Payment categories

Set up your categories

Web app Mobile app

1. Open Settings → Advanced and click Payment categories in the list on the left.
2. The Built-in list is always there:
   • Practice fees, Registration fees, Meet entry fees, One-off payment, Volunteer obligation fees, Misc., and Donations are tagged Built-in. You can pick them anywhere, but you can’t rename or archive them.
   • Service fees, Discount, and Customer credit are tagged Automatic. Commit files those lines itself, so they never appear in a picker.
3. To add your own, type a name in New category (like “Team apparel”) and click Add category. It shows under Your categories.
4. Each of your categories has Rename and Archive. Archiving takes it out of the pickers but keeps every charge already filed under it. An archived category shows an Archived tag and a Restore button.

Only staff with the Finances permission set to Edit can add, rename, or archive categories.

Where you pick a category

Look for a Payment category picker in each of these places:

• Create invoice: every line under Line items has its own category. Click Add line for up to 10 lines on one invoice. See Create, send and manage invoices.
• Pending items: on a family’s account, the ⋯ menu on Pending items has Add pending item, which opens a dialog with a category.
• One-off payments: the payment’s dialog has a category, and each one-off payment in the list has a picker so you can change it later.
• Volunteer obligations: when an obligation charges a shortfall fee (Flat fee when the obligation is missed or Fee per missing credit), the category sits next to Fee amount ($). See Bill obligation shortfalls.
• Meets: in the Fees section of the meet’s Info & Settings, each fee (individual events, relays, athlete surcharge, facility surcharge, and each team fee you add) has its own category. See Meet billing.
• Programs: each payment option (under Advanced options) and each additional fee in a program’s Fees step. See Program billing.
• USA Swimming registrations: the USA Swimming billing settings (the gear on the SWIMS 3.0 Connection card) have one category for every membership charge. See Bill families for a USA Swimming registration.

Every picker lists the built-ins first, then Your categories. Staff who can edit finances also see + New category at the bottom, which creates one on the spot.

Which category is picked for you

Each kind of charge starts on its matching built-in:

After that, everywhere except one-off payments remembers the last category your team chose for that kind of charge. If that category has since been archived, it goes back to the built-in.

On a program, changing a category on an existing option or fee “Applies to new sign-ups. Families already billed keep their current category, including on renewals.”

Fix a category after the fact

Any line on an invoice can move to another category, even one a program, meet or one-off payment billed.

1. Open the family’s account under Payments → Customers.

2. In Invoice history, click the invoice’s ⋯ menu and choose Edit line categories.

   

3. In Line categories, change the picker on any line. It saves right away and shows “Category updated”.

   

A line that follows its program, meet or payment shows Automatic. Pick Automatic again to undo a change. Service fees and registration discounts aren’t listed, because they follow the charge they belong to.

The option shows on every invoice except voided ones. Anyone with Finances access can see the dialog, but changing a category needs Finances set to Edit. Financial reports you already generated are snapshots, so generate a new one to see the change.

Common questions

Can I delete a category? No. Archive it instead. That keeps your past reports accurate.

What category do older charges have? Charges from before categories existed keep the built-in names reports always used, like Practice fees or Misc.

Can families see categories? Categories are for your reports. Families see each line’s description on their invoice.