Jaclyn Anku, ProAdvisor Training & Certification Leader: On today's special episode of In the Know, we'll be diving deep into Chart of Accounts templates with ProAdvisor trainer Carla Caldwell. Carla will walk you through creating a template, applying a template, and editing a template so that you can get the most out of this feature.

Hey, ProAdvisors, I'm Jaclyn and you're watching In the Know. It's the show designed to keep you in the know on the most exciting updates to QuickBooks Online.

So here's the scoop. ProAdvisors want to work efficiently, especially when it comes to client setup and the Chart of Accounts. Templates help you do exactly that. This feature was launched in November 2023 to all QuickBooks Online Accountant users to build and save templates by creating them from scratch. You can customize select ready-made templates or even import pre-existing templates. Once the template is made, you can apply it to new and existing clients.

If you find this update helpful, remember to like, comment, and subscribe. We'll turn now to Carla Caldwell for a deep dive. Carla, welcome.

Carla Caldwell: Thanks for having me. It's so exciting to talk about this. It is something that we are using in my firm and I know a lot of people are really excited about this. I want to dive right in and go straight into the product itself because that's really what we want to see.

I'm going to be inside QuickBooks Online Accountant. You're going to notice on the left that I am actually in QuickBooks Online Accountant because it even says Accountant in the top left corner. I hit that little bar for a minute so that we could just look at this.

You might be wondering how I got here. Go to your accountant tools at the very top, and then go to the Chart of Accounts templates. If you're wondering why you don't see accountant tools, it means you're not logged in as an accounting professional, which means you're using QuickBooks with your hands tied behind your back. So make sure you're in, have the accountant tools, and then get to Chart of Accounts templates. QuickBooks has two templates already there, one for product-based businesses and one for service-based businesses.

Go over to the far right action column and select edit. You're familiar with that; it's the same way we go in the action column throughout the product. Then we can edit and go into it. What you're going to notice is that there's obviously a balance sheet, mostly for P&L accounts. You'll notice it's pretty much income and then expenses, but this is our service-based template. And so, of course in the product-based template, you're going to see cost of goods sold and things like that. The whole idea around these templates is that we all have certain types of businesses that have a pretty standard Chart of Accounts. You may even have certain niche businesses; for example, a nonprofit that has specific accounts they need, or in our case, we have a real estate industry we work with, so we have a very specific Chart of Accounts we use with every one of those.

We have those templates set up inside of QuickBooks Online Accountant, so we use those with any new clients we bring on. You can have as many templates as you need; just simply add new templates in there. You can always get rid of any of these and  put your own in, so you can really set these up exactly the way you need it.

So let's talk about a couple things. First is editing the template. It tells you that if you edit this, it's not going to update the Chart of Accounts where you've already applied it. Boy is that good news, right? If you were to go change the Chart of Accounts here, and it went and updated all the clients that this had been set up for, it would have been a little crazy. So that is not happening. I kind of like the reassurance that I'm not about to mess up any actual clients' books. I'm just affecting the template, which is really important for us to remember.

You can give that template name whatever you like and oh, good news for a lot of us, we want to have those account numbers in there. You simply add that in and you're able to have account numbers in there as well, so that's totally fine. You'll notice the actual real name here of what that account is going to be: type, detail type, and all the things you guys know how to do, so I won't belabor all of that. But if you wanted, you could add a new subaccount. And of course, it has that little indent just like you would expect, so all of that works out just fine. If you hit that button by accident and don't want it, hit the little trash can. Of course we all know what these little buttons are that's going to make a copy of it for checking or savings.

You also have the ability to add a new template. Just start from scratch. Nobody wants to do that, but you can if you need to. You also can just import a CSV or Excel file to import accounts in. And you can take one out of QuickBooks Online you've been using for years. Export it out of that client, tweak it, and then bring it on over here by just simply importing that in. It’s so super simple to do.

We want to make sure that we talk about how, and why, we apply this template. Would we do this to a client that already exists in QuickBooks? Well, it depends. You know your clients best about when you might want to do this and when you wouldn't want to do this. We brought on a client earlier today; I was talking with him and his CPA about their business, and he's about to start over again because his books needed a little love and attention—let's just say it that way.

Why would you put a template on an account that already exists? Our client already had their QuickBooks file, but now it needed to comply with how we need it to run. We're actually going to go ahead and give it TLC by cleaning it up, and then we're going to apply a Chart of Account templates to it. It now complies with what we need to do, so in this case, it's a little easier than having to manually add them, and we can always still tweak the Chart once we get back into QuickBooks.

So I can literally go in and say, okay, I'm going to take this one and apply the template. I would be able to select which client that I would apply this to, and it shows me all the accounts that are here. So what's going to happen? What if they already have opening balance equity in their system or whatever the case is? Well, the cool thing is when you apply a Chart of Account template to one of your client's accounts they already have in QuickBooks Online, it's already set up and might already be functioning. If you apply the template to that, any accounts that already existed in their Chart of Accounts remain. They don't get changed. This will include things like opening balance, equity in accounts payable, accounts receivable, and any default accounts.

So for duplicates, let's say that they already had a security deposit in their books and it was set up exactly like this. We would go in and create a second one, and it would just put a “-1” at the end of the account name. Remember, the account names always have to be unique, so if it already existed and was set up, QuickBooks would just add another one and just put a -1 in there.

What happens if it's exactly the same; if security deposit was set up as another asset or it wasn't a current asset; it was a long-term asset or a fixed asset? The detail types are different. If an account in the template matches the name and number of an existing account, then it would put the dash one. Otherwise, it would create another account for them. So if this one was different, then it would add that one obviously still has to have a -1 because they can't have the same account names. The whole idea is the accounts that already exist are not going to go away. You're not going to all of a sudden mess up their whole financial statements. That's not going to happen. 

Test it out. If you're like me, you need to have your own sample company you tinker around with. That is part of your QuickBooks Online subscription. I have one of those because I like testing out stuff like this and need to see it a little bit before I use it on a real client. Doing that is a great way to learn. So here's the deal: You're going to be able to create as many of these templates as you want. You can apply them without completely being scared that it's going to mess up everything. It's not. Worst case is you’ll have a couple of duplicate accounts in there if they were the same. Otherwise, it will just add new accounts for you. And the great thing is that these templates are now available for your whole team. So even if you're not the exact person who is going to set up a new client and apply the template, your team members will be able to use these as they start setting up or updating other clients.

I think I've covered everything that I can think of right now, but if I talked too fast or anyone wants to know more information, there's also a guided tour up here as well, Jaclyn. So if they want to go check that one out, they can.

Jaclyn Anku: Carla, thank you so much. This is phenomenal. I think you did the perfect job of giving the ProAdvisor community a look and the voice of the functionality they can expect with Chart of Accounts templates—and also the benefit of tapping into this feature. So thank you so much.

Carla Caldwell: My pleasure. 

Jaclyn Anku: Thanks for watching. Catch you next time Carla.

Carla Caldwell: Thank you. Bye.

Jaclyn Anku: And thank you for watching this episode. I'm Jaclyn, the host of In the Know and leader of ProAdvisor Training and Certification. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. We'll catch you next time.

Meet the ProAdvisors

ProAdvisor Carla Caldwell: Founder, Candella Accounting