Tags vs Custom Fields

Hi there, TP-FFAS.

I'm here to help you easily determine if the event sponsorship comes through the Partnership Campaign or the Annual Giving Day Campaign in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

First, when deciding between Tags and Custom fields, please note that the Tags feature is flexible for tracking and doesn't affect your books. They serve as labels that let you track transactions however you'd like. They also help track and determine the info that matters most to your record.

For more details about how Tags works, please see these resources:

• Tag transactions in QuickBooks Online
• What are tags, and why should I use them?

On the other hand, Custom fields allow you to add unique data fields to transactions for more specific tracking or reporting purposes. You can add this to your invoices, sales receipts, refund receipts, estimates, credit memos, and purchase orders, but not all your expense transactions. For more details, please see this article: Add Custom Fields to Sales Forms and Purchase Orders.

If you want to use the Tags feature, please follow the steps below.

Here's how to create tags:

1. Go to the Gear icon and then select Tags.
2. Click New.
3. Choose Tag group if you want to add the Partnership Campaign and Annual Giving Day Campaign as a group. If not, select Tag.
4. Enter the correct name and other details, then hit Save.

Then, you can start adding tags to your transactions. To do so, please follow the steps below (I'll use an invoice as a sample).

1. Go to the + New and then select Invoice.
2. Add the necessary info.
3. On the Tags field, select the tags where campaign funds are coming through.
4. Once done, save the transaction.

After that, I recommend running reports to see how tagged transactions are performing:

1. From the Gear icon, select Tags.
2. Find a group on the list.
3. Under the Action column, click Run report.

Aside from that, you can also go to the Reports menu to pull up the correct report.

If you're interested in using Custom fields, I recommend following these steps:

1. From the Gear icon, select Custom fields.
2. Select Add custom field.
3. Enter a name in the Name field.
4. Select the All Sales forms or Purchase Order checkbox. Or select both.
5. To show the custom field on printed and delivered forms, turn on Print on form. Otherwise, it’ll only appear in QuickBooks Online.
6. Hit Save.

Once done, you can add the custom field to your entries to determine where the funds come from. If you use the Advanced version, please see this article to utilize this feature: Add and manage custom fields.

Finally, I've added an article to help you save your current customized settings so you can access them efficiently: Memorize reports in QuickBooks Online.

You can always get back to this thread if you need additional assistance utilizing the Tags feature or tracking your transactions in QBO. I remain prepared to provide the help you need.

Thanks so much, I have gone down the rabbit hole on how the Tags and the Group Tags function, and have set them up. I've already exhausted all of the trainings and online resources that I can find.

My question is specifically, would it be better to use Tags or Custom Fields with the name of the campaign as a choice for the custom field. Which avenue gives the best and most flexibility? I cannot seem to find any info on the comparison of the two options.

Thank you so much for the help, I really appreciate it.

I can share the differences between Tags and Custom Fields so you can choose which one's best for tracking purposes, TP-FFAS.

When choosing between using Tags or Custom Fields in QuickBooks Online (QBO), this depends on your specific needs and how you plan to use the data.

Tags track things at the transactional level, which means that you can choose Tags if you want to track things without affecting your books, such as adding certain transactions so you can run a report afterward and then customize them.  

On the other hand, you can add a Custom Field if you want to enter additional information into a transaction. However, please know that it doesn't show up when running a report, and adding this has its limits, unlike tags.  

To learn more about tags, kindly refer to this article: What are tags and why should I use them?

Furthermore, you can run a Profit and Loss by Tags and customize it in Modern or Classic View to view your data according to your preference.

Please let me know if you have additional questions regarding tags or custom fields, TP-FFAS. We'll be right here to help.

Thank you, this is more helpful. Do you know if there is a way to tag specific lines in a transaction? It would be good to track some expenses to my overall campaigns but some of the bills may have more than one campaign that they are paying expenses for. As it stands, it appears that the Tags will help me to track the income for my campaigns, but it would not work for me to track my income and expenses for my individual named scholarships and will need to continue to do that with classes unless you have suggestions for that?

Also, thank you for the additional video, I would love it if there were more to truly help get the most out of this option.

Tags can only be added to the transaction header (summary level) not to the individual line items (target level). Classes and Locations can be added at the individual line item level, but not Tags and not Custom Fields. Those can only be added to the transaction header. Tags do allow you to BATCH assign multiple tags to multiple transactions (and create bank rules to assign them at the posting level as well). Unlike tags, there is no way to add custom field data to multiple transactions at a time though. Class tracking can be batch assigned in Accountant tools. So Class tracking sounds like a better use case for you in this situation.

"When creating custom fields in /QuickBooks Online Advanced, you can create fields for almost anything: sales reps, customer types, vendor IDs, PO numbers, project managers, or info unique to your industry. You can add custom fields to sales forms, purchase orders, expense forms, customer profiles, and vendor profiles. This gives you more flexibility to add custom data and drive insights through detailed reports.

You can also create tighter controls around what is entered into custom fields, including using dropdown lists for data entry, removing the risk of duplicate entries for the same thing.

There are no default reports set up for custom fields, but you can group and filter many of the detailed reports in the Reports center by custom field, to provide deeper insight into your clients' businesses. 

For example, when running a Sales by Customer Type Detail report, by default it will group all sales transactions for the specified time period by date range. Selecting Group by, then selecting the relevant custom field, will regroup the report by that field. "