I must confess: I totally missed this until recently. And I have no clue how long it has been in the product. I like to keep an eye on QuickBooks Online virtually every day, in both Canada and the US (and sometimes other countries). And I attend all the “In the Know” webinars—at least I think I do.
So I pride myself on knowing when cool new things hit my QBO screen. But this little one escaped my notice. And it is a beauty.
I’m talking about the Categorization history feature in the QBO bank feeds. Maybe you have missed it, too? If so, you clearly are not alone.
Let me illustrate in Craig’s Landscaping, the US QBO test drive company.
Let’s say my client made two purchases on Nov. 8 to A Rental, a new vendor. It paid $100 on its MasterCard for equipment rental and $5,000 out of its savings account for a used truck (a fixed asset). It entered both transactions manually:
Now, let’s examine the bank feed for the Checking account, which was not used for either of the manually-entered transactions. There are a bunch of transactions in there because the client is behind on using the bank feeds.
In the For Review tab, there are three transactions involving A Rental, and QBO does not know what to do with them. These transactions obviously have nothing to do with the two transactions my client entered earlier (and the November dates on those two transactions are later than the August and September dates on the ones sitting in the Checking account For Review tab):
Let’s say I’m new to this client and I have been tasked with getting the bank feeds and reconciliations up to date.
I see these A Rental transactions in the Checking account. Yes, I could search for that vendor and see how previous transactions were entered. But that is time-consuming. I have to leave the Banking area, open the Vendor list, find A Rental, and see if any previous transactions were entered and how.
While I can do this in a new tab without disrupting the bank feeds process, it still is a matter of switching gears, which is not good for the brain or my flow. And if that is not enough, it is time-consuming.
This is where the Categorization history comes in and rocks.
I can click on any of the A Rental transactions where money was spent, and click on Categorization history.
I can see how “money out” transactions involving this name were categorized in the past, regardless of the transaction dates (they are later than the transaction I’m trying to add in the bank feed) or the payment account (the other transactions used completely different payment accounts). I can decide to see the transaction treatments that were most used or last used from the Sort by drop-down:
I choose Most used, which, given there are only two historical transactions involving this name, does not really change the display in this situation.
I make sure the radio button next to Equipment Rental is selected, and I select the Assign category.
That pops the Equipment Rental account for me into the transaction, and I can then select Add.
Back in the For Review tab, I see the remaining A Rental transactions (one “money in” and one “money out”) offer up that account—Equipment Rental—in the Category or Match field, which is how QuickBooks Online normally would behave with Suggested Categorization turned on.
If I select the “money in” transaction for $200 and click on Categorization history, I get this window, which shows no transactions upon which I can model this transaction. That’s because the previous transactions were “money out” ones only and I’m working on a “money in” one.
This is slightly weird in that there is no previously-entered “money in” transaction on which to model any ones, but the Categorization history link was there in this transaction, leading me nowhere.
Most of the time, if there is a name on a transaction in the For Review tab with no other history of transactions, the Categorization history link will not even appear.
But at least QuickBooks Online is learning about this particular company and the various names in use. And, best of all, it does not make me create new rules or go spelunking around the company file to find previous transactions manually.
This is a neat little time-saver.
Esther Friedberg Karp is an internationally-renowned trainer, writer and speaker from Toronto, where she runs her QuickBooks consulting practice, EFK CompuBooks Inc. Consistently in Insightful Accountant's Top 100 ProAdvisors, she has been named to the Top 10 twice.
With the unique distinction of holding ProAdvisor certifications in the US, Canadian, UK, and International versions of QuickBooks, she has traveled the world with Intuit. She has spoken at conferences such as QuickBooks Connect, Scaling New Heights, and Future Forward, and has written countless articles for Intuit Global.
Esther has been named one of the “Top 50 Women in Accounting,” a “Top 10 Influencer” in the Canadian Bookkeeping World, and is a repeat nominee for the “RBC Canadian Women’s Entrepreneur Awards.” She counts among her clients many international companies, as well as accounting professionals seeking her out on behalf of their own clients for her expertise in multi-currency and various countries’ editions of QuickBooks Desktop and Online.
She can be reached at esther@e-compubooks.com or 416-410-0750.
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