TailrideCost Tracking
Sync cost dimensions from your accounting system and assign them automatically with rules.
Overview
Cost tracking lets you tag invoice line items with categories from your accounting system — sites, departments, projects, classes, and similar dimensions — so costs are split correctly when bills are exported.
In Tailride the settings section is labeled Cost tracking. Labels in the UI follow the connected accounting system (for example Tracking categories in Xero, Classes and locations in QuickBooks, Analysis types in Sage).
Typical use: the same supplier's bills go to different sites depending on the delivery address or PO number, without picking a value on every line by hand.
Supported Platforms
Xero
Tracking categories and Options. Up to two categories per organisation, assigned per line.
QuickBooks
Classes and Department / Location (your company's own name). Class can be per line or whole-document depending on QuickBooks preferences; Department/Location is always whole-document.
Sage Accounting
Analysis types and Categories usable on purchase lines — typically Department, Cost Centre, and Project (up to three). Only types enabled for expenses/purchases are synced.
Other accounting platforms are not supported for cost tracking yet. The settings section explains this when no compatible integration is connected.
Who Can Manage It
The Cost tracking section is visible to the workspace owner (root) and to a linked accountant with dashboard access. Regular colleagues do not see this settings section.
Sync Categories
Create the categories and options in your accounting system first, then pull them into Tailride.
Open Settings → Cost tracking.
Click Sync from [provider]. Tailride imports the categories and their options.
Optionally turn on Require before export for a category. When enabled, invoices stay in review — and automatic export is blocked — until every line has a value for that category.
Re-sync any time after you change categories in the accounting system. Categories removed there are deactivated in Tailride; related rules stay listed with a warning so you can fix or delete them. Archived options remain visible so broken rules are easier to diagnose.
Categories marked whole document only cannot vary per line: the same value applies to the whole bill. If lines disagree, that dimension is dropped on export rather than guessing one value.
Provider Notes
| Platform | What syncs | Limits | | --- | --- | | Xero | Active tracking categories and options | Up to two categories; per line | | QuickBooks | Class (when class tracking is on) and Department/Location (when department tracking is on) | Up to two dimensions; Class may be per line or whole-document per company preferences; Department/Location is whole-document | | Sage | Transaction-level analysis types enabled for expenses/purchases | Up to three types on a line (for example Department, Cost Centre, Project) |
If QuickBooks has class or department tracking switched off in company preferences, sync returns no dimensions for those features until you enable them in QuickBooks and sync again.
Automatic Assignment Rules
Under Automatic assignment, rules decide which option to apply during invoice coding (after expense accounts are assigned). A tracking miss does not undo account coding.
Rules run in priority order — lower priority runs first, and the first match wins. Default priority is 100. A value you set by hand on an invoice is never overwritten by a later rule run.
Building a Rule
For each rule you can:
- Give it an optional name
- Choose the category and a fixed option, or capture the option from part of a field (see below)
- Add one or more conditions on document fields
- Choose Match all conditions or Match any condition
- Turn the rule on or off, edit it, or delete it
- Test against recent invoices before saving
Deleting a rule does not clear values already written on invoices.
Match Fields
| Field | What it matches |
|---|---|
| Delivery address | Ship-to address on the document |
| Site name | Ship-to site name |
| PO number | Purchase order number |
| Invoice number | Invoice reference |
| Line description | Text on a single line item |
| Billing address | Recipient / bill-to address |
Match Operators
contains · is exactly · starts with · ends with · matches regex · postcode starts with
Matching is usually case-insensitive. Address punctuation and spacing are normalized so near-identical addresses can still match.
Capture Rules
Instead of a fixed option, you can take the site from part of the PO number (or another field). One rule covers many sites: for example, PO-BRK-1234 with a pattern that captures BRK assigns the option whose code or name is BRK.
Capture can read from the PO number, delivery address, site name, or invoice number, and match the captured text to an option's code or name.
Delivery Address and Site Name
Rules that depend on where goods were delivered need a delivery address or site name that differs from the bill-to address (bill-to is often head office and cannot distinguish sites).
When those fields appear on the document, Tailride extracts them. You can edit Delivery address and Site name in the invoice preview so rules fire correctly. The invoice list can also show and filter by these fields — see Invoices.
Manual Overrides
On each line in the invoice preview you can pick an option yourself (or clear it with No tracking). Manual picks show a Manual badge and are never overwritten by rules. Rule-assigned values show a Rule badge. Required categories that are still empty show Required.
Clearing a manual value and leaving the line empty lets rules fill it on a future coding run.
Where Assignments Appear
- Invoice preview — per-line (or document-level) category pickers, delivery fields, and source badges
- Xero export dialog — a read-only Cost tracking summary of what will be sent (edit on the invoice, not at export time). Split bills show how many values appear across how many lines
- Export — assigned options are sent with the bill when they still exist in the accounting system
Edge Cases
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| No compatible accounting integration | Explanatory empty state; sync and rules are unavailable |
| No categories after sync | Create them in the accounting system (and enable the relevant preferences for QuickBooks), then sync again |
| Category deleted in the accounting system | Deactivated in Tailride; rules warn that the category no longer exists |
| Option archived | Rules warn that the option was archived and stop assigning it |
| Required category still empty | Invoice needs review; automatic export is blocked until it is filled |
| Whole-document dimension with conflicting line values | That dimension is omitted on export rather than picking one value |
| Option renamed or removed before export | That tracking entry is omitted so the bill can still export |
| Provider catalog unavailable at export | The bill exports without tracking rather than failing |
Related
- Chart of Accounts — expense account coding used alongside tracking
- Accounting Software — connection, coding, and auto-export
- Xero — tracking categories on bills
- QuickBooks — classes and locations on bills
- Invoices — preview, filters, and delivery fields