The new TAGS feature is pretty groundbreaking! here is a video that explains how it works:
A couple of things you need to know first, TAGS are not available in all transactions types, only the following transactions can use tags:
- Invoices
- Credit Memos
- Sales Receipts
- Refund Receipts
- Expenses
- Checks
- Bills
- Vendor Credits
In other words, you cannot apply TAGS to:
- Estimates
- Purchase Orders
- Timesheets
- Customer Payments
- Bill Payment
- Journal Entries
- Payroll Checks
- Payroll Liability Payments
- Sales Tax Payments
- Inventory Adjustments
- Transfers
- Bank Deposits
- Any other not mentioned above…
That is not necessarily a problem, but it is important to take not on where tags can or cannot be used. A couple of other concepts about tags are important to keep in mind:
- Tags are transaction level (they affect every line item in the transactions) and cannot be done at the line item level. The alternative to this would be using classes instead. Tags and Locations are similar in this restriction
- Since tags are not available in Estimates or Purchase Orders, Custom Fields might be a good alternative for these transaction type; but custom fields are not available in Estimates, Purchase Orders, Invoices, and Credit Memos
- Tags do not affect financial statements, so they can be used to create additional custom reports without worrying about the consequences to the accounting integrity. Either way you would still need to enter the appropriate accounts whether you use tags or not.
- You can enter tags when using Bank Feeds (Downloaded Bank Transactions) if you are creating an expense or check transaction; but not if you are creating a Bank Deposit or Transfer (as mentioned above, these are not supported)
- You cannot add tags as part of the Bank Rules
- You cannot batch tag or batch reclassify tags using the reclassify tool
- You can create two types of reports with tags: Transaction List by Tag and Profit & Loss by Tag (In both reports you can must choose a tag group and optionally can filter by specific tag(s)
Last updated 03/11/2020 – Keep in mind that Intuit changes QBO all the time, so some of these details could change after the fact.
