Associating QB Classes w/ Chronicle Depts

You must link QuickBooks classes to Chronicle departments for much of the financial analysis in Chronicle to work. Chronicle's Profitability Snapshot requires that this setup be done.

Overview

In QuickBooks:

• Enable classes in QuickBooks.
• Set up classes in QuickBooks that correspond to each of your production departments.
• Make sure classes are NOT an invoice column.

In Chronicle:

• Link these classes to the corresponding departments in Chronicle.

In QuickBooks (Ongoing):

• On an ongoing basis, associate each invoice, expense, and labor record with the appropriate class.

We've given more detail on each of these below.

Enabling Classes in QuickBooks

If you don’t have classes currently turned on in QuickBooks, turn them on.

1. In QuickBooks, click the Edit menu, and then pick Preferences.
   
2. On the Preferences screen, click Accounting in the column on the left, and then click the Company Preferences tab.
   
3. On that tab, check Use class tracking and Prompt to assign classes.
   
   Prompt to assign classes forces users to assign a class for every invoice, payment, etc.; this is necessary to consistently associate your income and expenses with the correct offices and departments, so you want to require users to choose classes for everything.
4. Click OK to save the changes.

Setting Up the QuickBooks Class List

After you've enabled classes in QuickBooks, you must add at least one class for each production department in Chronicle, that is, for each department in Chronicle that corresponds to services that you provide to customers.

1. In QuickBooks, click the Lists menu, and then pick Class List.
   
   
2. Add at least one classes for each of your production departments.
   To do this, either type ctrl N, or click Class at the bottom of the screen and then pick New from the menu.
   You can have more than one class or subclass for each department if you wish; you can associate as many classes as you need to with any department in Chronicle.

If you use classes to distinguish between offices

Associating QuickBooks Classes with Chronicle Departments

Once you’ve set up classes in QuickBooks, the next step is to associate them with the corresponding departments in Chronicle; this is what enables departmental job costing in Chronicle. You must do this for any department that’s directly associated with a service you provide to a customer and that has costs and receipts associated with it; you don’t need to associate internal departments that don’t have job related expenses (like Accounting or Administration) with QuickBooks classes.

1. On your Home page, click Main System Setup under Management Tools.
   If Main System Setup isn’t in listed under Management Tools; see Adding Main System Setup to Your Tools List.
2. In the list of tabs on the left, click Departments to get to the department setup.
   
3. Click the department to set up the accounting ID for, and then click the Accounting Link tab on the right.
4. Under Department Accounting ID, click Add, and then type the class name that you set up in QuickBooks.
   Add each class from QuickBooks that is associated with this department; all spaces and capitalization must exactly match what is in QuickBooks.
   For subclasses, put a colon between the class and subclass names just as the name appears in the class column elsewhere in QuickBooks. The screen below shows how a class and its subclasses can be associated with a Chronicle department.
   
   To make sure the text matches exactly, if you want to, you can copy the class/subclass name from QuickBooks and paste it into Chronicle.
   
5. Repeat this process until each production department lists each class and subclass associated with it.

If you use different classes for different offices

Assigning Classes on QuickBooks Invoices and Expenses (Ongoing)

On an ongoing basis, make sure all invoices and expenses are correctly classed. This is discussed in Ongoing QuickBooks Data Entry. Pay particular attention to these sections:

Break Out Expenses for Different Jobs & Departments

Choose a Class for Every Transaction