Hi, Just wondering if it possible to have a custom field or a categorisation field i.,e. I just want to set each expense with an additional
Hi, My suggestion: Additional Field on Chart of Accounts that could be reported on and totalled by in the P&L.
Details:
Just suggesting if it possible to have an additional custom field or a categorisation field in the chart of accounts level only (not item tracking detailed expense level) i.,e.
I just want to set each expense (and possibly income) with an additional reportable field.
to do this at the accounts/chart of accounts level (i.e. 1/Category 1 2/Category 2 3/Category 3 4/Category 4.
I don’t need them to have tracking entries, i just need it on a top level.
Each of the expenses is categorised as part of one of these categories or blank.
The reason I need this is that I need to then allocate one of the categories back to the other categories, so I would add an extra field per category for allocated expenses (from the other category).
This is super important for us and at the moment is a very tedious manual process to report by category of expense.
Just wondering if there is something possibility of adding another column to the chart of accounts as a CUSTOM CATEGORY field (optional) which would allow me to total by category automatically rather than exporting to excel and manually doing this.
Even if the reports don’t total at first, having the field there would remind me of which category the expense is as there could be similar names of expense just different categories. i.e. they must be different GL accounts (not item tracking etc)
I think it is a really good suggestion and would make my reporting so much better.
I do not need to track individual expenses and split i.e. like a project code, no what i need is that each chart of account is separately and if there are 2 similar expenses but a different category it would be a different GL code. (if they are in another category partially they get assigned another number under that category).
I need this simple reporting tool not tracking on each individual expense.
Maybe it could be an additional feature that could be turned on and off in settings
* Add category to chart of accounts
Then the optional category field would appear in the chart of acounts and it would also activiate any reports by category options in reporting.
This would really solve many of my current problems, make me more efficient and just enable more flexible reporting without having to design complicated custom reports.
Im sure this suggestion would also be helpful to others, it would be like flexible reporting.
As an alternative to running a full P&L it could be run just as a filter for a particular category.
Or perhaps they only want to run a P&L for certain critical expenses this is how the category field could be used as a reporting category or by category.
Personally I would benefit from having 2 optional reporting categories types.
1) Reporting critical expenses (i.e. I would tag my critical income and expenses in one reporting category (specific for reporting and matching certain income and expenses to report these in a different way/order to the full P&L
2) The 4 general categories of expense for the business (broader - general, encompassing all expenses)
Hi Miriam, thank you for sharing such a detailed suggestion! It sounds like you're looking for a more efficient way to group your accounts for reporting without the manual effort of using Excel. There are actually two ways you can achieve this in Xero right now:
- You can set up your Chart of Accounts using a specific numbering sequence to visually categorize them. For example, you could use a 'Category 1' prefix for related codes, such as 100-Cat1 (Revenue), 200-Cat1 (COS), and 300-Cat1 (Expense)
- o get the automated totals you mentioned for your P&L, you can use the Layout Editor. Instead of exporting to Excel, you can click 'Edit Layout' on your report, select the relevant accounts, and click 'Group Selection.' You can name these groups (e.g., 'Critical Expenses' or 'General Category 1'), and Xero will automatically calculate a subtotal for that group every time you run the report.
Hopefully, this helps save you some time on your manual reporting! If you have questions regarding this, I recommend you reach out to us via Xero Central so we can help you there.
However, if I've misunderstood it, please get back to us on the idea and we can look into it again.