Add a class to multiple past transactions in QuickBooks Online

Which way fits your plan?

Classes need Plus or Advanced. Intuit’s pricing page lists 40 classes and locations on Plus and unlimited on Advanced (checked November 6, 2026); inactive classes don’t count toward the limit.

Option	Good for	Watch for
Reclassify transactions tool (Advanced)	Hundreds of income and expense lines	Payroll and inventory adjustments can’t be changed there
Your accountant runs the tool in QuickBooks Online Accountant (Plus)	Plus companies that already have an accountant user	They need your rule sheet saying which class each line gets
Edit each transaction (Plus)	A few dozen transactions	Slow, and each row needs a class if you assign one per row
Journal entries by class (Plus)	A year of totals, or months already closed	The original transactions still show no class
Bring in an outside team (Cleanups & bulk changes)	A year of lines across several locations or jobs	Someone who knows the work has to agree the rules first

What do you set up before tagging anything?

1. Keep the class list short. One class per location, crew or line of business you want a profit figure for.
2. Turn on classes. Go to Settings > Account and settings > Advanced > Categories, turn on Track classes, then pick One to entire transaction or One to each row in transaction under Assigned classes.
3. Turn on the warning. In the same place, select Warn me when a transaction isn’t assigned a class, then Save, so new transactions stop arriving untagged.
4. Create the classes. Go to Settings > All Lists > Classes, select New, enter the name and select Save. Sub-classes go up to five levels deep.
5. Locations, if you use them. Go to Settings > Account and settings > Advanced, select the edit icon in Categories, turn on Track locations, then Save and Done. Do this before you reclassify by location.

How do you decide which class each past transaction gets?

Write the rules down first. Most lines sort by vendor, customer or memo; the rest need someone who knows where the work happened.

1. Go to Reports > Standard reports, search for General Ledger, and set the period to the year you’re backfilling.
2. Select Export/Print, then Export to Excel.
3. In Excel, keep the income and expense accounts you want split by class.
4. Add a Class column and fill it from your rules. Leave a line blank until the person who runs that location confirms it.

Example rule sheet for a two-location business:

If the line shows	Class
Vendor: the North store’s landlord	North
Vendor: fuel card, memo contains “Truck 2”	South
Customer: any job address in the South service area	South
Bookkeeping, insurance, software	Shared (or no class, if you split overhead later)

How do you add a class to many transactions on Advanced?

1. Go to Settings, then Dimensions, then Dimension assignment, then Reclassify transactions.
2. Under Account type, choose Profit and Loss for income and expense accounts, or Balance Sheet for asset, liability and equity accounts.
3. Filter the list by date, or search for the transactions you want.
4. Tick each transaction that gets the same class.
5. Select Reclassify.
6. Pick the Class (and Location, if you use them). Choose a new Account only if the account is also wrong.
7. Select Apply.

Work one account and one class at a time. Intuit lists what the tool can’t change:

• Payroll: “These cannot be changed in this tool; manage them within the Payroll app.”
• Inventory adjustments: neither the account nor the class.
• Invoices, sales receipts, checks and bills with products or services: only the class can change, not the account.

If some lines are in the wrong account too, the batch reclassify file builder turns a General Ledger export into a journal entry file that moves them.

How do you do it on Plus?

Ask your accountant. In QuickBooks Online Accountant they can run the same Reclassify transactions tool on your company. Send them the rule sheet.

Edit each transaction. Open each one on your rule sheet, choose the class, and save.

Post journal entries by class. Each entry moves an account’s untagged total onto classes, so Profit and Loss by Class shows the split. Ask your accountant before you post these.

Example, one month of one account:

Journal No.	Journal Date	Account Name	Debits	Credits	Class
CL-0326	03/31/2026	Fuel		1,800
CL-0326	03/31/2026	Fuel	1,100		North
CL-0326	03/31/2026	Fuel	700		South

To import, go to Settings > Import Data > Journal Entries, select Browse, pick your CSV, map your fields, then select Next and Start import. Intuit says class tracking lets you import journal entries with classes, and to turn off account numbers before you begin. The journal entry import checker finds the rows QuickBooks would reject before you upload.

What breaks, and how do you check it worked?

• Closed months. On locked books Intuit says “You can’t edit any transactions before the closing date”, unless the lock allows changes after a warning or password. Ask whoever closed them before changing that year.
• Past payroll. Intuit says class tracking “will not retroactively affect past records.” For future paychecks, go to Settings > Payroll settings, edit Accounting, then edit Class Tracking. Ask your accountant about the past ones.

To check, go to Reports > Standard reports, find Business overview and run Profit and Loss by Class for the year. Its total should match your regular Profit and Loss for the same dates. Then check one class against your rule sheet for a single month.

For job-level profit on top of classes, see QuickBooks Online job costing for contractors. If each location keeps its own QuickBooks company, see consolidating QuickBooks Online companies into one report.