How to Reset Your Account and Start Over

Available for Patriot Accounting customers (Basic and Premium)

As a new Patriot Accounting customer, you may decide you want to reset your entries and start over from scratch. Resetting your Patriot Accounting account involves two main steps: voiding transactions where possible, and then creating journal entries to bring any remaining account balances to zero.

Step 1: Void transactions when you can

Before creating any journal entries, void as many transactions as you can. Voiding transactions keeps your account lists clean — note that reducing an account balance to zero does not remove items from the invoice list, bill list, or other transaction lists. Voiding is the only way to remove them.

To void transactions, go to Reports > Financial Reports > General Ledger. Make sure to select Accrual under Accounting Basis (Accrual accounting records revenue and expenses when they are earned or incurred, regardless of when cash changes hands — this view shows unpaid invoices and bills that Cash basis would not display).

The following transaction types can be voided from the General Ledger report:

• Beginning balance entries
• Invoice payments and invoices
• Bill payments and bills
• Journal entries
• Imported transactions
• Deposits or withdrawals

Unused credit memos: Go to Customers > [Specific Customer] > Credits to void unused credit memos.

Estimates: Delete estimates from the Estimates screen. Note: estimates do not affect your account balances and can simply be deleted without voiding.

Step 2: Reduce Remaining Accounts to Zero

If you still have remaining transactions that could not be voided, you can use a journal entry to bring all remaining account balances to zero. A journal entry is an accounting record that adjusts account balances directly — in this case, you will use one journal entry to zero out all remaining balances at once.

Step 2a: Download the Account Trial Balances Spreadsheet

The Account Trial Balances report shows the current balance of every account in your Patriot Accounting chart of accounts — this is what you will use to determine what amounts to enter in your zeroing journal entry.

1. Go to Reports > Financial Reports > Account Trial Balances.
2. Click Download Spreadsheet (download the spreadsheet file, not the on-screen report).

3. Open the downloaded spreadsheet in Excel or another spreadsheet program.

Note: Depending on which program you open the spreadsheet in, negative numbers may appear with a minus sign (e.g., -500) or in parentheses (e.g., (500)). Both formats mean the same thing.

Example from an account balance with negative signs:

Example from an account balance with ( ) around negative numbers:

Step 2b: Create the Zeroing Journal Entry

Now you will enter a journal entry in Patriot Accounting that offsets every account balance to zero. Because journal entries must balance (total debits must equal total credits), you must enter all accounts at once in a single journal entry.

4. Go to Accounting > Financial Tasks > Journal Entry.
5. Enter a date that makes sense for your reset. For example, if you are zeroing out everything from March or earlier, enter March 31 as the journal entry date.
6. Make sure Use Debits/Credits is selected. (You do not need to understand accounting debits and credits to complete this step — just follow the rule below. The screenshot below shows the Use Debits/Credits Toggle:
   
7. For each account in your spreadsheet, enter the offsetting amount in the journal entry:
   • If the account balance is positive, enter a Credit (second column) for that amount.
   • If the account balance is negative, enter a Debit (first column) for the same amount (without the minus sign or parentheses).

And, here’s another example of a spreadsheet download. Notice the negative numbers in the balance column.

In your journal entry they are entered as positive numbers in the Debit column

8. Continue adding a line for every account shown in your spreadsheet until all accounts are covered.
9. The journal entry total must balance (total debits = total credits) before you can save it. If the entry does not balance, review your amounts and the positive/negative rule above.
10. Click Save to post the journal entry.

Step 2c: Verify the Reset

After saving the journal entry, confirm that all account balances are now zero.

11. Go back to Reports > Financial Reports > Account Trial Balances.
12. Run the report and confirm that all account balances now show zero.

Here’s what the journal entry would look like to ‘zero it out’:

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