Merging QuickBooks Customers, Vendors, Accounts, etc.

In QuickBooks, you can merge names (if you have permissions to do so) by editing the name and making it exactly the same as the other name in which you want to merge them into. You can do this with most of the lists in QuickBooks such as the Chart of Accounts, Vendors, Customers, Other Names, Items, etc. Be careful since there is no undo to this action. Also, doing this merges any history all into one history. You can do this with some Items, however if you are working with any items associated with cost data, primarily inventory, I would highly recommend you not merge. What you can do instead is make them inactive and make an inventory adjustment to move any remaining inventory to a new item name/number. If you are merging Chart of Accounts, make sure they are not critical to working with your accountant since this does historically change your financial reports.