping CleanupThree lists that are not companies

What a class can do

A class slices one company's departments, lines of work, or the places you choose to track inside that company. A class is a label on a transaction. A class does not file a return of its own.

When every class is a legal name, the list has changed jobs. Paste the class names before anyone renames them. The names are the map.

What a location is doing

Locations are places. On this page a class is the list people misuse as a company. Say which list you actually have, and keep the two words apart. A shop on one street and a shop across town can be two places of one company, or two companies. The formation papers decide. The location list does not.

A building can change its use and still be one company, and a list can change its job the same way. A class that once meant a department can start wearing a legal name. We have watched that change inside a login, over years, without anyone meaning to create a second taxpayer. The papers still decide whether the row is a place, a product, or a company of its own.

When products become a chart

Items named like expenses mean the chart was avoided. Rent, fuel, and insurance living as products will not produce a useful statement, and they will not file a return. Send the item names. Do not start an item edit the same night.

When the edit finally happens, it is plain bookkeeping. Items that are really things you sell stay items. Items that are really costs become accounts, or they are retired. That work waits until the company count is finished, because a cost in the wrong company is a worse problem than a cost in the wrong list.

How to send a list without a project

Paste the names. Class names, place names, or item names. One list is enough for the first reply. Do not export the whole file, and do not start an edit the same night. The names are the map, and a rename before the map is read throws the evidence away.

A class row that repeats a legal name is a company pretending to be a label. A location row that repeats a legal name may be the same problem, or it may be a shop of the one company the papers name. We will not decide that from the list alone. The papers sit beside it.

Products named like rent, fuel, or insurance are a chart that was skipped. They will not file a return, and they will not produce a statement a lender can read as one company. Send them as text. The edit waits.

If you have all three lists, send the one that worries you. The other two can arrive later. The reply will say which job that list is doing, and whether the count of companies has to change before any row is renamed.