Weekly Dynamic: Account Alias

No not Jennifer Garner these are account aliases. Account aliases are shortcuts to account numbers. They've been around forever but they seem to be rarely used. It may be that accountants just get in the habit of memorizing a select group of account and looking up everything else. I confess, I fall into that group, but I think with a little discipline, I could learn to like account aliases.
Account aliases are set when you create an account and they're optional. (Cards-Financial-Account). For example, if I want a shortcut to my bank operating account, I could call it "ops". So next time, I do an entry, rather than entering in a long account number like 1015-CA-LAXBAL, I simply hit the arrow (->) next to the account lookup and in the alias box I type: ops . When you tab off, the box closes an the account is placed in the form. There is also a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-Q so you don't have to pickup the mouse. The CTRL-Q shortcut only works in transactions windows not inquiry windows. Go figure.
 If you have really long account numbers I can see this as a time saver. You could quit remembering accounts and simply remember your shortcuts.
Aliases are system wide and you'll find them just about everywhere. My difficulty with using aliases is that everything in our organization is very departmentalized so I'd need the alias to be meaningful for both the account and the department. That makes them longer and harder to remember.