In a recent post we explored the class feature in QuickBooks Online (QBO).
The class feature allows QBO users to track their businesses by individual divisions or profit centers. This helps the business owner with disparate operations under one company, gain insights into which operations are helping the company profits and which may be hurting it.
Those familiar with QuickBooks Desktop may recognize the class feature as being a very similar function in both desktop and online versions of QuickBooks.
In the desktop version, the class feature is often used by companies that have more than one location. Class can identify these different sites and aid in reporting the results of each individual location.
In QBO, there is a feature specifically for location tracking.
In Company Settings, select the Categories section. Select the option Track locations.
There is a dropdown below the selection titled “Location label”.
The dropdown will allow you to label location in several different ways. You may call your locations stores, territories, properties, as well as several other options. We’ll use location.
In QBO, navigate to All Lists from the menu accessed with the gear icon. Here we will enter the existing as well as a new location for Craig’s Design and Landscaping Services.
QBO allows many more options in the setup of a location than a class.
Customers may only deal with one location. That location probably has a different address, a different phone number. As such, you would want your documents to customers, like invoices and statements, to show the location contact information, not the company main location or office information.
Craig’s main location, where his business has been located for years, is in San Pablo, Ca. He has opened a new location in Mountain View, CA.
You can see in the screenshot above the location setup for Craig’s new store. In that setup window is also the address of the new location. If you could see more of the setup window in the graphic, you would see a Mountain View location email address and phone number.
Now when we create an invoice for a customer, we can specify which location it is for. In the above instance, we have created a customer invoice with Craig’s new location, Mountain View, specified.
This is how this invoice appears when printed or emailed.
Note that the new address we entered for Craig’s Mountain View location appears on the invoice. So does the email address we specified.
If we used an invoice template that included phone number as part of the company contact information, you would see the number specific to the Mountain View location displayed.
The location feature has additional capabilities that we may explore in future posts. But at this point, it is a great benefit to companies that have more than one location.
Despite having one set of accounting records in QBO, Craig’s customers will receive correspondence from the company specific to the location they frequent.
Hector Garcia, CPA
Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor
12401 Orange Drive #136
Davie, FL 33330
954-414-1524
hector@garciacpa.com
