QuickBooks has a wonderful feature called QuickFill. QuickFill identifies which letters you are typing in and fills in the rest of the name for you on a form or register. Efficiency is evaluated in terms of keystrokes. If you are not using your mouse to pick the subaccount off your pop-up list in the Write Checks screen, you can save many keystrokes by using unique account names and taking advantage of the QuickFill feature.

If you have accounts set up like the list below, and if you are not using your mouse to pick the subaccount off your pop-up list in the Write Checks screen or register, it would take 32 keystrokes to distinguish the subaccount "Insurance on Disability" from "Insurance on Life" (including the letters "Employee Benefits"). You would need to type in "Employee Benefits: Insurance on" before you reached the distinguishing character of the account name.

The list below has been revised. By editing the account names so that the subaccounts begin with unique letters, you can work more efficiently with less keystrokes. Click on this link for the procedure to edit accounts.

Now it takes two keystrokes to enter "Employee Benefits Disability Insurance" and three keystrokes to enter "Life Insurance" or "Medical Insurance" in the "Write Checks" screen.

By editing and getting to know the "coding" of your account names - in other words, the unique characters that your account names begin with - your data entry will be made easier.

Procedure:

For the accounts listed above you would enter the following letters under "Account" in the Write Checks screen:

1) For "Disability Insurance", a subaccount of "Employee Benefits", type D-i (without the hyphen). QuickFill enters the words "Disability Insurance" as a subaccount of "Employee Benefits".

2) For "Life Insurance", a subaccount of "Employee Benefits", type L-i-f (without the hyphens). QuickFill bypasses the account "Licenses" and enters the words "Life Insurance" as a subaccount of "Employee Benefits".

To enter "Medical Insurance", a subaccount of "Employee Benefits", type M-e-d (without the hyphens). QuickFill bypasses the account "Travel and Entertainment Meals" and enters the words "Medical Insurance" as a subaccount of "Employee Benefits".