# Edit, Merge and Retire

What you can change once an account has transactions, how to combine two accounts that should always have been one, and why retiring beats deleting every time.

![An open account, Accounts Payable with code 2000, showing its type, its parent and the documents posted against it.](https://www.sorviai.com/help/accounts-chart/accounts-chart-detail.png)

*An account with documents against it cannot simply disappear. Retiring keeps the history and stops new postings.*

## What stays editable

| Field | After transactions exist |
| --- | --- |
| Name | Editable. Reports use the current name throughout. |
| Code | Editable. It is ordering, not identity. |
| Parent | Editable. Reports regroup immediately. |
| Include in VAT Return | Editable. Decides whether the balance reaches a return. |
| Type | Treat as fixed. Changing it moves history between reports. |
| Deletion | Refused in three cases; see below. Deactivate instead. |

> **Warning:**
>
> **Three things block a delete**
>
> An account cannot be deleted if it is a system account, if anything has ever posted to it, or if it has child accounts underneath it. The first is permanent, the second is almost always true by the time you want to tidy up, and the third is fixable by re-parenting the children first. Deactivating is the answer in every other case: it stops new postings and keeps the history.

> **Note:**
>
> **Renaming rewrites every report**
>
> Reports show the account's current name, including for periods already reported. That is usually what you want and it does mean an old printed report will not match a new one.

## Merging two accounts

- **Decide which account survives**

  Usually the one with more history, or the one people already code to.
- **Journal the balance across**

  Debit one, credit the other, dated in an open period.
- **Check anything that points at the old account**

  Item defaults, vendor defaults, expense categories, preferences.
- **Retire the empty account**

  So nobody codes to it again.

> **Warning:**
>
> **A journal moves the balance, not the history**
>
> Postings stay where they were made, so a report for last year still shows the old account. That is correct, and it is why merging is worth avoiding by getting the chart right early.

## Retiring

A retired account disappears from every picker while keeping its history and its balance. Retire an account you no longer use, and check first that nothing still defaults to it, because a default pointing at a retired account is an error somebody will hit at the worst moment.

- Check item income and expense accounts.
- Check vendor and expense defaults.
- Check Finance preferences for default accounts.
- A retired account with a balance still appears on reports, which is correct.