How to Delete a Transaction in QuickBooks Online, Desktop, & Self-Employed?

There can be instances when you enter the transactions mistakenly in your account. Duplicate transactions, incorrect transactions, and other reasons may make you remove the transactions from the Quickbooks. Reasons can vary to delete the transactions. For instance, most users delete unwanted transactions so that it does not affect the reports or account balances. If you wish to know how to delete a transaction in QuickBooks.

In this era, We will talk about how to delete transactions in QuickBooks Online, Desktop, and QuickBooks Self-Employed edition.

How to Delete Transactions in QuickBooks Online?

In QuickBooks Online, transactions can be deleted manually or in batches. In the following discussion, we will teach you to remove individual transactions, multiple transactions, and expense transactions.

Important Things to Consider

Before deleting any transaction in QuickBooks Online, users should be very sure about this action. By deleting the transactions, QuickBooks will remove the transactions completely from your accounting books. Moreover, it will not appear in your account or in the reports. Although the Audit Log method can be used to restore a few details, transactions will still not be restored.

Therefore, you should think before going to remove any transaction in QuickBooks. If you are not sure about the transaction deletion, we recommend you void the transaction. This will remove the transaction only from the result but will reside in your QuickBooks account.

How to Delete a Transaction in QuickBooks Online?

If you are sure about deleting the transactions in QuickBooks Online, you can simply locate the transaction and remove it from the Expenses or Sales menu. You can go through the following steps to understand better:

• Navigate to the “Expenses” or “Sales” menu.
• Here, you can locate the transaction and open it.
• After reviewing the transactions, you can decide if you want to void or delete them.
• If required you can add the message in the “Memo” or “Message” section.
• Click on the “More” button located at the bottom.
• After this, you can click on the “Delete” or “Void” option as per your preferences.
• Once done, click the “Yes” button to confirm the action.

As you perform these steps, the transaction will be removed from your account depending on the action you have taken (Void and Delete). Please note that QuickBooks Online allows you to void the transactions one at a time. There is a limitation for voiding the transactions to prevent mistakes.

How Do I Delete All Transactions in QuickBooks Online?

Deleting the transactions one after one may consume more time than usual. So, if your account has transactions in a large amount that you want to remove, we suggest you batch delete them. By doing so, you can instantly exclude unwanted transactions in bulk. Let’s find out how to delete all transactions in QuickBooks Online in the following steps:

• Go to the “Banking” screen.
• Then, move to the “For Review” tab.
• From here, you can choose the relevant bank from the list.
• After that, mark all the transactions you wish to exclude from the record.
• Once selected, you can click on the “Batch actions” option.
• Select the “Exclude selected” option.
• Now, move to the “Excluded” tab.
• At this point, you need to mark the transactions you wish to delete.
• Thereafter, you can click on the “Batch action”.
• Select the “Delete” button.
• Once you see the confirmation on your screen, select the “Yes” button.

These steps can be performed for bulk delete transactions in QuickBooks Online. Please remember that these steps cannot be reversed.

How to Delete Multiple Transactions in QuickBooks Desktop?

Keeping the transactions in bulk may take unnecessary space and may lead to errors in QuickBooks Desktop or Windows computers. To avoid such errors, users prefer to remove unwanted transactions from the list.

Important Things to Consider

Before you delete the transactions in bulk, we want you to be aware of a few important points. Go through the following details:

• Batch deletion can be performed in QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise, Accountant 2018, and Enterprise Accountant 18.0 and newer versions.
• Users have to log in to the account as an External Accountant user or Administrator.
• The tool you use for batch delete will not support multi-currency.
• Besides that, you won’t be able to delete the following transactions in bulk but can delete them individually. Let’s find out what all types of transactions it includes:
  • Invoices with costs and billable time.
  • Invoices with items, times, reimbursed expense, or mileage.
  • Paychecks
  • Sales Tax Payments
  • Payroll Liability Checks
  • Any transaction that is in a closed period
  • Online Bill Payments.

• You can find deleted transactions in the software, later, should a need arise.

Note: To delete such transactions individually, you can go to the Edit menu and hit the Delete button.

Delete Multiple Transactions in QuickBooks Desktop

There are two ways to delete the transactions. You can either go to the Banking menu or Account menu for batch delete. If you want to know how to delete all transactions in QuickBooks Desktop, read the following steps to know both methods.

How Do I Delete Multiple Transactions in QuickBooks Desktop from Banking Menu?

• Click on the “Banking Menu”.
• Then, select the “Correct Account” option.
• Here, you can click on the “Review” tab.
• After this, select all the transactions you wish to remove.
• Once done with the selection, select the “Batch Actions” option.
• Click on the “Exclude Selected” option.
• Later, you can switch to the “Excluded” tab.
• Now, mark all the transactions you wish to delete.
• Once done, hit the “Batch Actions” option.
• Then, select the “Delete” button to finish the process.

How to Delete Multiple Transactions in QuickBooks Desktop from the Accountant Menu?

• Make sure that you switch to the Single User mode from the File menu.
• Move to the “Accountant Menu”.
• Select the “Batch Delete/Void” transactions.
• At this stage, you can select the “Transactions” that you wish to delete from the list.
• After reviewing the information, you can click on the “Delete or Backup” option.

This is how you can delete multiple transactions in QuickBooks Desktop. All you have to decide between the Accountant menu and the Banking menu. In case you don’t prefer to delete the transactions permanently, make sure you go with the Void option.

How to Delete a Transaction in QuickBooks Self Employed?

QuickBooks Self Employed downloads the recent transactions automatically if you have connected your credit card and bank account to online banking. However, there can be a few transactions that you no longer wish to keep in your account. In such a scenario, you may want to delete the transactions from your account.

To exclude and delete the transactions, you can go through the following details. Here, we will cover the steps for the web browser, iPhone, iPad, Android phones, or tablets.

Delete the Transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed

Note: If the transaction is downloaded from the bank, it cannot be deleted. However, you can exclude them.

Using Web Browser

• Click on the “Transactions” menu.
• Then, locate the transactions you wish to delete.
• Once found, you can select the transaction to expand the view.
• Later, you can hit the “Delete” button.

Using Android, Tablet, iPhone, or iPad

• Move to the “Transactions” menu.
• Go to the “Menu” icon.
• Select the “Transactions” tab.
• At this point, you can find and click on the transaction you wish to remove.
• Hit the “Delete Transaction” option.

Exclude the Transactions in QuickBooks Self-Employed

You can exclude the transactions that are downloaded from the bank. If required you can save a record of these transactions.

Using Web Browser

• Click on the “Transactions” menu.
• Now, locate the transaction you wish to exclude and then click on it to expand the view.
• Then, click on the “Exclude this transaction” checkbox.
• Click on the “Save” button.

Using Android, Tablet, iPhone, or iPad

• Click on the “Transactions” menu.
• Go to the “Menu” icon.
• Select the “Transactions” tab.
• At this point, you can find and click on the transaction you wish to exclude.
• Hit the “Exclude Transaction” option.

After excluding the transactions, you can review the transactions. All you have to do is go to the Transactions menu, click on the Type drop-down menu, and click the Excluded tab to view the details.

Final Verdict!

Reasons can be any to delete the transactions in the QuickBooks account. Be it QuickBooks Online or Desktop, users can delete, void, and exclude the transactions. In this guide, we have talked about the best possible details on how to delete a transaction in QuickBooks. These steps can be performed based on the QuickBooks edition you are using.

If you wish to find and restore the deleted transactions in QuickBooks, go through these guidelines before moving forward:

• How to Find Deleted Transactions in QuickBooks Online?
• How to Restore Deleted Transactions in QuickBooks Online?