Using reports to track information by categories

The purpose of creating categories and assigning transactions to them is to allow you to view and analyze activity reports, a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet and General Ledgers for each category. These reports, as well a list of all the categories you've created are found in the Accounts view of the Index to Reports window.

The Category reports are:

Category Activity [Summary]
Category Activity [Detail]
Category Transactions
Category Profit & Loss Statement
Category Balance Sheet
Category Trial Balance [Summary]
Category Trial Balance [Detail]
Category History
Categories List

You can also add a Category field to numerous other sales, purchases, payroll and inventory reports if you want to customize them.

A great deal of information is available to you if you have systematically created your categories and consistently assigned your transactions to them. Here are a few reminders about using categories that will help ensure the accuracy and relevancy of your Category Reports.

• Create categories with reports in mind. What can you learn by breaking out the information about a separate part of your company or a specific service?
• The information in the reports reflects only those transactions that you assigned to a category. If you want every transaction assigned to a category, select the Required option when you mark the Category preference. If you want your reports to include only sales information, for example, do not select the Require option (you'll be able to skip the Category field in all your non-sales transactions), but you must remember to assign all your sales transactions to a category.
• You may want to use categories for a limited period of time. Perhaps you don't want include the step of assigning transactions to categories indefinitely but would like to analyze your information for a single month. You may have a peak selling season and want to track just that time of the year. You can simply mark or unmark the preference to display or remove the Category field in the transaction windows.
• When you create a new category, the Turn Category Tracking On preference is automatically marked, even if it had not previously been marked. If you are creating a category for future use and currently do not want the Category field to appear in all the transaction windows, you can unmark the preference.