Set up your categories
- Open Settings → Advanced and scroll to Payment Categories.
- The Built-in list is always there:
- Practice fees, Registration fees, Meet entry fees, One-off payment, Volunteer obligation fees, and Misc. 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.
- To add your own, type a name in New category (like “Team apparel”) and click Add category. It shows under Your categories.
- 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.
Commit Swimming - Team The Commit app has the same Payment Categories section under Settings → Advanced: the built-in list, your categories with Rename and Archive, and Add category.
Where you pick a category
Look for a Payment category picker in each of these places:
- Create new 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 Rolled up Invoice Items menu has Add pending item, which opens Create Invoice Item 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 meet’s Billing 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 and each additional fee in a program’s fees step. See Program billing.
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:
| Where | Starts on |
|---|---|
| Invoice lines and pending items | Misc. |
| One-off payments | One-off payment |
| Obligation shortfall fees | Volunteer obligation fees |
| Meet fees | Meet entry fees |
| Monthly and installment program options | Practice fees |
| Upfront program options and additional fees | Registration fees |
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
- Open the family’s account under Payments → Customers.
- In Invoice History, open the invoice’s ⋮ menu and choose Edit line categories.
- In Line categories, change the picker on any line. It saves right away and shows “Category updated”.
The menu option only shows on invoices whose lines carry a category. 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.