How to Bulk Update your Categories

​This feature is only available for customers on the Professional pricing plan. Please get in touch if you're interested in upgrading your plan.

When setting up your categories in a new account, or doing a large-scale restructure, you can now use Category Bulk Update to change many categories at once. 

Importing your Updated Category Information

To get started, head to your Categories page. Click “Bulk Import Categories.”

You will be prompted to upload your CSV file. You can download a template CSV to get started with from this window. You can also create your own CSV to upload. Please refer to the guidelines below on how to format your CSV file to upload.

CSV Guidelines

The screenshot above shows all the categories you can have in the CSV. 

Abacus Category: This is the Parent category. You will need to enter the name of the Parent Category for each subcategory in the row next to. 

Abacus Subcategory: This is the name of one of the subcategories for the specified Parent category. 

Visible to: Department:  If you have decided to make your categories only visible to certain Team Fields, you specify this here. You will need to create a separate line for each scoped subcategory. So if you want the ABM subcategory to be visible to both Marketing and Sales, you will need to create two rows, one for the subcategory visible to Marketing, one for the subcategory visible to Sales.

Chart of Accounts: If you are on a manual accounting sync, you can enter the GL account name in this column that you would like expenses of this category to map to. 

*Note: This is only for customers on manual accounting sync, and will not work if you sync directly to a software*

Previewing Changes

Once the CSV uploads, you’ll be able to preview your changes before you finalize them. The summary page will break down your changes by whether you added categories, deactivating categories, or updating the scoping or mapping on existing categories. 

You can de-select the checkbox next to any set of changes, if you would prefer not to make them. 

You can also take a closer look at the actual changes you are making, by clicking Preview Changes. This will show you specifically which categories are affected.

Confirming Changes

Make sure to review because if you apply your changes, they cannot be undone. Once you’re satisfied with the adjustments you’ve made, you can confirm your changes.