Can I add different branches or cost centers to my current company?

Hi there, crichard1.

Welcome and thank you for posting here in QuickBooks Community, crichard1. I'll provide steps on how to add branches or cost centers in QuickBooks Online.

If the branches you're referring to reports to State taxes as a single entity, yes, you can add different branches or cost centers to your current company. In QuickBooks Online, tracking your income and expenses for different departments is made easier using Class or Location tracking. These two features let you run through account balances by department, business office or location, separate properties, or any other meaningful breakdown of your business, and other segments you want to keep a close eye on. To start with, you'll have to turn on these features from the Account and Settings.

Here's how:

1. Tap the Gear icon and choose Account and Settings.
2. Go to the Advanced tab and pick Categories section.
3. Turn on the Track classes or Track Locations features.
4. Hit Save and  Done.

For additional information, you can click the articles below. They provide information about setting these options in your QuickBooks account and how it works with transactions in the system.

• Set up class tracking.
• Set up and use location tracking.

However, if the different branches report to state taxes /payroll taxes separately, I suggest setting up an additional account for operating and financial reasons. Each company is required by the IRS to have separate books. To create a new QuickBooks Online company, you have to purchase a second subscription. Follow the steps below.

1. Go to https://quickbooks.intuit.com/pricing/.
2. Choose the QuickBooks version you need. 
3. Click Buy now or start the 30 days free trial.
4. On the signup page, select Add another company.
5. Enter your Intuit login credentials.
6. Select Add new company.

After that, you can refer to this article to see detailed information on how you can set up the new account: create or add another QuickBooks Online company.

Please refer to this article to view steps on how you can customize reports to filter everything by class or location to track all of them: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

Feel free to leave a comment below if there's anything else you need with QuickBooks. I’m always here to answer them for you. Wishing you the best!

@crichard1 

One QBO account is for one company file. You may manage branches/divisions by utilizing the Class/Location feature available in QBO Plus and Advanced. Otherwise you should open a new account.

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I have tried managing a Non-profit client who has multiple "Funds" (basically cost centers for cash/BS and P&L) but CLASSES function in QB Online DOES NOT DO THIS!! It will track the operating activity, great. But when you need to run a Balance Sheet and there is a column that says "NOT SPECIFIED" which contains the BS piece of every transaction for all 8 Funds there is no other solution than exporting to excel and going line by line to create my BS. I really hope someone at QB is looking into this issue. I'm trying Departments now but like everything else it's clunky and not made to get accountants the information they need, but rather more user friendly to clients. 

Chiming in on the thread to assist you, @rsturgis.

I appreciate you for doing some workarounds to add the classes to your balance sheet by exporting this to an excel file. Also, let me share another way to enable this automatically in your QuickBooks Online (QBO). 

You’ll want to change the Class settings to One to each row in transaction so that classes will be visible when running Balance Sheet report. I’ll show you how:

1. Go to the Gear icon.
2. Select the Account and Settings.
3. Choose the Advanced tab.
4. Click anywhere within Categories.
5. Under Assign classes in Track classes, click the dropdown arrow and select One to each row in transaction.
6. Click Save and Done.

With that, you’ll also need to go back to existing transactions and assign the classes since the effect is not retroactive.

I also added this article for your reference when customizing reports in QuickBooks Online.

You can always tap me here if you need further assistance with reports. Stay safe!