An organization’s approach to accounting often depends on the type of business and its objectives, policies, procedures, and industry. For example, maybe you want inventory tracking and payroll—but maybe you don’t. The way you and your accountant like to work also influences your organization’s accounting practices. For instance, you might prefer the simplicity of cash accounting to the more intimate pairing of income and expenses that accrual accounting offers (see Accounting Basics: The Important Stuff).

Enter QuickBooks, which has the Herculean task of satisfying every nuance of business operation and personal proclivity. The program’s preferences are configurable settings that accommodate different business approaches and personal tastes. During installation, QuickBooks picks the settings likely to work for a majority of organizations. And if you set up your company file using the QuickBooks Setup feature (Options for Creating a Company File), you might already have most preferences set the way you want.