For example, if you have both business rent and personal rent expenses, make one account "Business Rent" and the other "Personal Rent". To avoid confusion, make sure to prominently identify each of the similar accounts with "business" or "personal" in the title. When adding personal accounts, you may need to create accounts with the same name as already-existing business accounts. In QuickBooks Online, for example, you have to select the option to "Choose from all account types" before you can select Other Income or Other Expense. You can also freely switch existing accounts between Income and Other Income, or Expense and Other Expense. These account types are normally hidden, so you may have to hunt for them. Then add your personal income/expense accounts, but when it comes time to choose the account type, select "Other Income" for the income accounts and "Other Expense" for expense accounts.
To set up your reports this way, first create your business income/expense accounts normally in QuickBooks. Most people never use them, and if that's the case for you, then we can repurpose them to create an all-in-one Profit & Loss report showing both business and personal expenses in separate sections.
"Other" accounts are just like normal accounts, except they display in a separate section below the normal (operating) income/expense accounts on the Profit & Loss report. The method I have found that takes the least extra work is to modify the chart of accounts so that you are making use of the "other" income/expense account types for your personal income/expense. Make use of "Other" income and expense accounts Ideally, you want to be able to keep your finances separate while also being able to see the whole picture in a single report. Fortunately, there are a few tricks that let us achieve this in QuickBooks using a single company file. And because you have to look at two different files to see where your money is going, it makes it even more difficult to stay in control of your finances. While ideal from an accounting perspective, this method isn't the most practical solution for a busy professional. Keeping two sets of books means more work whenever you have transactions involving both the business and the personal entity. The usual advice is to keep two separate QuickBooks company files-one for business and one for personal finances. Then you have to keep track of all the transactions. Keeping business and personal financials separate is essential for any freelancer or small business owner. The first step should always be to open a business checking account and credit card, and use these accounts exclusively for business purposes.