How to Set Up Categories

Creating Categories and Sub-Categories

We make it easy to create a customized category list that maps to your chart of accounts. 

As an Admin, log in to your Emburse Spend account and access your Settings tab, then click on Categories on the left-hand side. 

1. To enter a new top-level category, click the + New Category button.

2. Enter the name of the new category, and click Create. 

3. To add a new subcategory to an existing category, click + New Sub-Category.

4. Select the top-level category, then enter the new subcategory name. When finished, click Create. 

5. To edit a category name, click on the Pencil icon to the far right of the category. 

6. The Edit Category screen opens. When finished making the necessary changes, click Save. 

7. To delete a category, click on the Trash Can icon.

Categories cannot be deactivated if there is an active rule associated with the same category.

Limiting Visibility on Categories

You can limit the visibility of categories to certain groups. If you've created Team Fields to segment your employees into groups (i.e. Department, Location, etc.), you can limit the visibility of your Categories based on these groups. 

In this example, the Team Field we're using to limit the visibility of the categories is Location. 

By default, each category is visible to all employees: 

If certain categories only need to be seen by certain groups, you can edit the visibility.

1. Click ALL in the Visible to Location column.

2. Select Limit category visibility by team field, then choose the location from the dropdown menu. 

Click Save when finished. 

3. Next, map each category to the corresponding Chart of Accounts in your accounting platform: 

The system will only show the first 100 active Chart of Accounts from your accounting system. If you don't see yours there, you can search for it by typing its name in the Search box.

You can configure your category list according to the Team Fields you've set up to support a more granular approach to your accounting.

For manual accounting, you must connect to Custom Mapping for the Chart of Accounts column to be visible on the categories screen. Head to Settings >> Accounting Integration >> Connect to Custom mapping. Once enabled the Chart of Accounts column will be visible on the Categories screen.

When users are coding their expense they will have to select the Team field item first from the drop-down list, then the category that has been limited to that team field will become visible on their expense to code it.

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