Speeding up account entry with Account Alias

As organizations grow up, the chart of accounts tends to grow larger and more complex as well. Companies want to segment their business by departments, locations, or divisions; all of this means that more and more accounts get added to the chart and, as the chart of accounts grows, it gets more difficult to select the right account. Dynamics GP provides the Account Alias feature as a way to quickly select the right account. Account aliases provide a way to create shortcuts to specific accounts, which can dramatically speed up the process of selecting the correct account. We'll look at how that works in this recipe.

Getting ready

Setting up account aliases requires a user with access to the Account Maintenance window.

To get to this window perform the following steps:

1. Select Financial from the Navigation pane on the left. Click Accounts on the Financial area page under Cards. This will open the Account Maintenance window.
2. Click the lookup button (the glass) next to the account number or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Q.
3. Find and select account 000-2100-00.
4. In the middle of the Account Maintenance window is the Account Alias field. Enter AP in the Alias field.

This associates the letters AP with the accounts payable account selected. This means that the user now only has to enter AP instead of the full account number to use the accounts payable account:

How to do it…

Once aliases have been set up, let's see how the user can quickly select an account using the alias:

1. To demonstrate how this works, click Financial on the Navigation pane on the left. Select General from the Financial area page under Transactions.
2. On the Transaction Entry window, select the top line in the grid area on the lower half of the window.
3. Click the expansion button (represented by a blue arrow) next to the Account heading to open the Account Entry window.
4. In the Alias field type AP and press Enter:
   
5. The Account Alias window will close and the account represented by the alias will appear in the Transaction Entry window:
   

How it works…

Account aliases provide quick shortcuts for account entry. Keeping them short and obvious makes them easy to use. Aliases are less useful if users have to think about them. Limiting them to the most commonly used accounts makes them more useful. Most users don't mind occasionally looking up the odd account but they shouldn't have to memorize long account strings for regularly used account numbers.

It's counter-productive to put an alias on every account since that would make finding the right alias as difficult as finding the right account number. The setup process should be performed on the most commonly used accounts to provide easy access.

See also

• Gaining visibility with horizontal scroll arrows