Obviously, if you are merging two bank or credit card accounts, it means they are for the same credit card or bank account. You have either lost or misplaced your credit card and have received a new one, or have had your current bank account changed due to fraud, etc. and now having trouble with the banking downloads in QuickBooks.

Not sure why merging two bank or credit card accounts unreconciles previous reconciliations in QuickBooks, but it does. So, if there are a lot of transactions in the old credit card account, do not use this method. Instead, create a new bank or Credit Card account, move the balance over and make a note in the old account to indicate that it is the old one. When you link this new bank or CC account in QuickBooks with the bank or credit card company, all the new transactions will come in so you can reconcile from there. This is the best option as it does not change previous reconciliations in any way.

How to Merge Credit Card Accounts That are Setup for Online Banking

Before you embark on this merger, be sure that there are no pending transactions to send and no unmatched transactions in the old account. Also, do not deactivate the old account from online banking services. Deactivating online services can cause errors to occur during the merge process.

1) Create a new account:

      a) From the Company menu, click Chart of Accounts
      b) In the Chart of Accounts, click the Account drop-down and select New
      c) In the Add New Account window, choose Bank and click Continue
      d) Enter a name for the account. (Be sure to give the account a new name. You can change the name back when you have completed the merge)
      e) Click Save & Close

2) Set up Online Banking and connect the new account to the appropriate financial institution

3) Accept any transactions that downloaded and record them into the register

4) You should now have both accounts connected for Online Banking. To avoid issues, you must merge the old account into the new account

5) In the Chart of Accounts, select the old account that will be merged into the new account, click the Account button in the lower left corner of the window, then select Edit Account

6) Change the Account Name to the exact name of the new account that you are merging into

7) Click YES when prompted by the Merge warning dialog box

8) The new account should have the entire transaction history of the old account along with any newly downloaded transactions

9) If appropriate, you can now rename the new account to the most appropriate name:

      a) If you performed the merge because your credit card company has changed names, then name the account whatever is most appropriate for the credit card company new name
      b) If you performed the merge because you are switching from direct connect to web connect (or vice versa) or as a troubleshooting step, then it may be appropriate to change back to the original account name

10) Because previous reconciliations were undone by the merge, mark all transactions as cleared, then refer to the previous reconciliation record that you saved from the old account and uncheck those transactions that were not previously reconciled as well as any new transactions downloaded when the new account was created.

11) Re-create pending transactions and recurring or memorized transactions as appropriate.