QuickBooks Online Groups · Track 3 · Tutorial 2 of 3

Read classes as operational data

Available on ProPremium

Every month BrizoConsol loads your classes, it also keeps them as operational data. That copy is what the group reads in its own currency, and what dashboards and reports are built on.

You will needMaple Inc (USD) and Maple UK Ltd (GBP) with their classes loaded, as in Bring in classes. Exchange rates for every month you report. Free, Pro or Premium edition.

By the endThe QuickBooks: Class dataset found, checked against the rates, and read on your group in SGD.

1Know what each load writes

Every month BrizoConsol loads QuickBooks’ profit and loss by class. Each time, it also writes the same figures as an operational dataset — a table of figures that dashboards, custom reports and operational reports can read, and that is translated into the group currency on the group.

Name	One dataset for all of a company’s classes: QuickBooks: Class.
Rows	One figure for each class and each P&L line in each month — Stores:Boston’s Sales for October is one row. The lines are the report’s own, account lines and subtotals alike — Sales, Total Income, Net Income.
Dimensions	Class and P&L Line. Every reading takes one line at a time, so different lines are never added together.
Currency	Each company’s own: Maple Inc’s in USD, Maple UK Ltd’s in GBP.
When it changes	Loading a month again replaces that month. The dataset is the connector’s, so it can’t be edited or uploaded to by hand.

2Find the dataset

Select your group, and open Settings → Organisation Settings → Operational Data.
Find QuickBooks: Class in the list. On the group, each company’s dataset is listed with the company’s name under it.

Operational Data on your group: the QuickBooks: Class datasets of Maple Inc and Maple UK Ltd, each marked Average rate, with the dimensions Class and P&L Line — The dataset for each company (1), its translation (2), and what it is broken down by (3).

Average rate beside the name says how the dataset is translated on the group. The dataset needs the Free, Pro or Premium edition, which also includes currency translation. A dataset that belongs to a company opens in that company, from the link icon on its row.

3Know how it is translated

Maple Inc keeps its books in USD and Maple UK Ltd in GBP. Your group reports in SGD.

On a company	The dataset is read in that company’s own currency.
On the group	Each company’s month is translated into SGD at that month’s average rate — the rate the profit and loss uses — before anything is added.

October sales by store on your group: Revenue by Class adds USD and GBP amounts as if they were SGD, totalling 162,000; the QuickBooks: Class dataset translates each at the average rate, totalling 239,877 — The same month, read without and with translation.

The … by Class chart sources and the Department P&L and Store Performance templates read the same QuickBooks figures without translating them: on the group they add USD and GBP as if they were SGD. That is why the dashboards in the next tutorial are built on the dataset.

4Name things the same in every company

Every QuickBooks company writes to a dataset of the same name, QuickBooks: Class, so the group reads all of them as one source without any renaming.

Inside it, each class is listed by its full QuickBooks name — Stores:Boston, Stores:London. Figures fall on the same row only when the full names match exactly, so a store both companies share must be spelled the same in both.

5Check the rates

Select your group, and open Settings → Global Settings → Exchange Rates.
Check that every month you report has an average rate for USD and for GBP. Each rate is units of the currency per 1 SGD: in the example, October is 0.7400 for USD and 0.5700 for GBP.

If the group has no rate for a currency in a month, that company’s figures for the month are added in its own currency, as they stand. The operational report says so above its table; a dashboard chart doesn’t, so check the rates before you rely on a chart.

6Open it as a report

With your group selected, open Reports → All Reports.
Under Operational Data, open QuickBooks: Class.

QuickBooks: Class is one report covering every QuickBooks company the group reads. It opens as a pivot table with the P&L lines down the side and the months across, from the start of the financial year. Drag Class onto the rows to split each line by store, and set the months with From and To.

The QuickBooks: Class operational report on your group, with P&L lines as rows split by Class and months as columns, the Sales line translated into SGD, and the place a missing-rate warning appears — The translated figures (1), and where a missing rate is reported (2).

Check

With your group selected, Stores:Boston’s October Sales is 64,865 — USD 48,000 ÷ 0.7400. Select Maple Inc instead, and the same figure is USD 48,000, as in QuickBooks.

Use the icons at the top to export the report to PDF or Excel, or to add it to an Insight Package.

7Use it elsewhere

Dashboards	Charts and tables read the dataset the same way — see Build class dashboards from operational data.
Custom reports	Rows can read the dataset, translated the same way. Include Entities on the row lists the companies it reads; untick one to leave it out.

8If something goes wrong

What you see	What to do
QuickBooks: Class isn’t in Operational Data	No month of P&L by Class has been loaded for the company. Load the months — see Bring in classes.
Only one company’s stores appear on the group	The other company’s class figures aren’t loaded for the month. Switch on class reporting there and load the months.
One store appears twice	Its full class name differs between the two companies. Make the names match in QuickBooks and load the months again.
One month’s figures jump	The group has no rate for that currency in that month, so it was read untranslated. Add the rate on Exchange Rates.
No Average rate badge, and nothing is translated	Your plan is Standard. It includes neither currency translation nor this dataset: upgrade to Pro or Premium.

Want more detail? See the documentation

QuickBooks Classes & Consolidation Operational Data Consolidation Exchange Rates

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