What's in this Article
Understanding Categories, Classes, & Location Fields
In Quickbooks Online (QBO), there are several ways to bucket or organize your services to gain insight into your sales and inventory:
- Categories classify services you provide for your clients.
- Classes divide up important pieces of your firm, like departments or product lines.
- Locations to organize transactions in each office, region, department, etc. of your firm.
Categories, Classes, and locations are a means of classification that allows for reporting with additional layers or segments. The primary way to categorize transactions is to assign them to specific accounts such as sales, purchases, or other financial items.
To learn more about how to utilize classes and locations, click here.
Reminder: Reports regarding category, class, and location will need to be run on your Quickbooks Online account.
You'll create and manage categories, classes, and locations in QBO. Once live, Canopy displays these options for you as you put together an invoice or bill.
Canopy Tip: If you are unsure of how to label category, class, and location fields, try this:
Think about how you would like to understand the profitability of your firm. How can you divvy up your finances so that you know which areas of the firm are making or breaking the bank?
Here are a few examples:
| Company | Category | Class | Location |
| Tax Masters | 2022 Audits | Reno | Nevada |
| Target | Delivery orders | Los Angeles | California |
| Public Library | 2022 Release | Mystery novels | Children's section |
Sync Category, Class, & Location Fields
1. Ensure correct settings are turned on in QBO.
- In your QBO Accountant account, click the gear icon.
- Go to Account & Settings.
- Find the Advanced tab.
- Turn on both Categories settings to track classes and locations.
Reminder: You cannot update the names of classes, categories, or locations within Canopy. Any changes to fields need to be done within QBO. The fields will sync into Canopy once they are updated!
2. In Canopy, navigate to Invoices in the Billing section.
3. Select Create invoice.
4. Next to QBO Sync, click the drop-down arrow to select the Location.
5. Select a service in the drop-down box where your QBO categories are listed.
Categories only populate if you assign a service item to a category.
6. On the line item, scroll over to the Class column.
- From the drop-down list, select the Class.
- Enter any other important information for the invoice.