Classes and locations: a profit and loss for each part of your business

Classes and locations are two ways to see how each part of your business is doing. A class goes on each line of a transaction (cleaning and whitening on one invoice can be two classes); a location goes on the whole transaction (the store that made the sale). Use either, or both: for example classes for your lines of work and locations for your shops.

Turn them on

1. 1Open the gear menu › Account and settings › [Advanced](/settings/advanced#categories), and find Categories (owners and admins).
2. 2Tick Track classes, and choose how to Assign classes: One to each row in a transaction, or One to the entire transaction. Tick Warn me when a transaction isn't assigned a class to be asked before an invoice, bill or expense with a line without one is saved (press Save again to save it as it is).
3. 3Tick Track locations, and choose the Location label: Business, Department, Division, Location, Property, Store or Territory. That's what they're called on your forms, lists and reports.
4. 4Press Save.

Turning either off only hides it. What's already on your transactions stays, and comes back if you turn it on again.

Make your lists

1. 1Open the gear menu › Lists › All lists › [Classes](/lists/classes) or [Locations](/lists/locations) (or search for them).
2. 2Press New class (or New location), give it a name and press Save.
3. 3For one that belongs under another (Retail › Online), press Add sub-class beside the one it goes under, or choose Is a sub-class of when you edit it. Reports show its full name, "Retail / Online".

• Make inactive takes it off the forms. Transactions that already have it keep it, and can still be saved with it.
• Delete is offered only for one no transaction has (and nothing sits under).

Put them on transactions

• Invoices, estimates, recurring invoices, sales receipts, refunds and credit memos: the location is at the top, beside the date; each line has a Class under it (or, with one class per transaction, there's one Class at the top).
• Bills, expenses, checks, vendor credits and purchase orders: the location under the vendor; a Class column on each category and item line.
• Journal entries: the location beside the memo, and a Class column.
• Bank transactions: open the transaction in For review and choose its Class and location before you post it. When you Split one, each line gets its own class.
• Bank deposits: the location beside the date, and a Class column on the other money you add.
• Expense claims: a Class and a location under the project (optional; whoever approves can set them too).

Selling an inventory item puts its cost of goods sold under the line's class and the sale's location, so each class's gross profit is right.

Converting an estimate to an invoice or a purchase order to a bill, recurring invoices and recurring transactions, and copying a transaction all bring the classes and location along (leaving out any made inactive since). They show on the transaction's page, but never on the printed or emailed form.

See the profit and loss for each

1. 1Open Reports › [Profit and loss](/reports/profit-and-loss) (or Profit and loss by class / by location in Standard reports).
2. 2Under Display columns by, choose Classes or Locations (by your label).
3. 3Each class or location with something in the period gets a column, then Not specified (what has none) and the Total.

It works on the cash and the accrual basis: on the cash basis, an invoice's classes count as it's paid. Export it to Excel, PDF or CSV like any report.

Reports for one class or location

• On the Profit and loss, General ledger, Journal, Sales by customer and Expenses by vendor, the report bar has a Class and a location choice: one class (with everything under it), one location, or Not specified (what has none). The report's heading says which.
• On A/R aging, A/P aging, open invoices and customer or vendor balances, choose a location to see only its invoices or bills (and its credits). The check against Accounts Receivable or Payable is left out then: that account is the whole business's.
• Clicking an account on a filtered profit and loss opens its general ledger for the same class or location. Saved reports and emailed reports keep the choice.

Budgets for a class or location

In Budgets › Add budget, choose a class or a location under Budget for. Starting from last year's actual amounts takes that class's (or location's) own amounts, sub-classes included, and Budget vs. actuals compares the budget with them, on the cash or accrual basis.

Bringing them over from another app

• Your lists: export the Class list (or Location list) from your old app and bring it in with [Import data](/import) › Classes or Locations. Sub-classes written as "Retail:Online" come in under their class; inactive ones come in inactive; names already here are skipped.
• Past transactions: when your old app's Journal report has Class and Location columns, Bring over past transactions puts each line's class and each transaction's location on them, adding any that aren't here yet.
• Connected apps can list, add and change classes and locations, and put them on the invoices, bills and expenses they make (see Connect other apps).

Projects or tags? A project is a job for one customer, with its own page and status. Tags are loose labels, several per transaction. Classes and locations sort every line into one place each, so the columns always add up to your whole profit and loss.

Classes and locations are part of "Download all your data" (classes.csv and locations.csv). Reclassify keeps each line's class when it moves a line to another account.