Dimensions and industry analysis

In one sentence

Dimensions add business labels to journal lines in the same statutory ledger: an academy can analyse revenue and deferred tuition by course, class and student, while an agency can analyse service revenue and client funds by case—without maintaining a parallel ledger.

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1. Set up dimensions and values

Go to Books → Settings → Dimensions. Dimensions and their values belong to one client and cannot be mixed across clients.

Industry	Typical dimensions	Example values
Education	Course, class, student	Accounting Basics, 2026 Spring A, Student Zhang
Immigration / service agency	Case	PR-2026-001, EP-2026-002
General business	Project, department	Website refresh, Sales

Create the dimension first, then add its values. Values that are no longer used can be archived; their labels remain on historical journals. A value belonging to another client cannot be attached to the current client's entries.

Naming convention

Use a stable, unique code such as COURSE-001 or PR-2026-001, and a name familiar to the operating team. A stable code keeps exported analysis consistent even if the display name changes later.

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2. Tag journal and invoice lines

Each line in a manual journal or sales invoice has dimension selectors. A line can have one value from each dimension and several different dimensions at once. For example:

Tuition revenue line = Course “Accounting Basics” + Class “2026 Spring A” + Student “Zhang”

When an invoice is sent and posted, its labels follow the relevant revenue line. Over-time tuition carries the labels first to deferred revenue and then to each recognition journal. A reversal copies the original labels with opposite amounts, so dimensional reporting does not retain revenue that has been reversed.

Tag the business line you need to analyse

An untagged revenue line appears under Unassigned. Receivables and GST counterpart lines do not need duplicate tags for revenue analysis. A sent invoice cannot be edited; if its labels are wrong, reverse it through the normal workflow and issue it again.

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3. Analyse any dimension

Go to Insights → Management Reports → Dimensional Analysis, then choose a dimension and period. The table shows:

• Revenue
• Expenses
• Gross profit (revenue less expenses)
• Unassigned activity
• Total

The total uses the same posted/reversed journal basis as the P&L and can be reconciled to the same reporting period. Use the export action for further work in Excel.

The deferred-by-dimension report allocates the 2250 Deferred Revenue balance across courses and shows the dimensional total, the 2250 control balance and any reconciliation difference. “Reconciled” means every deferred amount is represented by a course or the Unassigned bucket.

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4. Education dashboard

For an education client, open Insights → Industry Analysis → Education Dashboard. It derives its figures directly from course, class and student tags together with account 4150 Tuition Revenue and account 2250 Deferred Revenue:

Metric	Basis
Tuition / revenue by course	Tuition recognised during the period
Revenue by class	Tuition carrying a class label
Active students	Distinct student values with revenue during the period
Recognised tuition	Amount already posted to revenue
Pending tuition	2250 deferred balance at the end date

Several invoices for the same student count once. Merely creating a student value does not make the student active; it needs revenue activity in the selected period.

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5. Agency dashboard

For an agency client, open Insights → Industry Analysis → Agency Dashboard. Select the case on the service-fee line; government charges collected on behalf of the applicant should use the Disbursement recognition method and may carry the same case label.

The dashboard shows service revenue, revenue by case, case count, average revenue per case and the balance of account 2260 Funds Held. Case count includes cases with service revenue in the period. Government charges go to 2260 and are not incorrectly reported as agency revenue.

Dimensions do not change the statutory ledger

A dimension is an analytical label on a journal line. It does not change the account, debit or credit, GST treatment, or revenue-recognition rule. Financial statements and industry dashboards read the same journals, so every industry figure remains traceable without creating a second set of books.

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