Report Groups are categories such as food types—Meat, Bakery, Grocery, etc. into which items can be placed. To create the Report Group structure, you may want to use many of the same categories that you used for your General Ledger Accounts, because Report Groups can be assigned to G/L accounts. It will be easier to make these assignments if the two structures are similarly constructed. Each purchased item in your database should be assigned to a Report Group. In doing so, you’ll also be associating that item with the G/L account to which the Report Group is assigned.
Report Groups can be organized into a hierarchy, allowing for 3 levels of a Group to be isolated and analyzed independently.
The Department level is the highest. This level can contain two or more Master Groups, each with any number of subgroups.
Master and subgroups create focus areas within the Department as a whole. On reports, each subgroup is subtotaled and rolled up into the Master Group subtotal. The Master Groups are then rolled up into a Department total and the Department totals are rolled up into a company Grand Total. In short, these divisions allow you to sectionalize your reports.
For example, you may have "Food" as a Department, with "meat," "dairy," "seafood," "produce," etc. as Master Groups.
If "meat" then serves as a Master Group, you can assign "pork," "chicken," and "beef" as its subgroups. By doing so, your reports on meat will be organized into even more focused areas than Master Groups that have no subgroups. How you create this structure is entirely up to the structure of your operation.
The last type of Group is a Credit Group. Usage attributed to this group is sub-totaled but not included in the Grand Total. Use this group type for items that are purchased, but should not be included in the total cost of goods. Please note that a Credit Group can not be a subgroup. It must be a Master Group.