Split a Profit and Loss by location, department or project. One column each, in one client file.
The account tells you what the money was spent on. The segment tells you which part of the business spent it. Office rent is the account; whether it belongs to the Sydney shop or the Melbourne shop is the segment. Tag the transactions once and the report splits into a column for each one.
Definition
A tracking category records which part of a business a transaction belongs to -- a location, a department, a division, a branch, a store, a site, a job, a project or a cost centre. In MyLedger the feature is called Segments: you define the tracking category and its options, tag transactions against them, and the Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet is drawn with one column for each option, an (Unassigned) column, and a Total. It is not a second chart of accounts and not a second client file.
What is a tracking category, and what does it do to a report?
A tracking category is a second label you put on a transaction alongside the account, recording which part of the business it belongs to -- a location, a department, a division, a branch, a store, a site, a job, a project or a cost centre. Once transactions carry that label, the Profit and Loss or the Balance Sheet can be drawn with one column for each option, an (Unassigned) column and a Total.
The chart of accounts stays exactly as it is. These are reporting labels that run alongside it, so you keep coding to the same accounts you always have and simply answer one more question about each transaction: which part of the business does this belong to? Nothing about the client file is duplicated.
MyLedger uses two words for this on purpose: the navigation calls the feature Segments, while the tooltips and the financial-statement section descriptions call each one a tracking category, which is the term many Australian practitioners already use. A tracking category is the question you are asking -- Location, Department, Job -- and its options are the answers.
Location
Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane
Department
Kitchen, Front of house, Admin
Division
Retail, Wholesale, Online
Branch
North, South, Central
Store or Site
Store 1, Store 2, Store 3
Job or Project
Job 1041, Job 1042, Job 1043
Cost centre
CC100, CC200, CC300
Is this the segment disclosure that AASB 8 requires?
No, and it is not offered as one. This is management reporting for internal decisions -- a Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet drawn as one column per part of the business, so the people running that business can see which part is carrying which result.
AASB 8 Operating Segments applies to entities whose debt or equity instruments are traded in a public market, and it sets out its own recognition, measurement and disclosure requirements, including the treatment of dealings between segments, which MyLedger does not eliminate. If one of your clients does carry that obligation, this is not that: their statutory disclosure still has to be prepared to the standard. For the overwhelming majority of clients, who carry no such obligation, the question never arises -- what they want is a report that answers which location, department or job is making money.
Why we are careful about the words
AASB 8 reserves how the output is described. Paragraph 3 says that an entity not required to apply the standard, which chooses to disclose information about segments that does not comply with it, “shall not describe the information as segment information”. That is a constraint on the accountant issuing the report, not on the software, so it is worth knowing which side of the line a management report sits on before it goes out with your name on it.
How do I run a profit and loss by location or department?
Create a tracking category called Location or Department with one option for each site or team, tag transactions against those options in the reconciliation grid, then switch on Split by segment when you run the Profit and Loss on screen.
The toggle is off by default. If the client has no tracking categories set up yet it is greyed out rather than hidden, so you can see the capability is there before you decide to use it.
Step 1
Name the tracking category
Decide the question you want the report to answer -- Location, Department, Division, Job, Project, cost centre -- and create it once for the client. A tracking category with no options yet produces no report column, so add the options before you run anything.
Step 2
Tag the transactions
Segment columns sit in the reconciliation grid alongside the coding columns, and you can move them where you want them. Pick the option for each transaction as you code it, the same way you pick an account.
Step 3
Choose where you want the columns
For the Profit and Loss on screen, turn on Split by segment and pick which tracking category to split by if the client has more than one. For the issued financial statements, tick the sections called "Profit and Loss Statement by Segment" and "Balance Sheet by Segment" instead -- they are separate controls, both off by default, and the on-screen toggle does not reach them.
The screen and the issued statements are separate controls. Split by segment governs the Profit and Loss you are looking at, and the PDF you export from it. It has no effect on the financial statement pack: that is driven by its own section list, where you tick the section called “Profit and Loss Statement by Segment” and the one called “Balance Sheet by Segment”. Ticking a section is what puts the columns into the statements you issue.
Rename an option later -- Store 2 becomes Parramatta -- and the change cascades to the transactions already tagged with it, and tells you how many moved. You are not re-tagging history by hand.
What does a column-split Profit and Loss actually look like?
Each account keeps its own row, and gains one column per tracking-category option plus an (Unassigned) column and a Total -- so you read it exactly the way you read the ordinary report, just wider.
| Account | Retail | Wholesale | Online | (Unassigned) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Advertising and promotion | 53 | 301 | 0 | 0 | 354 |
| Office supplies | 0 | 0 | 0 | 506 | 506 |
Read the first row across: 53 plus 301 plus 0 plus 0 is 354. Every dollar of advertising is accounted for, and you can see at a glance that Wholesale is carrying most of it.
Read the second row across: 0, 0, 0, and 506 sitting in (Unassigned), totalling 506. Nothing has been lost and nothing has been guessed -- the report is telling you that office supplies has not been tagged yet. That column is your to-do list, and the closer it is to zero the more complete the tagging is.
Figures above are illustrative, to show how the columns read.
How do I know the segment columns add up to the real total?
Segment columns add across to the Total, and the Total is computed independently from the full transaction set -- not by summing the columns. A transaction counted into the wrong number of columns shows up as a line that does not tie, rather than being hidden by the arithmetic.
Be clear about what that does and does not catch. It is a cross-check between the columns and the Total, so it will not notice a transaction that is missing from the underlying data altogether, and it will not notice one tagged to the wrong segment: two columns move, the Total does not change, and everything still ties. Reviewing the tagging is still your job.
Every Balance Sheet column balances in its own right
That is structural rather than lucky: the transactions are partitioned into segments before the statement is built, so each partition is a complete double entry. A segment column is still not a standalone balance sheet for a separate legal entity, and it is not a substitute for statements prepared under the accounting standards.
What the split does, and what it does not do
You get a Profit and Loss and a Balance Sheet split by one tracking category of your choosing; you do not get group accounts, the AASB 8 disclosure, or the removal of dealings between the parts of the business. Read the right-hand column before you promise a client anything.
What it does
- Splits a Profit and Loss into a column for each option of one tracking category
- Splits a Balance Sheet the same way as a statement section, with each column balancing in its own right
- Shows untagged amounts in a visible (Unassigned) column
- Computes the Total independently from the full transaction set
- Carries the on-screen split through to the PDF of the Profit and Loss
- Cascades an option rename to transactions already tagged with it, and tells you how many moved
What it does not do
- Remove dealings between segments -- those are not eliminated
- Split by two tracking categories at once: one per report, no matrix
- Tag journal entries -- they sit in (Unassigned) and the Total only
- Produce a standalone statutory balance sheet for a separate legal entity
- Satisfy the segment disclosure AASB 8 requires of publicly traded entities
- Offer the by-segment statement sections for SMSF clients
- Create a second chart of accounts or a second client file
What should I know before I promise a client a column-split report?
Five limits decide whether a column-split report answers your client's question: dealings between segments are not eliminated, journal entries cannot be tagged, only one tracking category is split at a time, the issued statements always use the client's first tracking category, and the two statement sections are off by default and unavailable for SMSF clients.
Dealings between segments are not eliminated
If the Sydney shop charges the Melbourne shop a management fee, both legs appear: the expense in one column, the income in the other, and the Total includes both as they stand. It does not remove dealings between segments, so it is not a substitute for group accounts prepared under the accounting standards -- where those are required, inter-entity dealings still need manual adjusting journals.
Journal entries can never carry a segment tag
A journal entry appears in the Total and in the (Unassigned) column only. If a client's result depends heavily on year-end journals -- depreciation, accruals, provisions -- the segment columns will not reflect those, and you need to say so before the report leaves your office.
One tracking category at a time
The report splits by one tracking category at a time; you will not get a Location-by-Project matrix in a single report. You can define as many as you like and tag a transaction against several of them, then run the report once per tracking category.
The issued statements use the first tracking category
On screen you choose which tracking category to split by. In the financial statements there is no picker: the two by-segment sections use the client's first tracking category, and the statement page names the one it used. For a client with a single tracking category -- the common case -- there is nothing to choose. If a client has several, check which one the statement names before you issue it.
Off by default, and not available for SMSF clients
Split by segment on the Profit and Loss is off until you turn it on, and the two statement sections -- “Profit and Loss Statement by Segment” and “Balance Sheet by Segment” -- must be ticked separately when you generate the statements. Neither section is available for SMSF and superannuation clients. A tracking category with no options yet produces no report column.
Which clients need a Profit and Loss split into columns?
Any client whose business has more than one distinguishable part and who asks “which one is actually making money?” -- a multi-site retailer, a trades business running jobs, a practice with separate divisions, or an organisation that budgets by cost centre.
A column-split Profit and Loss is a shape accountants ask for often, because a single-column report answers “how did the business go?” and not “which part of it went well?”. MyLedger draws the Profit and Loss that way on screen, and the financial statements carry both a “Profit and Loss Statement by Segment” section and a “Balance Sheet by Segment” section. Each balance-sheet column balances in its own right, so the question can be asked of the balance sheet too, not just the trading result.
Multiple locations
A multi-site client where the group result hides one site subsidising another. Tag by Location and the columns show which is which for each location.
Jobs, projects and cost centres
A trades or professional-services client who wants job profitability, or an organisation that budgets by cost centre and needs actuals in the same shape.
Questions accountants ask about splitting a report
These are the same questions and answers published as structured data on this page. The visible answer is the substantiation, so the two are generated from one source and cannot drift apart.
What is a tracking category, and what does it do to a report?
A tracking category -- MyLedger calls the feature Segments -- is a second label you put on a transaction alongside the account, recording which part of the business it belongs to: a location, a department, a division, a branch, a store, a site, a job, a project or a cost centre. Once transactions carry that label, the Profit and Loss or the Balance Sheet can be drawn with a column for each option, an (Unassigned) column and a Total. The chart of accounts stays exactly as it is -- the account still records what the money was spent on.
How do I run a profit and loss by location or department?
Create a tracking category called Location or Department with one option for each site or team, tag transactions against those options in the reconciliation grid, then switch on Split by segment when you run the Profit and Loss on screen. The report redraws with a column for each option, an (Unassigned) column, and a Total. The toggle is off by default, and if the client has no tracking categories set up yet it is greyed out rather than hidden, so you can see the capability exists before you set it up.
Is this the segment disclosure that AASB 8 requires?
No, and it is not offered as one. This is management reporting for internal decisions -- a Profit and Loss or Balance Sheet drawn as one column per part of the business. AASB 8 Operating Segments applies to entities whose debt or equity instruments are traded in a public market, and it sets out its own recognition, measurement and disclosure requirements, including the treatment of dealings between segments, which MyLedger does not eliminate. If a client carries that obligation, this is not that, and their statutory disclosure still has to be prepared to the standard.
Can I split the Balance Sheet the same way, not just the Profit and Loss?
Yes, as a section of the financial statements. The statement section list has a section called "Balance Sheet by Segment" alongside one called "Profit and Loss Statement by Segment", and each balance-sheet column balances in its own right because the transactions are partitioned before the statement is built, so every partition is a complete double entry. There is no on-screen balance sheet split -- the split balance sheet exists only as a statement page. A column is not a standalone balance sheet for a separate legal entity, and it is not a substitute for statements prepared under the accounting standards.
What happens to transactions I have not tagged?
They appear in a visible (Unassigned) column -- untagged amounts are never dropped and never quietly folded into another column. Treat that column as a to-do list: the closer it gets to zero, the more complete your tagging is. Journal entries cannot carry a segment tag at all, so they always land in (Unassigned) and in the Total.
Are dealings between the parts of the business removed?
No. Dealings between segments are not eliminated. If the Sydney shop charges the Melbourne shop a management fee, the expense shows in one column and the income in the other, and the Total includes both legs as they stand. So where formal group statements are required under the accounting standards, inter-entity dealings still need manual adjusting journals.
Can I report by location and by project at the same time?
No -- the report splits by one tracking category at a time, so you will not get a Location-by-Project matrix in a single report. You can define as many as you like and tag a transaction against several of them, then pick which one to split by each time you run the Profit and Loss on screen, and run it again for the next one.
Do the columns show up in the PDF the client sees?
Yes, by two separate controls. The on-screen Profit and Loss exports what is on screen, so the Split by segment toggle carries through to that PDF. The financial statement pack is driven by its own section list instead: tick "Profit and Loss Statement by Segment" and "Balance Sheet by Segment" when you generate the statements. Both sections are off by default, the on-screen toggle has no effect on them, and neither is available for SMSF clients.
See a column-split Profit and Loss on one of your own clients
Bring a client with more than one location, department or job and we will walk through setting up the tracking category, tagging the transactions and reading the columns.