Hey folks,

Having just had this exact same issue and facing the exact same problem, I was just online with a rep and they seem to have solved the issue for me. So I wanted to take you through the steps that I did and that solved the issue for me. It is interesting looking at the online guide as it's ALMOST correct but there was 1 important step that, to me, seemed to be different to the guide and what I believe, ultimately, solved it for me.

Here is the guide ...

"Your next steps depend on your subscription level, and whether you've been using QuickBooks for longer than 60 days.

We noticed you have QuickBooks Online Simple Start, so here's how to start over fresh with QuickBooks Online.

Step 1: Cancel your current company

Follow these steps to cancel your account. If you use payroll, you should cancel your payroll subscription too.

Note: Once you cancel QuickBooks, we delete your data after one year. This gives you some buffer time if you decide to come back to your previous account.

Step 2: Start a new company

1. Sign up for QuickBooks Online.
2. Enter your user ID and password. You can use the same user ID and password as before.
3. Optional: If you use payroll, make sure to add Payroll in Step 2 of the sign-up process.

1. Sign up for QuickBooks Online.
2. Enter your user ID and password. You can use the same user ID and password as before."

Follow step 1. as indicated above in the guide.

As for step 2. sign up online as suggested in the guide. HOWEVER, don't just sign up for a new online account (you'll get the 'username/email is already in use' error), ALSO do not just 'sign in' to your current account, it'll just take you to your account you're trying to purge/delete. You must sort of do BOTH. Start by looking at and selecting a plan as though you are starting new ( I was and still am using the Simple Start plan). Choose whether or not your using payroll. NOW, here is the magic ... at the option where it's asking you to now create your new QBO account, do NOT do this. Look down a little bit, just below the "One more step" option and you should see something like ... 'Adding a company to an existing account? Sign in'

Select that ... sign in via that option. It will still take you to billing and ask for information there but once completed it will now log you into a fresh 'install' of QBO via the same email and password as before. This is the part of everyone talking about 'starting a new company' under a current QBO account. This should work for people. Let me know how you go.

Cheers,

Derek.