Account Numbers & Reporting

I had a bookkeeper with a local CPA firm call today regarding

a profit & loss statement for one of their clients.  They wanted it sorted on the report by

account number rather than alphabetically…seems relatively elementary,

right?  I am in NO WAY knocking this

bookkeeper, just so you know this…that’s why we’re here is to answer questions.

Turns out this particular bookkeeper was filling in the

account name with the account number as well. 

(I.E. Account Name = “4000 Consulting Income” rather than “Consulting

Income” with account number of 4000) While looking into this problem I discovered

finally, that “use account numbers” preference was not turned on.

If you are ever looking to use account numbers, it can be

turned on by going to ‘Edit’ then down to ‘Preferences’.  Now click on ‘Accounting’ in the top left of

that screen, then click on the ‘Company Preferences’ tab.  You can click or unclick (check or uncheck)

that box to turn account numbers on or off.

Now, just because we turned on account numbers doesn’t mean

that her report came out like she wanted to see it.  Once we turned on the account numbers, the

report was still sorted the same way, alphabetically.  In order to get the report to come out

correctly, which in this case was by account number; what we had to do was

first open the chart of accounts (CTRL A), then click on ‘Account’, then ‘re-sort

list’.  Once you resort the list you can

then refresh your report or re-run your report and have it sorted by account

number.

This really brings up some valid blogging subjects unless

otherwise asked some good questions to blog about, the next several posts will

be regarding these preferences, what they mean and their impact on your

QuickBooks file and running your QuickBooks software.