🔍 What are tracking categories?
Tracking categories are a Xero feature that lets you attach a label to financial transactions — for example, a workshop name, location, or cost centre. Once transactions are tagged, you can filter and report on them in Xero by that label, giving you a clear view of the financial performance of each part of your business.
In Xero, a tracking category has a name (for example, "Location") and a list of options beneath it (for example, "City Workshop", "North Shore", "Hamilton").
You create and manage tracking categories and their options inside Xero. Auxo Workshop reads them from your connected Xero account and lets you choose which option to apply to your transactions.
📝 Note: Tracking categories and their options are created and managed in Xero, not in Auxo Workshop. Refer to Xero's help documentation for how to set them up: https://central.xero.com/s/article/Set-up-tracking-categories
⚙️ Where to configure tracking categories in Auxo Workshop
Once you have at least one active tracking category set up in Xero, the tracking category fields will appear in your Xero integration settings in Auxo Workshop.
Navigate to Add-Ons > Xero and open the Sync Settings section. You will see two dropdowns:
Tracking Category: lists all active tracking categories from your connected Xero organisation.
Tracking Category Option: once a category is selected, this lists the active options within that category. This field is required once a category is selected.
⚠️ Important: Both fields must be filled in for tracking to be applied. Selecting a category without choosing an option means no tracking label will be sent to Xero.
📝 Note: The tracking category fields only appear once at least one active tracking category exists in your connected Xero account.
📋 Which transactions get tagged?
When a tracking category and option are configured, the selected label is automatically applied to every eligible transaction that Auxo syncs to Xero. You do not need to tag transactions manually.
The following transaction types are covered:
Customer Invoice: when a job is invoiced to a customer.
Customer Credit Note: when a credit note is issued against a customer invoice.
Supplier Bill: when a purchase order is sent to Xero (requires "Send purchase orders to Xero" to be enabled in sync settings).
Supplier Credit Note: when a credit note is received from a supplier against a purchase order.
Manual Journal: when "Create cost of goods sold journals" is enabled — covers stock adjustments, COGS entries, and payment/EFTPOS cashout journal lines.
Within each of these, the tracking label is applied to every financial line item.
Description-only lines with no quantity or amount are excluded, as Xero does not support tracking on those line types.
⚠️ Things to be aware of
Archived categories or options
If a tracking category or option you had previously selected is later archived in Xero, Auxo Workshop will detect this and display a warning in the Sync Settings screen.
You will need to update your selection before tracking resumes on new transactions. Transactions already posted to Xero are not affected.
Existing transactions are not back-filled
Configuring or changing a tracking category only affects transactions sent to Xero from that point forward. Previously synced invoices, bills, and journals already in Xero are not updated.
One option per Auxo Workshop account
Each Auxo Workshop account can be configured with one tracking category option at a time. If your business needs to track multiple dimensions (for example, both location and department), Xero supports having more than one tracking category, but Auxo currently supports configuring one category and option pair per account.
Only active items are listed
The dropdowns only show tracking categories and options that are currently active in Xero. Archived items are hidden.
🏢 The multi-workshop use case
The most common reason to use this feature is when two or more Auxo Workshop accounts are connected to a single Xero organisation — for example, a business that operates workshops across multiple locations but consolidates accounting in one Xero file.
Without tracking categories, transactions from all workshops arrive in Xero with no way to distinguish them. With tracking categories configured:
Create a tracking category in Xero — for example, "Location" — with one option per workshop, such as "City", "North Shore", and "Hamilton".
In each Auxo Workshop account's Xero Sync Settings, select the same tracking category and choose the option that matches that specific workshop.
From that point on, every invoice, bill, credit note, and journal posted from each workshop will be tagged with the correct workshop label in Xero.
You can then run Xero reports filtered or grouped by that tracking category to see revenue, costs, and profitability broken down by workshop.
👉 For steps on connecting multiple Auxo Workshop accounts to one Xero organisation, see Linking Multiple Auxo Workshop Accounts to One Xero Organisation.