QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Accounting Preferences

QuickBooks' accounting preferences control key accounting practices, such as requiring accounts in transactions, assigning transactions to classes, using an audit trail, and closing the books at the end of a fiscal year. Accounting practices stay the same throughout a company, so Accounting Preferences reside on the Company Preferences tab. Here's what they do:

• Use account numbers. In the accounting world, most people follow a numbering standard, which uses ranges of numbers for different types of accounts. For example, asset account (bank accounts, inventory, and so on) numbers run from 1000 to 1999 and liability accounts (credit cards, loans, and so on) appear in the 2000 to 2999 range. If you work with an accountant, she'll probably ask you to turn on this checkbox. By doing so, you can assign a number in addition to a name to each account you create.

  Note

  When you assign a transaction to an account, such as applying your rent check to the Rent expense account, you can locate the account in the Account drop-down list by typing either the account number or the first few letters of the account name.

• Show lowest subaccount only. If you use only top-level accounts in your Chart of Accounts, you have no need for this behavior. But if your company is like most, your Chart of Accounts is a hierarchy of accounts and subaccounts as described on page 37. You must turn on this checkbox if you want to easily identify the subaccount you've selected in an Account field, ...