• Solarsys
• December 18, 2009

Proper way of using QuickBooks Class feature

‘I did select a class when I recorded an Enter Bills transaction in QuickBooks, but why can’t I filter Acocunts Payable Ageing Detail report by Class?’

Before you look at Class feature, first we have to understand the type of accounts available in QuickBooks Chart of Accounts list. In the Chart of Accounts list, it break the type of accounts into two main group; they are Balance Sheet accounts and Profit & Loss account.

Balance Sheet accounts type are:

• Bank
• Accounts Receivable
• Other Current Assets
• Fixed Asset
• Other Assets
• Accounts Payable
• Credit Card
• Other Current Liability
• Long Term Liability
• Equity

Profit & Loss accounts type are:

• Income
• Cost of Goods Sold
• Expense
• Other Income
• Other Expense

As what the QuickBooks help file explained:

In QuickBooks, classes give you a way to classify your transactions. You can use QuickBooks classes to classify your income and expenses by department, business office or location, separate properties you own, or any other meaningful breakdown of the business you do.

As what the help file explained, Class feature is a feature classifying your transactions that involved income and expense account. Example: if you record a bill in QuickBooks with a Class. The Accounts Payable account will not be classified since accounts payable account is a Balance Sheet item, but the expense account in this bill will be classified and thus presented in Profit & Loss by Class report.

 ‘Why Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report is behave differently comparing with the Accounts Payable Ageing Detail report? When you recorded an invoice, besides filtering sales report by class, you are able to filter the Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report by class too.’

In the invoice form, at the header section, there is a Class field; this class field is associated with the Customer:Job Name (accounts receivable account). Therefore, in the Accounts Receivable Ageing Detail report you are able to filter by class. The class field in the column section will allow you to filter Sales report by class.

Class can only classifying Income and expense accounts (Profit & Loss), you cannot use it in classifying Balance Sheet item; so, don’t use class for multi-company accounting within a QuickBooks company file. You will not be able to classifying Retained Earning account or Net Income account (system account from QuickBooks) for different company data within a QuickBooks company file. You should use separate QuickBooks company file for different companies that you owned, so you can prepare separate Profit & Loss report and Balance Sheet report.

If you need to consolidate reports for different companies file, you can consider to use QuickBooks Enterprise version. QuickBooks Enterprise version does come with a consolidated report feature. To understand how it works, do sign up for our free QuickBooks demo at our office.