Categories

Categories enable you to track the profitability of departments, offices, properties, and other business segments.

For example, the Sales department of a car dealership could use categories to help them track the profitability of the car models they sell: say, model A, model B, and model C.

When entering a transaction, you need to allocate the appropriate category to it. You can then prepare a profit and loss statement for each category.

Categories can be allocated to the following transaction types:

■	spend money

■	receive money

■	transfer money

■	general journal entries

■

sales

■

purchases

■	build items

■	inventory transfers

■	inventory adjustments

■

paychecks

■	historical sales and purchases.

note : You cannot allocate categories to some transactions

You cannot allocate a category to: Pay Bills, Receive Payments, Prepare Bank Deposit, Settle Returns and Credits/Debits, and Pay/Receive Refunds. When entering these transactions, the categories assigned to the original transactions will be used when the new transaction is recorded. For example, the categories assigned to purchases showing in the Pay Bills window will also be assigned to the bill payment.

To enable allocation of categories

1	Go to the Setup menu and choose Preferences.

2	Click the System tab.

3	Select the Turn on Category Tracking option. If you want to make the selection of a category mandatory for all transactions, choose Required from the adjacent list.

note : Turning off category tracking deletes all categories and their history

If you choose to turn off category tracking, any categories you have created and their transaction history will be deleted from your company file. You should make a backup of your company file before you take this step so that you can access this information if required.

To create a category

1	Go to the Lists menu and choose Categories. The Categories List window appears.

2	Click New. The Edit Category window appears.

3	In the Category ID field, type a code that will be used to identify the category and press Tab.

4	In the Category Name field, type the name of the category.

5	In the Description field, type a description of the category or notes relating to the category.

Click OK.