Class vs Location
Short version: Class is assigned per line. Location is assigned per transaction. Everything else follows from that. Use Location for the site or entity a whole transaction belongs to. Use Class for anything that varies line by line inside one invoice. If you only turn on one, turn on Class.
The one thing to remember
People spend a lot of time debating whether payor should be a class or a location, whether clinic should be a class or a location, whether it matters at all. It mostly does not matter what you call them. It matters enormously that you understand this:
A transaction can carry only one Location. A transaction can carry a different Class on every line.
That is the whole design constraint. Anything that varies within a single invoice or bill has to be a Class, because Location physically cannot hold it. Anything true of the entire document can be a Location, and is usually cleaner there.
For an ABA practice syncing billing data, that constraint is not theoretical. A synced invoice can easily contain a week of sessions for one payor delivered across several settings — some at the center, some in the home. One invoice, one Location. If you need those split, they have to be Classes.
Side by side
| Class | Location | |
|---|---|---|
| Assigned at | Line level (or whole transaction, your choice) | Whole transaction only |
| Multiple values per transaction | Yes | No |
| Nesting | Sub-classes supported | Sub-locations supported |
| P&L segmentation | Profit and Loss by Class | Profit and Loss by Location |
| Balance sheet segmentation | Offered, but allocation is ambiguous | Clean — every transaction has exactly one |
| Best answers | What kind of work is this? | Which part of the business is this? |
| Availability | Plus and Advanced only. Plus caps you at 40 combined classes and locations; Advanced is unlimited. | |
Note that cap. Forty combined, not forty each. Practices with a dozen sites and a dozen programs run out faster than they expect, and the fix is an Advanced upgrade rather than a workaround.
What belongs in Location
Location is the structural dimension. It answers which part of the business a whole transaction belongs to, and it is the one that has to reconcile to something real — a lease, a tax return, a legal entity.
- Physical clinic site, when you have more than one and services are actually delivered there
- Legal entity or DBA, when you run several under one QuickBooks file
- Region or market, if you are large enough that sites roll up
The reason Location fits these: the whole invoice, the whole rent bill, the whole payroll journal genuinely belongs to one site. There is nothing to split. And because every transaction carries exactly one, the balance sheet segments cleanly — you can see A/R and cash by site without inventing an allocation. That is the main reason to use Location at all.
One test before you turn it on: is the second address a place where services are rendered, or a mailbox? A virtual office, a registered-agent address or an unstaffed satellite is not a location. It is an address. Turning on Location for it adds a required field to every transaction and buys you a report with one meaningful column. Leave it off until there is a second real site.
What belongs in Class
Class is the analytical dimension. It answers what kind of work this is, and it is the one that varies within a document.
- Service setting — Center and At-Home is the pair most ABA practices actually need; add School or Telehealth only if you deliver enough to manage
- Program or service line — Early Intervention, School Age, Parent Training, Assessment
- Funder category, if you want a cut that does not match your customer hierarchy
Service setting is the highest-value class for most practices and worth the setup effort. At-home sessions carry drive time and mileage that center sessions do not. Same procedure code, same payor, materially different margin. Class is the only dimension that will show you that, because a single invoice can contain both.
Recommendation
| Practice shape | Turn on | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| One real site, one entity | Class only | Center / At-Home |
| Two or more staffed sites | Both | Location = site. Class = Center / At-Home. |
| Multi-entity in one file | Both | Location = entity. Class = setting or program. |
| Large and multi-dimensional | Both, on Advanced | Location = region › site. Class = program › setting. |
If you can only pick one, pick Class. It does everything Location does at the transaction level, plus one thing Location cannot do at all.
Settings that keep the data usable
Both dimensions are worthless if half the transactions are blank. Three settings prevent that:
- Warn me when a transaction isn't assigned a class. On, always. One checkbox, and it is the difference between clean data and a report with a giant Not Specified column.
- Assign classes: one to each row in transaction. Choose this rather than one per transaction, even if you usually use the same class throughout. Per-row costs nothing and preserves the flexibility that is the entire reason to use Class — including the payroll journal, where one entry splits across settings.
- Review Not Specified monthly. Run the P&L by Class and by Location during close. If either shows real dollars in Not Specified, that is your close task. Do not let it become the largest column, because it happens faster than you would think and is much harder to fix retroactively.
A note on Tags
QuickBooks also has Tags: free-form, unlimited, available on lower tiers. Useful for a campaign, a grant, a one-off project. Not a substitute for Class or Location — tags do not appear on the P&L by Class or by Location, they are not part of the standard reporting structure, and they do not survive a migration well. Use them for temporary questions, not for the way you cut your financials.
How this shows up in the sync
Qlarity groups CentralReach billing data by payor, procedure code, location and date of service before writing it to QuickBooks. The dimension you choose here determines how synced revenue is sliced, automatically, going forward.
Decide before your first sync. Changing the answer later means reclassifying posted invoices, and QuickBooks does not make that pleasant at volume.
