Need help deciding how to track your financial activity in AccountEdge? This guide will give you a simple overview of Jobs, Categories, and Departments — three helpful ways to organize your transactions and run custom reports.
All three tracking methods can help you create Profit & Loss statements, and in some cases, additional reports like Balance Sheets or reimbursable expenses. But each has its own use case:
Jobs
Jobs are used to track a specific project, client, or activity over time.
You can:
Assign a Job to individual transactions
Include more detail like linked customers, project dates, or job status
Track reimbursable expenses
Print Job info on customer invoices
Jobs are only available for Customer card types.
🏷 Categories
Categories are broader than Jobs or Departments and are used for high-level tracking — often for divisions, entities, or functions.
You can:
Assign a Category to the entire sale
Run a Balance Sheet per Category
Track budgeting by Category
Use Categories across your business, regardless of customer/vendor type
Categories do not appear on invoices and cannot be assigned to card files.
Departments
Departments help you track parts of your business like teams, locations, or functions.
You can:
Assign them to all card file types (not just customers)
Use them for internal reporting across Sales, Ops, or Admin
Filter reports and track P&L data
Departments cannot be printed on invoices.
🔍 Quick Comparison Table
Feature | Jobs | Departments | Categories |
Report Filtering | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
P&L Report | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Balance Sheet Report | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Reimbursable Expenses | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Track Budgets | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Want a Quick Walkthrough?
Watch our short video to see these features in action:
Need More Help?
If you’re still not sure which one is right for your workflow, feel free to check out our Category Reports, Job Budgets, or Implementing and Tracking Jobs articles — or reach out to us directly. We’re happy to guide you!