What's covered in this guide?
What are tracking categories?
Tracking categories let you tag payroll expenses with additional dimensions — such as department, location, or project — so that journal entries can be broken down beyond the default account structure.
This is useful when you need to allocate wage costs across multiple business units, cost centers, or reporting segments within a single pay run.
Access tracking category setup
Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Company Setup, then select the Tracking Categories tab.
Create a tracking category
On the Tracking Categories tab, click the + Add button
In the modal, enter a Name for the category — this is the dimension label, e.g. "Department", "Region", or "Cost Center"
Click Save
The tracking category will now appear in the list and be available to assign values to teams.
To rename a category, click the name inline to edit it and save. To remove one, click Delete — this will remove all associated values from teams and payslip lines.
Assign tracking category values to teams
Once a tracking category exists, assign a value to each team that should carry that dimension.
Under the Tracking Categories section, enter the value for each category (e.g. if the category is "Department", enter "Finance" or "Operations")
Save the team
When a pay run is created, each pay stub line will automatically inherit the tracking category value from the employee's team.
Edit tracking category values on pay stub lines
If a line needs a different value from the team default, you can override it directly on the pay stub:
Open the relevant pay run and select an employee's pay stub
Find the pay stub line to update
Edit the tracking category value in the field shown on that line
Save the change before finalizing the pay run