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Using Departments in QuickBooks & Novi AMS to Categorize Financial Transactions
Using Departments in QuickBooks & Novi AMS to Categorize Financial Transactions

Create separate financials for departments.

Pete Zimek, CAE avatar
Written by Pete Zimek, CAE
Updated over a week ago

Departments can add an additional layer for associations looking to categorize transactions beyond the traditional accounts, items (products & services), and classes. This is particularly useful when the business calls for separate financials for membership dues, events, and other verticals.


The Concept

The base level of a QuickBooks transaction is a line that is composed of an item and class. This allows for a single transaction to affect many different accounts and classes.

Departments, conversely, are tied to the transaction as a whole. This means that an invoice or sales receipt can only be attached to a single department. The best way to conceptualize this is to ask "Which Department is responsible for this particular transaction?"


Enabling Departments in QuickBooks

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online account and click on the gear icon in the upper right of the page.

2. Select Account and Settings

3. On the Advanced tab, look for the Categories section & click the edit icon on the right.

4. Within the edit dialogue, enable Track Locations and set the location label to Department.


Enabling Departments in Novi AMS

Departments must be enabled and defined within QuickBooks prior to setting up Departments in Novi. Novi's automatic sync will detect changes, but you might want to consider running a manual sync if you made changes to Departments in QuickBooks within the last few hours.

Departments are enabled and mapped inside of the various revenue centers in Novi. This ensures that invoices generated by those functions are properly categorized without any additional work by members or association staff.

Revenue centers include:

Adding Departments to Dues Transactions

  1. Navigate to Members > Member Types.

  2. Choose the Member Type to which you wish to add a Department and click the Edit link. Notice that you can assign a different Department to each Member Type or assign one Department to all of your Member Types.

  3. Click on the Settings tab within the Member Type.

  4. Scroll down to the Accounting section and select the proper Department from the dropdown list.

Adding Departments to Event Registration Transactions

  1. Navigate to Events > Categories.

  2. Find the Event Category to which you wish to add a Department and click the Edit link. Notice that you can assign a different Department to each Category or assign one Department to all of your Categories.

  3. Scroll down to the Accounting section and select the proper Department from the dropdown list.

Adding Departments to Ecommerce Transactions

  1. Navigate to Association Settings by clicking on the gear icon at the top right of the page (on the backend of Novi).

  2. Go to the Ecommerce tab.

  3. Scroll down to the Accounting section and select the appropriate Department from the dropdown list.


Common Questions

Why can't I specify specific departments for different Ecommerce products?

  • Departments are specific to transactions like invoices and sales receipts. Given that a member (customer) can purchase different products in the same transaction, only one department can be assigned to all Ecommerce transactions.

  • Associations do have the option of assigning invoices manually to individual departments within QuickBooks once those invoices have been created. This allows a person to put eyes on each Ecommerce transaction and route it appropriately.

What happens if an Ecommerce Product is included in an Event Registration transaction or Dues transaction as an add-on?

  • Because Departments are set the transaction level in QuickBooks, any Add On would inherit the Department of the Novi transaction type itself. So an Add On to an Event Registration transaction would have the same department as the event tickets.

Is there an option to make Departments more granular so that different line items on the same transactions can have different departments?

  • If that is your business case, you might want to consider classes. They are designed to be designated within QuickBooks and Novi at the transaction line item level. Some accounting professionals might also recommend separate GL accounts.

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