Click Account drop-down menu and choose Make Account Inactive. This will hide Short term Loan account from your chart of account – you will not see it anymore.

To check if the Short Term Loan is still in your chart of account (but hidden), click Account drop-down menu and choose Show inactive Accounts. The hidden account will reappear with “X” (cross) mark:

 

QB Hiding and Deleting Accounts 1

 

To reactivate your account again, highlight the account in your chart of accounts, click Account drop-down menu and choose Make Account Active.


Deleting Accounts

To delete an account from your chart of accounts, highlight the account, click Account drop-down menu and choose Delete. That’s all to it. However, QuickBooks warn you with a message if the account can’t be deleted:


QB Hiding and Deleting Accounts 3

 

In other words, you can delete an account only if there is nothing linked to it, be it linked in transaction, item, nor payroll setup. If you create an item using the account, then you have to edit the item and change the account first. The same is true if you use the account in your payroll setup.
You can neither delete an account if it has subaccounts, unless you delete all subaccounts first. And obviously, you can’t delete an account with a balance either, because a balance means there is at least one transaction linked to it.