Quickbooks Advisor - Avoiding Duplicate Names

While working with my client who is switching to a computerized system

, I came across an issue related to duplicate customers in the database. These duplicates happened mainly from a lack of users understanding of best practices when entering such data. After reviewing and assisting with the clean up process, I came up with some tips that makes data entry more uniformed which should lessen the amount of duplication and make it easier to find the clients in the database in the future.

Use 'and' instead of '&' This one happens quite a lot. A customer by the name of A & A Contracting was listed in 4 variations:

A & A Contracting

A&A Contracting

A& A Contracting

A &A Contracting

All these different variations make it difficult to locate the customer when doing a search, forcing users to scroll through the name list to find the name they are looking for, which can be quite time-consuming even in the case of a medium database. By following this rule everyone would have entered A and A Contracting. While possible, I doubt that many users would ever enter AandA Contracting as the name as it doesnt look readable.

No abbreviations with periods I recommend that when a firm has abbreviations or initials in their name to exclude the use of periods and spaces. Some people use it, others dont when entering it in the database, which can cause people not to be able to find the name they are looking for. A common example is W.B. Mason. I would recommend that the name entered would be WB Mason. This would simplify the data entry. Additionally, for people that are new to computers, the less typing the easier it is for them. This would also eliminate issues where someone might enter W. B. Mason by putting spaces before periods, and another user not entering spaces. The more room that people have to change things, the more likely you will get duplicate names.

Don't use shorthand (unless its VERY common). A lot of the companies that my customer deals with are contractors and construction businesses. This leads to some people using shorthand for words, like const. or cont., and sometimes as con.. Not only can this be confusing (is con. short for construction, contractor, continental?) and makes it harder for users to search.

Enter as much information as you can get This one started popping up when the owner wanted to make the employees enter client information in the database, instead of just using a generic customer name. We ended up with multiple customers with just the name of Mike and a phone number. With 8 Mikes on the list, it was almost impossible to tell which was which. Adding even a last name would have helped out a lot, but adding the address would have made it even more easier in case there are multiple people with the same first and last name. This is one of the hardest to overcome, because employees get lazy and dont want to enter all the information.

By following these few guidelines, your client list should become less cluttered with garbage, be faster and easier to locate existing customers, and make the information you collect much more valuable. If you have further questions regarding this topic (or any QuickBooks topic) that you would like to address to a QuickBooks advisor, I am at your disposal.

by: Presti Naegele

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