Xero Tracking Categories

Tracking categories in Xero provide a powerful mechanism to tag your transactions. Different organisations use them for different purposes, and some of these purposes are relevant to infoodle. Tracking categories can be linked to an infoodle Donor, Recipient or Campaign for reporting purposes.

This screen enables you to see any categories loaded from Xero. If you have not set any up in Xero, or you have not had an import processed since they were setup, you will need to wait for the next import from Xero to infoodle which happens every 3 hrs.

To access and set the purpose of the Xero tracking categories:

1. Click Finance on the Navigation Menu (You will need permission in your role to access this).
2. Click Xero imports
3. Click Xero Tracking Categories.

4. Click Change alongside the tracking category that you wish to set the purpose of.
5. Click Yes to confirm that you want to change the purpose.

6. Select the relevant option as described below:

• Not used or not required in infoodle - This means although you have a tracking category, you don't need infoodle to do anything with it. Note: if you had previously imported this information into infoodle and are now changing it to be not used in infoodle then note that the information will still be coming through as you may have linked it to a donor, recipient or campaign. You can choose to ignore this information as it has no affect on the transaction or delete the link so that it no longer shows. To delete the link click the Don't link as described in the section below( Match imported transaction categories with an infoodle item).
• Contact who gives money (donor) - This is an unusual purpose for tracking categories. It is a method whereby the Xero contact is a generic name, and the category item is actual the person who gave the money. This can be awkward to work with and there are some limits within certain parts of Xero on the number of items here, but if this is useful to you then you can use it in infoodle. It will give you the ability to tag a transaction to the specific donor.
  *** Contact who receives money (recipient)** - Some organisations enable targeted giving, i.e. a donor wishes to give someone specific funds e.g. child sponsorship. In this scenario the donor is the Xero contact and a contact in infoodle, and the child (recipient) is an item in the tracking category, and also a contact in infoodle. By utilising this method you can see all the transactions the donor has made to all of the children they sponsor as well as other donations. In addition, the child's record can be checked to see all the people who have donated to them.
• Campaign which receives money - This allows you to utilise the campaigns in infoodle so that they can be tagged to receive money. This is a similar approach to that which is achieved in Xero, but infoodle benefits from the additional data for the purposes of reporting and segmenting.

Match imported tracking categories with an infoodle item

Once you have chosen a purpose for each tracking category click the imported tracking items button to load those category's items and link them to infoodle items.

You will be presented with a screen containing any category options that have already been imported for you. Each option will provide a few optionswith three options to link the imported items to:

• If there is a direct match between the Xero option and an infoodle contact, and only 1 match, then infoodle presents this choice with the option to match.
• If there is a direct match between the Xero option and and multiple infoodle contacts (or campaigns) you are given the choice to choose one. Click on the one you wish to match.
• Search for an existing item (Donor, Recipient or Campaign, depending on the purpose you selected for the category above). For each of the options that the contact could be matched to you also have the chance to search for another option if infoodle has not provided the correct match for you.
• Don't Link to an infoodle item.
• Create new infoodle item.

You can complete the match over a period of time - as you click an option, the choice you make is saved.

Correcting a reconcile
If you have made a choice in error and at a later date correct the person the Xero contact is connected to, you can search for the person in infoodle, click on the blue Xero contact button on their page and choose Disconnect from Xero. You can now return to this contact reconcile screen and correct the match if necessary.