Most other operating systems have much better account management tools. Ideas like password aging, account expiration, usage statistics, are all missing from standard Unix. Some sites have created add-on utilities to do this but their is nothing generally available. Both VMS and Novell have much better tools for this although none is optimal. While the commands are straight forward managing a large number of users is a complex task and can take up much of the System Administrators time.
Most sites create tools to help automate the account generation process.
This file is an ascii file that can be manipulated by any text editor. However, you can create problems if you aren't careful and you directly edit the file. For one thing, if you are editing the file and a user updates their password entry that change may be lost. In earlier versions of Unix the password file could become corrupted unless locked before editing. Under Berkeley Unix, the command vipw was created.