Businesses often use numeric (for example, 12345) or alphanumeric (for example, 123ABC) IDs to identify financial accounts, customers, vendors, employees, and products and services. For example, for payroll purposes, you may decide to assign numbers to your employees, or you might find it more convenient to identify your customers by number rather than name.

If you decide that you want to use numbers as identifiers, Microsoft Office Accounting 2008 automatically assigns and arranges the numbers in order for whichever you choose, whether you use numbers only or a combination of numbers and letters. Office Accounting 2008 increases the next number of a sequence by an increment of one. If you manually change the number, Accounting 2008 continues the sequence from that point. To use alphanumeric IDs (for example, ABC123), or if an alphanumeric ID ends in a letter (for example, 1234A), you must enter the alphanumeric ID manually each time you create a record or document.

You can turn numbering on and off as often as you like in the Preferences dialog box. If you decide to turn numbering off, numbers no longer appear on record forms or reports. If you then decide to turn numbering back on, any previous numbers that Accounting 2008 assigned automatically or that you chose reappear. Accounting 2008 does not renumber record forms each time you turn numbering on or off.