Understanding Accounting Classes in Brokerage Engine
Overview:
In this article, we will review Classes and how they interact within the system. Please find the available resources below.
Accounting Classes in Brokerage Engine allow brokerages to segment and categorize financial transactions by office. Classes are a powerful organizational tool that lets you track income and expenses separately for each office, giving you the ability to run reports like Profit & Loss by Class and General Ledger reports filtered by specific offices.
If your brokerage has multiple offices, classes are essential for understanding the financial performance of each location independently. When a transaction is uploaded to accounting, the system assigns the class based on the office associated with the agent, so that every journal entry, deposit, bill, and invoice is properly categorized.
Where to Find Accounting Classes
You can view and manage accounting classes by navigating to:
Accounting > Settings > Classes |
This page displays all classes that have been created in the Accounting Module. Each class has a name and is mapped to a corresponding office.
What Is an Accounting Class?
An accounting class is a label or tag that is attached to financial transactions to group them by a meaningful business segment. In the context of real estate brokerages, classes almost always represent office locations (for example, "Downtown Office," "Northside Branch," or "Lexington Park"). This allows your accounting team to:
- Track revenue and expenses per office.
- Run a Profit & Loss by Class report to see each office’s financial performance.
- Filter the General Ledger report by class to isolate transactions for a specific branch.
- Ensure journal entries, deposits, and bills in the Accounting module are tagged with the correct office.
How Classes Connect to Offices
The key relationship to understand is that each office in BE is mapped to an accounting class. This mapping is what determines which class is used when a transaction is uploaded to accounting.
The Office-to-Class Mapping
- Each office location in BE has an "Accounting Branch" field that links it to an accounting class.
- When a transaction is uploaded to accounting from the Commission Detail page, the system looks at which office the agent belongs to and assigns the class that is mapped to that office.
- This means the journal entries, deposits, and bills created in BE Accounting (and synced to QBO) will automatically carry the correct class tag.
Key Concept: What class is used when a transaction is uploaded to accounting is based on the accounting class set on that office location and tied to the agent. |
Using Classes in Reports
Classes unlock powerful reporting capabilities in BE Accounting. Here are the key reports that use classes:
Report | How Classes Are Used |
Profit & Loss by Class | Shows income and expenses broken out by each class (office). Ideal for comparing financial performance across locations. |
General Ledger Report | Can be filtered by class to view all transaction activity for a specific office. Supports "All" classes or individual class selection. |
Profit & Loss by Month | When combined with class filters, shows monthly trends for a specific office. |
