Sales/Purchases: Include a Categories column on Enter Sales/Purchases window

24 Comments

Flow
Experienced Cover User
10 years ago
Is it possible to record a sales analysis code or category per line item in a sales transaction?

My Reasoning:
The line item on my sales invoice may be "Labour Jim" this reports to my GL Code Labour. But I also want to break it down so I can see what kinds of job it was e.g. Labour Jim (Inventory) and Hot Water Unit Replacement (Category) or Blocked Drain (Category).

The Categories and Sales Person features that currently exist only allow me to record one per transaction so when I run a report on categories I see the whole sale and not just the one line item that may be applicable e.g. I don't want my 'Callout' inventory item linked to my 'Hot Water Replacement' category.

Does that make senses...

So, if on each line item I could record a cetegory I would be able to use the category report to further break down my Profit and Loss report and see what categories are making money.

P.s. I don't want to have to setup a new inventory item for every fieldworker (Jim) and every category

P.p.s. I already use jobs for tracking jobs so this won't work either.
- Jennifer_Kelly
  Super Partner
  10 years ago
  Hi,
  Ordinarily I would say Jobs is what you should be using to be able to break down each transaction to different components.
  
  With Jobs you can allocate at the line item level to different Jobs, however with Categiroes Only one can be added to each transaction. I would not think that Catgories is the way to go to identify things like Call out v Hot water replacement. Categories are more designed to keep track of different Branches or divisions in a business.
  
  You say you are already using Jobs. Other ways of breaking up the info by jobs into more detail are:
  
  - Use Activity Slips/Time billing to capture both the person performing the task and what Activity they are doing. These can then be allocated to a job.
  - Use Items to Track what work is being done so an Item for Callout , and one for HW replacement. Then you can analyse by Job broken down to the different Income compontents. It sounds like you are using Items to also track the person doing the work? Maybe use SAlesperson for the worker?
  - Use Sub jobs - eg Job Header is for the House build and then have a number of sub jobs under each header Good if you have a smaller number of jobs with a number of segments.
  - Use GL to break ups each Job by different components - So if you have say 10 different "types of work" then you could have a Labour GL account down at that level e.g. Callout , HW replacement. then allocate each line to that GL account and allocate to the job. you can then do a JOb P&L that breaks down to that level.
  
  Deciding which is the best for you will depend on the type of jobs you have e.g. small number of large complex jobs, or a large number of small jobs for a large number of clients. Your MYOB CC will be able to help you work this out.
  
  Reporting?
  The other issues is it is fine to do all this work to capture this level of detail however how do you then want to report on it? Combining all of these different elements and getting flexible reports out of standard MYOB can sometimes be a challenge.
  There are a number of Add-on solution that can help you if you choose any of the above options to get really flexible reports by JOb Header, JOb Customer, by Activity Slip, by Category etc.
  See http://myob.com.au/addons/category/3/advanced-reporting/
  
  If you would like to know more about some advanced reporting options for MYOB let me know.
  
  Jennifer Kelly CA
  Business Intelligence for MYOB
  www.BIforMYOB.com
  02 8912 4120
- Flow
  Experienced Cover User
  10 years ago
  Hi Jennifer,
  
  Unfortunately none of the above suggestions will work for us. The tracking of Categories only needs to occur (at this stage) on our sales transactions. Going through and entering activities and timesheet and timebilling as suggested above would be overkill for our needs.
  
  Is it not possible at all that MYOB would consider adding another grouping method similar to jobs on sales invoicing? It doesn't have to be Categories you could call it Analysis Code and it will simply allow a user to analays (report) their sales & profit on another level without affecting their inventory and job costing anaylsis.
  
  If I have to setup an inventory item for every employee and every category I will end up with a stupidly massive inventory.
  
  Thanks,
  Sarah
- JenTech
  Experienced Cover User
  9 years ago
  We too are wanting to use Categories on both sales and purchase transactions to track different profit centres. However, multiple profit centres can exist within one sale or purchase transaction, so the category needs to be applied per line item, not per whole transaction. Job numbers are already in use to track individual pieces of work (warranty and recall records), so we are currently keeping records external to MYOB to track profit centres. This means a lot of duplication, and, as with any manual system, it is open to error.
  
  Hence, you get my vote.
  
  Annie
Aly
Cover User
12 years ago
Have you used the JOB column, you can set up different job numbers for each entity and use this to split the sales/purchases. You can then access the report on each job through the Accounts tab, JOBS.
Dan_Moulton
Former Staff
12 years ago
Status changed:
New
to
Open
Thanks for the feedback. Categories are a little tricky, because categories are designed to produce a Balance sheet report ( as well as a P&L) the category needs to be applied across the whole transaction in order to result in a balanced Balance Sheet. However I do understand the need for additional Cost codes or Dimesion codes per line. The Job Codes are certainly an option ( if they aren't already in use for other means). I'd love to hear more about this idea - particularly what sort of reporting do you need from these codes?
Teep
Partner
12 years ago
Yes I have the same issue. We are already using Jobs to track jobs/projects but would like to split expenses like Rent and Telephones across different Departments/Categories.

Otherwise does anyone know a clean way to journal/internal invoice the percentage from one category to another? Is it possible?

T
YBF
User
10 years ago
We are currently having the same problem where we need to split one invoice entry over 5 different categories. It is so tedious. A column for categories would be so much more convenient.
kylieelston
Partner
9 years ago
I am wanting to split my business into two categories which are run from the same premises using same bank account etc.
Being: Fabrication / Grounds Maintenance
All overhead costs including phone / rent / electricity / water etc will be split between the two categories.

The category selection only allows you to select one at a time. Meaning that when you want to enter a bill and divide the bill equally between the two categories you have enter the bill twice with the 50% of costs. I am suggesting like the job column you have a column in the expense line to allocate to the category as well. This way you only have to enter one bill and can divide it between two (or more) categories. I am sure I am not the only business that has this issue. Reading the community forum it seems pretty common problem.
Steven_M
Former Staff
9 years ago
Hi kylieelston

Thank you for your idea in regards to AccountRight and Categories.

I have merged your idea with this similar one included on the AccountRight Idea Exchange.
Categories
Cover User
9 years ago
As per above, we already run Job Costing, but also run Categories, and at the moment everything is requred to be entered several times over. This includes journals, bills and invoicing, which is very time consuming and also counter productive as we are having to enter the same invoice/bill etc with each different category, which also then flags for having duplicate invoice/purchase numbers.

There simply has to be a better way or the system needs to be rectified urgently
BronwynHamster
Trusted Cover User
8 years ago
I run Categories currently in AccountRight Premier (not Live). From an accounting background I think it would be difficult to have separate categories within 1 transaction as the Balance Sheet wouldn't really work. For example, how would you split 1 debtor's invoice in the Trade Debtors' control account on the Balance Sheet? We run both Categories and Jobs. It would however be totally AWESOME to go back and change a Category on Sales and Purchases once it has been receipted / paid. It would also be fantastic if MYOB would fix the problem they know they have with the Category General Ledger Summary report in the AccountRight Live version. It seems not to be very high on their list of fixes!
Monu
User
8 years ago
Agree. Categories will work for us too if it is attached to each account instead to each invoice.

I sometimes have one invoice that relates to different cost centres, fuel cards for example.