QuickBooks 2011: The Missing Manual

Accounting

QuickBooks’ accounting preferences control key accounting practices, such as requiring accounts assigned within transactions and closing the books at the end of a fiscal year. Accounting practices stay the same throughout a company, so the Accounting Preferences reside on the Company Preferences tab. Here’s what they do:

Note

For QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, the My Preferences tab has one preference: the “Autofill memo in general journal entry” checkbox. You can keep the debit and credit sides of general journal entries linked by adding memos to the lines of the entries. Turn on this checkbox if you want QuickBooks to copy the memo you type for the first line of a journal entry to every subsequent line of the entry.

• Use account numbers. In the accounting world, most people follow a numbering standard, which uses ranges of numbers for different types of accounts. Setting Up Account Numbers shows a common numbering standard. 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.

  Tip

  When you assign an account to a transaction, 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’s number or the first few letters of its 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 chart ...