There may be times when an account is no longer used and its balance needs to be transferred to another account. In this case, a clearing transaction is the appropriate option. Clearing transactions are useful when accounts are obsolete, but cannot be deleted because they have current year activity that normally appears on the financial statements. By clearing the account's balance, the account can be selected as inactive which prevents it from being used again. To open this window, click the Financial series button and click Clearing on the Transactions content pane. 

An example of a clearing entry is a transaction to clear the expense account for a promotions event. If the promotion is finished but a balance remains in the account, the balance can be transferred to another account. There is still a record of the account's activity for the current year, and the account can be used later for another promotion if desired.

Clearing transactions also can be used for accounts with balances that are periodically cleared to other accounts, such as departmental sales accounts, which are cleared to controlling sales accounts at the end of each accounting period.

Here's a YouTube video that demonstrates how to use clearing accounts.