Categories for Reporting

[Judy01]

Hello

Our company has a Financial year end of 31 December. As of 1 July this year, one of our 'sister' company will be amalagamated with us. I need to be able to report both divisions seperately and consolidated, and it seems that setting up Categories is the way to do this. I realise that I can't change categories on historical transactions so my question is how to deal with this since we will be half way through a year.

Basically my Categories will be Sales and Service. I will have a full set of accounts for Sales and a half year for Service. Rather than use the Sales category now, where I can't change historical data, am I best to run the rest of this year with no category for the sales division and enter all transactions of the service division under a service category?

In 2021, I can use the Sales and Service categories.

I hope that makes sense. I just need to be able to show results for each division on 31 December 2020. Next year will be easy.

[Judy01]

Hi

I am re-posting my query in a different section because I have not had any answers undr Reporting yet and I need to get this resolved

Hello

Our company has a Financial year end of 31 December. As of 1 July this year, one of our 'sister' company will be amalagamated with us. I need to be able to report both divisions seperately and consolidated, and it seems that setting up Categories is the way to do this. I realise that I can't change categories on historical transactions so my question is how to deal with this since we will be half way through a year.

Basically my Categories will be Sales and Service. I will have a full set of accounts for Sales and a half year for Service. Rather than use the Sales category now, where I can't change historical data, am I best to run the rest of this year with no category for the sales division and enter all transactions of the service division under a service category?

In 2021, I can use the Sales and Service categories.

I hope that makes sense. I just need to be able to show results for each division on 31 December 2020. Next year will be easy.

[Neil_M · Accepted solution]

Hi @Judy01 

You may want to have this discussion with your accountant over whether you would be best to avoid using categories until the end of the year or whether you should start using the categories immediately.

One way you could handle getting into the categories with the right amounts for the current financial year would be to use journal entries and potentially a holding account. These journal entries could be used to move the amount out of the account then back again as two separate transactions with the category attached to the second transaction. Do speak with your accountant if your unsure as to how those journal entries should look