Recover a Deleted Transaction
in QuickBooks

by Jo
(Seattle)

A reader asks a question about how to recover a deleted transaction in QuickBooks.

Hi Jennifer,

I just deleted a HUGE journal entry that took me a couple hours to enter. I closed and saved it, went back later to print it and meant to delete a single LINE from the entry, but accidentally deleted the entire journal entry. It there any way to retrieve it? Help!

Jennifer replies:

Hi Jo,

Try running the following report:

Reports > Accountant & Taxes > Voided/Deleted Transactions Summary

Once QuickBooks creates the report, change the date range at the top to match the date you deleted the transaction. See if you can get the details there. You can also run a detailed version of the report:

Reports > Accountant & Taxes > Voided/Deleted Transactions Detail

This will NOT recreate the actual transaction. But it will give you the details of it so you can re-enter it again.

I am wondering: why did this entry take a couple hours to make? It's extremely unusual to have a journal entry take that much time and makes me wonder if there isn't a more efficient way for you to work. Is it common for entries to take so long for you?

Let me know if this helps you recover a deleted transaction in QuickBooks by posting a comment below. Thanks for writing.














Easy & Inexpensive
QuickBooks Help:



image of 27 QB mistakes ebook cover

"Conquer 27 Frustrating Mistakes that Steal Your Time, Sanity & Money!"

QB Mistakes are
Costly & Unnecessary

27 QB mistakes & their solutions, demonstrated in detail.

Two FREE Bonuses Included! Only $9.97.
Instant Download.


Learn More Here

Or:

Add to Cart



image of COGS ebook cover


"Crack the COGS Code"

Too Little COGS?
Too Much Taxes!

QB does NOT use the traditional COGS formula to compute your COGS!


Only $9.97. Ebook.
Instant Download.


Learn More Here

Or:

Add to Cart












Comments for
Recover a Deleted Transaction
in QuickBooks

Click here to add your own comments

Mar 19, 2013
 Voided deleted transactions NEW
by: Anonymous

This post and the answer was so very helpful! Helped me out of a tough spot today.

Thank you to all!
Feb 07, 2013
 Tried to correct entry from Job title to the acctual job NEW
by: Colette

I saw on my QB report that a payment was made to the job (company)name. Tried to correct it by changing it on the invoice from job title to the actual job. MISTAKE! The payment from this customer was already deposited and reconciled. Now it still shows the deposit was made in the check register and the reconcile, but the Invoice now shows upaid. I tried to change it back and now in addition to the invoice showing it as unpaid, I show that this customer now has a credit. On the report "Income by Customer Detail" is short by this payment. How do I correct? Do I need to go back and undo the reconcile from that month forward? Not too bad, was only done two months ago. Any advise would be much appreciated.
Jan 18, 2013
 Thank you Everybody! NEW
by: Your Favorite

Im so Thankful for everybodys comments. I deleted a payment so I could fix the vendor name it was paid to and the nafter realized it was a cleared check and was going to mess up my reconciliation. Thanks to everyones advice I fixed it and it was not so hard at all
Jan 18, 2013
 Thank you Everybody! NEW
by: Your Favorite

Im so Thankful for everybodys comments. I deleted a payment so I could fix the vendor name it was paid to and the nafter realized it was a cleared check and was going to mess up my reconciliation. Thanks to everyones advice I fixed it and it was not so hard at all
Jan 18, 2013
 Thank you Everybody! NEW
by: Your Favorite

Im so Thankful for everybodys comments. I deleted a payment so I could fix the vendor name it was paid to and the nafter realized it was a cleared check and was going to mess up my reconciliation. Thanks to everyones advice I fixed it and it was not so hard at all
Oct 31, 2012
 recover deleted bank entry NEW
by: Amanda

To anonymous on 10/31/12:
Since you deleted a bank entry, it won't matter what year it is in.....it is going to affect your bank account balance now (ie...if you delete a payment/check for $4,200, your beg bal on your bank acct when you go to reconcile will be $4,200 higher). To rectify this, just reenter the exact entry made on the exact date....your beg. bank balance will adjust back to what it should be. Then mark the entry with a checkmark to clear it. When you reconcile your bank statement, you won't have to make any reconciling adjustments. I'm more worried about the other half of that entry. You need to re-enter the entry exactly as it was because it will throw off your reconciled Trial Bal for that year (and the retained earnings on years after that) up to the current year.
Oct 31, 2012
 Reconcilation NEW
by: Anonymous

I have the same problem as "Oct 15, 2012" on this blog. I new to this company and have been trying to clean up QB, it was a mess. Incomplete data, missing data, duplicate data, etc.,etc. I accidentally deleted a three year old EFT transaction and it has left my reconcilliation report off by $4200.00. I have located the discrepancy, and had some advice to just re-enter the transaction. How do I go about fixing this problem without re-reconciling three years worth of bank statements? Can I even do this? Please help!
Jun 14, 2012
 Uh Oh NEW
by: Anonymous

I have the same problem as "Feb 23, 2012" on this blog. I new to this company and have been trying to clean up QB, it was a mess. Incomplete data, missing data, duplicate data, etc.,etc. I accidentally deleted a three year old EFT transaction and it has left my reconcilliation report off by $500.00. I have located the discrepancy, and had some advice to just re-enter the transaction. How do I go about fixing this problem without re-reconciling three years worth of bank statements? Can I even do this? Please help!
Apr 02, 2012
 Deposit Entry NEW
by: Pulling My Hair Out

I have enter a deposit for March 5th 2 times and it seems to not be in the register. (CPA was checking account and found it missing again). So I entered it this morning again and checked the register and it is not there, but if I do a search I can see it and see where the deposit transaction occured.

This is the 3rd time that it appears that QB dropped entries (I have been thinking that the CPA's person auditing our company by my pc may have deleted in error, but when looking at the audit trail that is not the case.)

Does QB lose transactions? I have worked with this program for 13 years and have never seen this until coming to this company.

Thank you for your help.
Feb 23, 2012
 Deleted A Double Entry After reconcile NEW
by: Anonymous

I need help! We have two bank accounts on QB. I reconcile one of them until December 2011. When I went to reconcile the other account, I notice there was a transaction from the prior month and it was a double entry. I delete the transaction which was a debit and it mess up all the reconcile that I did for the other account since march 2011. What can I do to un delet?
Dec 08, 2011
 Thank you for saving my life! NEW
by: Dee

You are a life saver - THANK YOU!
Aug 02, 2011
 voided checks showing twice on the register
by: Anonymous

My voided checks are showing twice on the register, when i try to delete the duplicate the other one gets deleted too.
May 17, 2011
 Deleted Customer Payments from 2007
by: Freaking Out

I started helping a friend with QuickBooks yesterday, and she had a bunch of duplicate payments sitting in undeposited funds that date back to 2007. They never bothered her, so she just left them there. I was deleting them from the chart of accounts journal, and accidentally deleted a bunch of customer payments that shouldn't have been deleted. Is there any way to recover these without messing anything up? If I re-enter the payments, they are going to show up in undeposited funds again. Help me please if you can!
Nov 16, 2010
 deleted items already reconciled
by: Amanda

There IS a way to fix your beginning balance. However, what concerns me is how did the duplicated items get reconciled and balanced against your bank statements?? That would never have reconciled? If someone cleared those items and your book and bank balances still reconciled, there is some big time hanky-panky going on! I urge you to look into that...it's a substantial amount of money and could be employee theft (I've been an accounting auditor 25 yrs). Items posted in prior years should not be 'deleted'. You should properly remove them with a journal entry. The problem with deleting is it doesn't just change your cash balance, it affects another account too. That can really mess you up if you use your books for tax purposes. At this point, make a journal entry at the end of 2008 & 2009 for amounts affected in those years. You need to debit cash and credit retained earnings the diffence. If you didn't keep track of the amounts you deleted each year, then it's really a mess. You'll just have to fix it the sloppy way. You'll need to make a journal entry (today's date) for the difference between your beg bank bal now and what it was before the deletions (for all three years). Debit your cash and credit opening bal equity. This will fix your balance for your next reconcilation. Again, this is not the correct way to do it, but maybe your only option since I don't know all the details. But please look into how these items could have been duplicated entries and yet reconciled with the bank statements. If checks were not paid to those duplicated vendors (bills), there is ($140k in your case) missing. I hope this help you. Good luck!
Nov 16, 2010
 deleted items already reconciled
by: Anonymous

We were analyzing our books recently and noticed that several ($140,000) worth of transactions had appeared twice in our register going back as far as 2008 and that both transactions had appeared to be cleared. I went back and deleted all of the duplicate transactions, but not our beginning balance in our register is off by that amount. How should I go about fixing that?
Oct 28, 2010
 Yes, you can find who did it
by: Amanda

Yes, you can find the culprit who deleted your items. Log in on ANY computer (I recommend the administrator log in..some users may not have access)and from the QB menu, select 'reports' then 'accountant & taxes' and then 'audit trail'. You can modify the dates to go back as far as you like, just select your date range. Try to start with the smallest range possible because this report can take a while to build. It shows you the original entry, and then the modified or deleted entry, on what date and by whom. The entries are listed by transaction type, then by date, so look all the way down the screen (or you can modify your transaction type with filter option). The audit trail is an important tool for quickbooks, especially since anyone can delete or change anything with this program with virtually no papertrail (you can't do it with more sophisticated programs). Good luck!!
Oct 28, 2010
 deleted invoice tracking
by: Anonymous

someone at work deleted a transaction is there any way of seeing who did it? from there log in or from which computer(IP address)?
Sep 20, 2010
 mac?
by: Anonymous

what if you have a mac how do you find them?
Feb 09, 2010
 transaction history of custoner cheque deposit report
by: pannobaji

i might have accidentaly deleted deposit transactions as far back as aug 2008 but i have it printed till dec 31, 2008 for incometax purpose
i did manage to get into customercare and printed out the deposits for 2009 and 2010 but they are not datewise but its a to z
if today i do a normal cheque deposits will it be okay i dont use the whole of quick books i do customer deposits sales invoicing inventory the rest i do by habd
please give advise
thanks
Jan 25, 2010
 reposting a deleted, cleared check
by: Amanda

Very easy to fix a check that was deleted and already cleared. Just re-enter the check, same date, ck #, amount, etc. (as it sounds like you've done) then you can just wait to clear it again when you do your month end bank reconciliation. You will notice when you process your bank reconciliation, your beginning balance will be higher than it was at the end of the prev. month by the exact dollar amount of the check you deleted. That's OK. Just reconcile your stmt, clearing the check again and your balance will come out perfectly.
Jan 23, 2010
 deckleted cleared che
by: Anonymous

I acidently deleted a canceled check. I re-entered the check but of course it is not canceled. How can I get the check to indicate it has been canceled?
Jan 08, 2010
 Not finding items on Quickbooks
by: pa

I entered my bank statement and closed down the computer. When I came back to work in Quick Books Preimer the statement evidence and any items I had entered is not here. Any way I can find this? This happened to me one time before and I had to re-enter the entire year. I think maybe things just don't save or something.. What ya think?


KARATE
Dec 01, 2009
 Older Version
by: Anonymous

I tried the instructions for recovering a deleted transaction and there is no voided or deleted transactions in my version of Quick Books 2006. I really need to look back at a mistakenly deleted deposit (I only intended to delete the line). Any suggestions?
Nov 24, 2009
 to smart tone-delete je
by: amanda

to simple delete a journal entry, open it up, select edit delete. But if the orig. je is in a closed period or it's linked to prior yr, bank stmt, etc, just reverse the journal entry (re-enter new journal entry, reversing the same entry/acct/$ amts) in the current month. That's the correct way to reverse it otherwise it will mess up the prior financial period.
Nov 24, 2009
 comment to P Guess
by: amanda

It's very easy to restore a bill pymt originally attached to a check. Go ahead and re-enter your bill as it originally was. Then close and go out to your check register and open up the check it was linked to. You will see the bill listed there but not attached. Just click to enter a checkmark in the 'pay' column to the left of your bill entry and it will reattach to your check. That's it! It should not affect your bank reconciliation because your check hasn't changed and that's what matters for the reconciliation, not the bill pymt.
Nov 23, 2009
 journal entry
by: smartone

How do you delete a journal entry?
Oct 21, 2009
 to Jenny, Oct 21-deleted JE tied to bank stmt
by: Amanda

Hi Jenny,
Here is what I recommend for your journal entry that was tied to your bank reconciliation: Re-enter your original journal entry back in quickbooks on either the exact date...or if it messes up your financials, enter in the most current month you have not yet reconciled. Now to remove it: rather than just deleting the entry, make a reversing journal entry on the same date as the original. The date really doesn't matter for either entry....as long as it's entered and reversed on the same day. When you reconcile at month end, your beg bal will be off one more month, but it will be fixed after this reconcilitaion. Both of the journal entries will show up on your bank reconciliation as uncleared items. Clear both journal entries and your bank stmt should reconcile perfectly. Your beg bal the following month will be right on. (in the future, if you have a reconciled JE affecting cash, you should always reverse, not delete).
Oct 21, 2009
 Deleted journal entry
by: Jenny

Someone deleted an old journal entry, that was already reconciled to an old bank statement...now our beginning bank balance is wrong each month. How can I fix this?
Thanks!
Oct 01, 2009
 You can recover deleted entries
by: amanda

You can recover all deleted deposit entries, checks, journal entries, whatever. Just go to 'reports', choose 'accountant & taxes' then select 'voided/deleted transaction detail'. This will bring up your deleted transactions through any date that you specify! You can't re-enter it but you can see the entire transaction so you can re-create it.
Sep 15, 2009
 Life Saver
by: L

Thank you for your post! I had some lag in my server while deleting some checks, and when it finally caught up, it deleted several General Journal Entries as well. This helped me find what was deleted and it was simple to recreate! Saved me a lot of time and worry, and without having to let my Director know I "messed up." :)
Jul 18, 2009
 Deleted Transactions
by: P Guess

Hi, I accidently deleted a bill payment that was tied to a reconciled check payment. How do I re-attach the "new" bill payment to the reconciled bill payment (already reconciled in bank report)?

Thanks!
Dec 13, 2008
 Help with Deleted Entries
by: Theresa

I was checking the American express statements with the entries in Quick books and found there were duplicated amounts entered. I deleted a few entries that were applied to entered bills. Can go back and restore those deleted items?

Jennifer replies:

Sorry but deleted entries cannot be electronically restored. They must be re-entered by hand.

Thanks for writing.
Sep 23, 2008
 Can't reverse a deleted deposit
by: Jennifer

No, a deleted deposit cannot be reversed. Once it's deleted, it's gone.
Sep 23, 2008
 No reversing a deleted deposit
by: Susan L.

So there is no way to reverse a deleted deposit?

Jennifer replies:

No, a deleted deposit is deleted. It cannot be reversed, because there is nothing to reverse - it's gone.

Click here to add your own comments

Return to QuickBooks Q&A.