When the retainings was set up in one of the programs, it was entered as going to the balance sheet and not the retained earnings part and is causing difficulty in closing yr end. I have tried to delete the account and add a new one but it won't let me.

Is there a way of deleting the account and making a new one?

Thank you

If an account has transactions and/or a current balance, it cannot be deleted. Is this why you are unable to delete the account?

You may need to enter a new account with the correct account type and transfer the balance from the incorrectly defined account, via a journal entry batch. Then mark the bad account as Inactive.

Make a backup of your data before doing all of this.

There may be more 'clean-up' necessary, depending on the current state of your data, but this is at least a start. Others reading this may have other suggestions.