QuickBooks maintains approximately 13 different Special Account Types. These types are assigned to individual accounts in a company’s chart of accounts. The assignment of a Special Account Type to an account permits that account to carry out a special function.
- AccountsReceivable
- UndepositedFunds
- InventoryAssets
- AccountsPayable
- PayrollLiabilities
- OpeningBalanceEquity
- RetainedEarnings
- UncategorizedIncome
- CostOfGoodsSold
- PayrollExpenses
- UncategorizedExpenses
- Estimates
- PurchaseOrders
Special Account Types and the assignment of those types to accounts are not visible to a typical QuickBooks user.
However, a typical user can determine which account is assigned a Special Account Type by recording a transaction that should impact the balance of an account functioning as an account with a Special Account Type and tracking which account balance was affected. For example, an expense transaction of $100 in the prior year should impact the account functioning as RetainedEarnings. Be sure to delete these test transactions once you’ve completed your testing.
It’s important to understand that an account’s Special Account Type is independent of its name. That is, an account can be named Undeposited Funds but not have a Special Account Type of UndepositedFunds. This situation typically occurs if accounts were renamed and preferences changed over time. If QuickBooks creates a new account that’s a Special Account Type and the default QuickBooks name is already in use, it will place an asterix at the start of the account name, as in *Undeposited Funds. If you observe accounts that start with an asterix, it’s likely that these accounts are the actual accounts assigned Special Account Types.
Can I have an account in the account chart in foreign currency other than AR or AP ,
for example if I want to have sundry debtors in foreign currencies
If by “sundry debtors” you mean a current asset account, no, you can’t do that. Current asset accounts must be in the firm’s home currency.
How can I create a new special account type for undeposited funds if I’ve accidently deleted that account?
You can’t create a new special account type. Special account types are an internal designation used by QuickBooks.
I think what you really mean to ask is how you go about creating a new Undeposited Funds account.
You would have been able to delete your existing Undeposited Funds account only if it had no transactions. If the account is not appearing in your account list, check to make sure you didn’t mark the account Inactive instead of deleting it. Marking an account Inactive will cause it to disappear from the account list, which leads some to incorrectly think it has been deleted.
Next, check your preference to see if you are using the Undeposited Funds account. If so, try recording a customer payment. I suspect QuickBooks will create a new Undeposited Funds account if you did actually delete the existing account. The new account may be named *Undeposited Funds, if there is an existing account with the same name without the asterik.
You can verify that an account is actually functioning as your Undeposited Funds account (the one with the special account type) by recording a customer payment and seeing where the payment ends up.
Once the Undeposited Funds account is created and working, you can rename it to something else.
Let us know if that helps.