Xero reports by tracking category: P&L, balance sheet and more

Tracking categories are how Xero splits the same set of accounts by region, department, branch, project or anything else you care about. Getting a report per category out of Xero is easy once you know where the options are, and a few things (like the balance sheet) behave differently from what people expect. This guide covers both.

Tracking categories in a nutshell

You set them up under Accounting > Accounting settings > Tracking categories. An organisation can have up to four tracking categories, but only two can be active at once, and Xero recommends keeping each to 100 options or fewer so reports stay quick. Options you've used can't be deleted, only archived, and archived options still show in reports for the dates they were used.

You can track every transaction type (invoices, bills, bank transactions, manual journals and so on), set default options on contacts, and track fixed assets and payroll employees (under Payroll settings > Payroll Tracking). Anything not tagged with an option shows as Unassigned in Xero's Tracking Summary report.

Profit and Loss by tracking category

This is the report most people want: one column per region or department. In Xero:

Go to Reporting > All reports and open Profit and Loss.
Set the date range, for example last month.
Use Compare tracking categories and pick the options you want side by side, or select all of them. Each option gets its own column.
Click Update, then export to PDF or Excel if you need to send it.

If you only want one option, say just the north region, use Filter instead and pick that option. There's also a ready-made layout called Compare [category name] for categories with up to 200 active options, which defaults to the current financial year.

One limit catches people out: you can't combine tracking columns with comparison periods. Pick one or the other. If you need both, the layout editor can add tracking columns, each with its own date range, but a layout like that hides the Compare with options and the tracking filter.

Balance Sheet by tracking category

The balance sheet works differently. There's no side-by-side comparison of options, but you can filter it to one tracking option, and the layout editor can add tracking columns. Xero uses a system account called Tracking Transfers to keep a filtered balance sheet in balance, so expect to see it when you filter.

A filtered balance sheet is only as good as the tracking behind it. Balances that aren't tagged with an option don't sit neatly under one, so read it as a view by option rather than a separate set of books. If each part of the business needs its own full balance sheet, that's a question for your accountant.

Other reports that understand tracking

Tracking Summary: one category at a time, with opening balance, movements and closing balance per option, plus Unassigned.
Account Transactions and Trial Balance can be filtered by tracking option.
Budget Variance can be filtered too, if you've set up budgets per tracking category in Budget Manager.
Aged Receivables (summary and detail) can be grouped by tracking category.

Sending a split Profit and Loss every month

Department heads and regional managers usually want their own column every month, not a login to Xero. Xero can't email reports on a schedule, so most people export the split P&L and send it by hand.

Reportpost can do that part. You connect Xero (read-only), add a schedule with the Profit and Loss, and under More options choose Split P&L by tracking category. Each send pulls fresh figures from Xero and shows one column per option, as PDF, Excel or CSV, on the day and hour you choose. As in Xero itself, comparison periods don't apply to a split P&L, so it's one period with one column per option. You can try the demo without connecting anything, or start a free trial.