How to Track Expenses by Department with Different Classes During Export

Overview

When you need to track expenses across different departments and categories -- especially for grant reporting or cost allocation purposes -- QuickBooks provides two features that work together: Job Tracking and Class Tracking.

Job Tracking

Job tracking lets you assign every transaction to a specific customer or job. This is useful when you need to track all expenses associated with a particular project, grant, or client. Each transaction can be tagged with a customer or job name, making it easy to run reports showing total spending by job.

Class Tracking

Class tracking provides an additional layer of categorization. You can create classes that represent departments, locations, funding sources, or any other grouping that is meaningful to your organization. Each transaction can be assigned to a class in addition to its account and job.

How to Enable Class Tracking

In QuickBooks Online:

1. Click the Gear icon and select Account and Settings.
2. Go to the Advanced tab.
3. Under Categories, enable Track classes.
4. Click Save.

In QuickBooks Desktop:

1. Go to Edit > Preferences > Accounting.
2. On the Company Preferences tab, check Use class tracking.

Using Both Together

By combining job tracking and class tracking, you can cross-reference expenses in multiple ways. For example, you might assign a transaction to the "Marketing" class and the "Grant A" job, allowing you to generate reports that show spending by department, by grant, or by both.

This is particularly useful when exporting reports for external agencies that require detailed expense breakdowns by department and funding category.