Understanding Classes in QuickBooks Online

Classes in QuickBooks Online are a powerful way to categorize transactions beyond your chart of accounts. GrantLink leverages Classes to seamlessly track grant expenses.

What Are Classes?

Classes are reporting tags you can apply to transactions in QuickBooks Online. Depending on your class-tracking configuration, you can assign one Class to the whole transaction or assign Classes by row. Classes run across accounts but are not attributes of the chart of accounts, legal donor restrictions, self-balancing funds, or donor attribution.

Common uses for Classes include:

• Location tracking - Different offices or sites
• Department tracking - Various organizational departments
• Grant tracking - Individual grants or funding sources
• Program tracking - Different programs or services

How GrantLink Uses Classes

When a grant uses a QuickBooks Class for expenses:

1. Add the grant in GrantLink.
2. Select the Class in the grant's Expenses QuickBooks links.
3. Eligible synced transaction lines carrying that Class allocate to the grant automatically.

The link controls matching in GrantLink; it does not apply a Class to the source QuickBooks Online transaction. Any supported QuickBooks Online tag update requires separate writeback permission.

Setting Up Classes for Grant Tracking

Class tracking and relevant budget dimensions are plan-dependent and currently available in Plus and Advanced. Verify Intuit's current plans and follow Intuit's current class-tracking instructions, including whether Classes are assigned once per transaction or once per row.

Creating Classes for Grants

Create the Class manually in QuickBooks:

• Go to Settings > All Lists > Classes
• Click New and enter the grant name
• Map it to your grant in GrantLink

Where GrantLink offers a supported Class-creation workflow, creating anything in QuickBooks Online requires explicit writeback permission; adding a grant does not unconditionally create a Class.

Class Hierarchy

QuickBooks supports sub-classes, which can be useful for organizing related grants:

Foundation Grants (Parent Class)
├── Ford Foundation 2024
├── Ford Foundation 2025
└── Kellogg Foundation 2024

Government Grants (Parent Class)
├── HHS Grant 2024
└── DOE Grant 2024

This hierarchy can organize QuickBooks Online reports. GrantLink's portfolio does not group grants by parent Class; each grant uses its own selected QuickBooks links.

Classes can also support subdivided budgets and Budget vs Actual reporting in supported QuickBooks Online plans. QuickBooks Online supports multiple fiscal-year budgets. Confirm current capabilities in Intuit's budgeting guidance.

Class reporting does not establish revenue recognition, donor restrictions, releases from restriction, or compliance. Unconditional contributions, conditional contributions, and exchange transactions require different accounting analysis under a CPA-approved recognition policy.

Best Practices

1. Use consistent naming - Match Class names to grant names exactly
2. Enable warnings - Set QuickBooks to warn about unclassified transactions
3. Review regularly - Check for transactions missing Classes
4. Archive old Classes - Inactive grants should have inactive Classes

Troubleshooting

Class Not Syncing

• Ensure the Class is active in QuickBooks
• Trigger a manual sync in GrantLink
• Check that the Class isn't a sub-class of an inactive parent

Transactions Not Auto-Allocating

• Verify the Class is selected in the grant's Expenses QuickBooks links
• Check that the Class is applied at the transaction or row level, consistent with the QuickBooks Online configuration and the linked record
• Confirm the grant is active and the transaction falls within its allowed expense dates
• Review the sync history for errors

How GrantLink supports this today

Add a grant manually or from PDF documents, then use its per-grant Expenses and Money received QuickBooks links. Expense links drive eligible automatic allocations. Money received is a UI label for relevant QuickBooks Online income/revenue records and must not be equated mechanically with cash receipts. Create reports in Chats > New Chat; they then appear on the grant's Reports tab. Any supported QuickBooks Online writeback requires the relevant workflow and explicit permission.

GrantLink does not rewrite QuickBooks Online automatically; shared account mappings are restricted-account mappings only.

Sources

• Intuit: Get started with class tracking — supported plans, class settings, subclasses, and transaction-versus-row assignment.
• Intuit: Create budgets — current fiscal-year and subdivision behavior.