Your business may use terminology that is unique to its industry. You also may assign to your business accounts names with words that have particular meaning to you.

You will find QuickBooks easier to work with if you retain the account names that you and your accountant are used to working with, rather than being restricted to a generic template (provided your names fall within correct accounting nomenclature). If you set up QuickBooks as a new company, the EasyStep Interview asked you what type of business you are in.

It then provided a recommended template of accounts to use. These accounts are only recommendations; you can choose names that are meaningful to you.

For example, a default expense account is "Printing and Reproduction."

The word "Reproduction" is ambiguous. Why not rename it "Printing and Copies"?

Another example is the word "Professional Development." You may prefer to call the account "Education" and save keystrokes.

Procedure:

1) Open your Chart of Accounts.

2) Scan each account from the top down and determine whether its name meets your criteria for usage.

3) As you scan, write down the account names that are meaningless to you on a
piece of paper.

4) Then, think of the account names that you use day to day in running your business.

5) Write down the account names that are meaningful to you on a piece of paper.

6) Determine the account names you would like to change and review these names with your accountant.

7) Edit the account names you both agree on. Refer to page 13 for the procedure to edit account names.

8) If you chose to use names different from those your accountant uses, you can still create reports using your accountant’s terminology. Refer to page 19 for the procedure to generate reports that change from "Name only" (your names for the accounts) to "Description only" (your accountant’s names for the accounts).

QuickBooks is your tool and you will find it easier to use by choosing words that you can relate to.