Tracking categories let you tag your invoice line items with a business dimension. Once tagged, your reports can split revenue cleanly by that dimension, for example a "Region" category with options "North", "South" and "East" feeding a P&L that breaks down by region.
The basics
A tracking category is the dimension itself, for example "Region". A tracking option is a value within it, for example "North".
You can have up to two tracking categories at a time, each with up to 500 options. The two-category limit matches Xero's own.
Where your categories come from
This depends on whether you're connected to Xero.
Connected to Xero: your tracking categories are managed in Xero and sync into Adfin automatically. Adfin shows the synced ones as read-only, and while Xero is connected you can't create new categories in Adfin, so to add or change a category, do it in Xero.
On QuickBooks, or no accounting software: create and edit your categories directly in Adfin under Settings, then Tracking categories.
If you're on QuickBooks: you can use tracking inside Adfin to organise your line items, but it isn't pushed to QuickBooks.
How tracking gets onto invoices
You can set a default tracking option per category on each customer, so their invoice lines pick it up automatically. You can then change the option on any individual line when you create or edit the invoice.
What your customers see
Nothing. Tracking categories are for your own reporting. They don't appear on the invoice PDF or in the email your customer receives.
Worth knowing
The Xero sync runs daily in the morning. Adfin refreshes your categories from Xero regularly, so a category you add in Xero shows up in Adfin automatically,
Deleting an option doesn't change invoices that already used it; they keep the original tag.