Every Master Record, be it Household or Organization, will have a name, which is often how you access the record when searching. Besides the name, there is a 'Last Name to Sort By in Reports and Lists' field, often simple call the 'SortBy' field, which should be a word or two that will help alphabetize each record on a list. The SortBy field should be the last name of a family or the firstname or abbreviation of an organization.

Some examples:

Jon and Jane Smith's SortBy would be 'Smith'

Chris Smith and Terry Doe's SortBy could be 'Smith' or 'Doe' (It might be easier to always use whichever name appears first in the alphabet - ie 'Doe' in this case, but if Chris Smith is on your Board, you probably want all of their records to show up on reports sorted with the other Smiths.)

The Billie Smith Family's SortBy would be 'Smith'

Bob Johnson's Photography SortBy would probably be 'Bob' but you may want to put it under 'Johnson' if that is how you would look for him on a list.

The ABC Company's SortBy would be 'ABC'

And it is recommended that organizations that are commonly abbreviated, such as 'Internal Revenue Service' have a SortBy that reflects their abbreviation - 'IRS.'

Additional use for SortBy field - If you need to make a record easier to find when you are searching, you can hide a search term for your benefit. Let's say you have multiple 'Beth Johnsons' in your system and one of them is on your board and you want to be able to find her easily. You can bury a word - let's say her nickname is 'Buffy' - in the 'SortBy' field. This field is only used for sorting records on reports, so you could change her data in this field to read 'Johnson / Buffy.' In the future, just search for 'Buffy' and her name will pop right up.