Set up tracking categories and options (Xero)
Overview
Find out how to use your Xero tracking options to categorize Cin7 Omni transactions.
Xero tracking categories and options show how different areas of your business are performing.
For example, say you’ve created a tracking category named Location with three options named Main, Warehouse, and Online. When you create a transaction, such as a bill, invoice, or credit note, you assign each line item to one Location. Then you can review and compare the financial performance of each Location.
You can set up your Xero tracking options in Cin7 Omni too, and assign them to products, contacts, and branches, so they’re inherited by line items in transactions. Then, when you sync your transactions to Xero, the line items will be categorized correctly.
Before setting up your tracking options, carefully read how tracking options work (below), especially if you use alternative general ledger (GL) accounts to allocate revenue and expenses to specific accounts in Xero.
How tracking options work
In Cin7 Omni, tracking options are properties of alternative general ledger (GL) accounts, which are mainly used to allocate revenue and expenses from different sources (products, contacts, and branches) to different accounts in your Xero chart of accounts (rather than the default accounts set in your Xero integration settings).
Therefore, if you use (or intend to use) alternative GL accounts to allocate revenue and expenses, you may need to duplicate certain alternative GL accounts in order to differentiate revenue or expenses that gets allocated to the same account but gets assigned different tracking options.
For example, say you’ve created an alternative GL account named Sales (Electronics) to allocate revenue from electronic goods to a special account. Now you create a Xero tracking category named Division with two options named Retail and Ecommerce, because you want to compare your retail-electronics and ecommerce-electronics divisions. You still, however, want all electronics-related revenue allocated to the same account.
In this scenario, you’d need to create two alternative GL accounts to allocate revenue from electronic goods instead. You’d give each a unique, descriptive name – for example, Sales (Electronics, Retail) and Sales (Electronics, Ecommerce) – and assign your Retail tracking option to one and your Ecommerce tracking option to the other. Finally, you’d assign the alternative GL accounts to the particular Omni products, contacts, or branches related to your retail and ecommerce divisions.
How you set up and assign alternative GL accounts for allocating revenue or expenses and assigning tracking options depends heavily on the organization of your business and the reports you want to build. We strongly suggest looking at Cin7 Omni Insights instead, because the report you intend to build in Xero is likely prebuilt or simpler to build in Insights.
If you choose to use alternative GL accounts for allocating revenue and expenses and assigning tracking options, keep in mind these two principles when setting up:
1. Prioritization: Because alternative GL accounts can be assigned to products, contacts, and branches, line items can inherit their tracking options (and, likewise, their accounts for revenue or expenses) from the products, the contact, or the branch of a transaction.
Therefore, line items prioritize how they inherit tracking options (and, likewise, accounts for revenue and expenses):
A line item will inherit its product’s tracking option, if any.
A line item will inherit the contact’s tracking option if and only if the product has no tracking option.
A line item will inherit the branch’s tracking option if and only if neither the product nor the contact has a tracking option.
A line item will not inherit a tracking option if and only if neither the product, the contact, nor the branch has a tracking option.
2. Independence: The tracking category (Tracking Category Options) and account for revenue or expenses (Account Number) of an alternative GL account are inherited independently – that is, a line item can inherit a tracking category from one alternative GL account and an account for revenue or expense from another.
For example, say that Alternative GL Account 1 has an account but no tracking option, and Alternative GL Account 2 has a tracking option but no account. Now say you assign Alternative GL Account 1 to a branch and Alternative GL Account 2 to a product. Then you sell that product from that branch. The line item will inherit (a) Alternative GL Account 1’s account for revenue and (b) Alternative GL Account 2’s tracking option.
1. Set up tracking options
Before setting up tracking options in Cin7 Omni, make sure you’ve already set up your tracking categories and options in Xero. Then, to set up your tracking options in Cin7 Omni, create or edit an alternative GL account.
If the alternative GL account is for assigning a tracking option only (that is, it does not allocate revenue or expenses):
Set Active to On.
Leave Sort as is.
Set Tracking Categories Name to the name of your Xero tracking category exactly.
Set Tracking Categories Option to the name of the Xero tracking category’s option exactly.
Leave all other fields blank.
If the alternative GL account is for assigning a tracking option and allocating revenue or expenses:
Set Tracking Categories Name to the name of your Xero tracking category exactly.
Set Tracking Categories Option to the name of the Xero tracking category’s option exactly.
Fill in the other fields according to the instructions on setting up alternative GL accounts.
Then assign your tracking options (that is, your alternative GL accounts) to products, contacts, and branches.
2. Assign tracking options
You assign tracking options to products, contacts, and branches by assigning the alternative GL accounts to products, contacts, and branches.
Remember, because tracking options can be assigned (via alternative GL accounts) to products, contacts, and branches, line items will prioritize which tracking options they inherit (see above for how tracking options work).
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB
- Zendesk publishing.4.log-2014405138.zip30 KB