How to Set up Categories
Creating Categories and Sub-Categories
We make it easy to create a customized category list that maps to your chart of accounts.
As an Admin, log in to your Abacus account and access your Settings tab, then click on Categories on the left-hand side.
1. To enter a new top-level category, click the + New Category button.
2. Enter the name of the new category, and click Create.
3. To add a new subcategory to an existing category, click + New Sub-Category.
4. Select the top-level category, then enter the new subcategory name. When finished, click Create.
5. To edit a category name, click on the Pencil icon to the far right of the category.
6. The Edit Category page opens. When finished making the necessary changes, click Save.
7. To delete a category, click on the Trash Can icon.
Trash Can icon.Limiting Visibility on Categories
You can limit the visibility of categories to certain groups. If you've created Team Fields to segment your employees into groups (i.e. Department, Location, etc.), you can limit the visibility of your Categories based on these groups.
In this example, the Team Field we're using to limit the visibility of the categories is Location.
By default, each category is visible to all employees:
If certain categories only need to be seen by certain groups, you can edit the visibility.
1. Click ALL in the Visible to Location column.
2. Select Limit category visibility by team field, then choose the location from the dropdown menu.
Click Save when finished.
3. Next, map each category to the corresponding Chart of Accounts in your accounting platform:
You can configure your category list according to the Team Fields you've set up to support a more granular approach to your accounting.
For manual accounting, you must connect to Custom Mapping for the Chart of Accounts column to be visible on the categories page. Head to Settings > Accounting Integration > Connect to Custom mapping. Once enabled, the Chart of Accounts column will be visible on the Categories page.