Templates
Xero tracking category for practitioners
Spend one of Xero's two active tracking categories on the practitioner: one option per person, named exactly as the practice system spells the name. Revenue by practitioner then reads off the same profit and loss as the funder split, which the canonical template puts in the account code. A sales account per practitioner answers one question and multiplies every funder row by every clinician.
Key facts
- What the first slot carries
- Practitioner, matched to the practice system by name, and created only with the practice's consent5
- What the second slot carries
- Location, on the same terms, which is what leaves the payer with nowhere to go but the account code5
- What the slot budget actually is
- Four tracking categories in a Xero organisation with two active at a time, set up in the Accounting menu under Accounting settings, then Tracking categories10
- How long the practitioner list can run
- Xero names no cap on the options in a category. It gives 100 as the figure to stay under so reports keep loading quickly, which is a report speed guide rather than a ceiling on headcount10
- What the chart already splits by
- The payer. The canonical allied health template carries eighteen revenue accounts, and none of them names a clinician5
- What Cliniko sends
- No practitioner information travels to Xero with an invoice, though a Xero sales account can be set for each practitioner inside Cliniko7
- What splose sends
- Tracking categories created in Xero can be assigned to locations and to practitioners in splose3
- What Zanda sends
- A Xero tracking category name is set on the integration, and calendars can be pre mapped to sales accounts for practices running a calendar per practitioner2
- The practice system's own numbers
- Cliniko reports practitioner revenue two ways, by raised invoices and by closed invoices, and neither report mentions GST or refunds8
- What a payout should be built on
- Money that has landed in the bank and been reconciled that day, rather than what the billing system says was charged9
- A published benchmark to read it against
- Practitioner employment costs, salary plus super, at 35 to 45 percent of the revenue that practitioner generates, which ScaleSuite calls sustainable11
The first tracking slot goes to the practitioner
The canonical allied health template does not leave this open. Its tracking policy spends the first slot on Practitioner and the second on Location, records that both are matched to the practice system by name, and marks both as created only with the practice's consent, so a category or an option reaches the Xero file after the practice approves it and not before.
That decision is upstream of everything else on this page. A practice usually wants three cuts of its revenue: who saw the client, where the work happened, and who paid. Two of the three fit in tracking. The third has to live somewhere else, and in this template it lives in the revenue account code. So the practitioner slot is not competing with the funder for room. The funder was moved out first, and the slot is free.
Xero's own API specification puts the same budget on the data: any line item carries a maximum of two tracking category elements.
How tracking categories work at all belongs to the Xero tracking categories how-to. This page is narrower: what goes in the practitioner slot, and what keeps it joined to the practice system.
One tracking option per practitioner, or one sales account each
There is a second way to get revenue by clinician, and plenty of practices are already running it: give each practitioner their own sales account in the chart. Cliniko supports exactly that, and its own article is blunt about why a practice reaches for it. No practitioner information is sent to Xero with an invoice, so the account code is the only field left that can carry a name.
It works. It also multiplies. The template splits revenue by payer, so a practice with six clinicians that wants both cuts in the chart is opening a block of accounts per person, and every new funder row has to be repeated across all six. The tracking option adds one line to a list instead, and leaves the chart the size it was.
| What you are comparing | A tracking option per practitioner | A sales account per practitioner |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs to add someone | One option in an existing category | One account each, or one per payer where the funder split has to survive |
| What happens to the funder split | Untouched, because the payer stays in the account code | Repeated once per clinician |
| Who can populate it from the practice system | Systems that send a tracking category, such as splose and Zanda | Systems that map to a sales account, such as Cliniko |
| How it reports | Profit and loss compared across the tracking options | Profit and loss down the chart of accounts |
| What happens when they leave | The option is archived and old transactions keep it | The account stays in the chart, or is archived with a balance history |
The account route is what a practice does when the practice system leaves it no choice. The tracking route is what it does when the system can carry a name. Neither is wrong, and one of them stops growing.
The account code is already spent on the payer
Before deciding where the practitioner goes, it is worth seeing what the chart is already doing. Below is one clinician's week as the standing rules map holds it. Five sessions, five payers, five different revenue accounts, and the clinician appears in none of them.
The template carries twenty three revenue rows across eighteen revenue accounts, and every one of them is keyed on the payer and the kind of work. That is the whole argument for the tracking slot in one sentence: the account code is answering a different question, and it can only answer one.
The option is matched by name, so the spelling is the join
The template records the practitioner slot as matched by name. There is no shared identifier between a practice system's practitioner record and a Xero tracking option. The name is the join, which makes the option list a small piece of shared data that two systems have to agree on.
- Take the practitioner names out of the practice system as they are stored there, not as they are said at reception.
- Create the option list to match, one option per person, including the middle initial or the post nominal if the practice system carries one.
- Point the practice system's Xero settings at the category, where the system supports it.
- Push one invoice across and open the line in Xero, checking the option is on the line rather than only on the invoice header.
- Agree who changes a name, because a clinician who marries and updates one system creates a second option in the other.
The last step is the one that bites months later. A renamed practitioner splits into two options, the older transactions keep the old one, and a profit and loss compared across the category shows the same person twice with no error anywhere to find.
What each practice system can put on the Xero line
Whether the slot fills automatically depends on the practice system, and the vendors differ more here than their marketing pages suggest. Each row below says what that vendor's own help article says.
| Practice system | Can it carry the practitioner | What the article says |
|---|---|---|
| Cliniko | Not as a tracking category | No practitioner information is sent to Xero with invoices, though a Xero sales account can be set per practitioner. The integration article names no tracking category at all |
| splose | Yes | Tracking categories created in Xero can be assigned to locations and to practitioners in splose |
| Zanda | A category name is set on the integration | The integration takes a Xero tracking category name, and calendars can be pre mapped to sales accounts for practices running a calendar per practitioner |
| PracSuite | Tracking is applied to synced documents | Tracking categories are applied to the invoices and payments the sync creates, with a business level category as the worked example rather than a practitioner one |
Two cautions. Splose does not document how the two names are matched, so the name rule above is the template's rule rather than a vendor guarantee. PracSuite's article does not name a practitioner category, so its row says what the article says and no more.
When a practitioner leaves, the option is archived
An option list nobody prunes stops being useful, and deleting instead of archiving loses the history. The rule worth writing into the practice's notes: archive the option on the practitioner's last day, and every transaction already coded to it keeps that coding.
The timing matters more in a clinic than in most businesses, because the money outlives the employment. Claims lodged in a practitioner's final week are still with Medicare, the NDIA, a plan manager or a compensation insurer on the day they leave, and they land afterwards under the option that is now archived. The archive and the final payout are two separate jobs on two separate clocks. The archive a tracking option how-to runs the procedure and the reporting consequences.
A payout report has to be built on receipts
Most practices that want revenue by practitioner want it in order to pay someone, which is where the tracking category earns its slot and also where it can be read wrongly. A tracking report shows revenue posted. A payout under a split is usually meant to be paid on money that arrived.
Pay a practitioner on money that has actually landed in the bank and been reconciled that day, not on what the billing system says was charged9
Health and Life put that on the receipts against earnings distinction in ATO Taxation Ruling TR 98/1, and list the errors they see in practice: confusing the date the billing system recorded a receipt with the date money arrived at the bank, and matching on amount alone, which pays the wrong practitioner. Both are failures of the join between a deposit and the sessions inside it, not failures of the tracking category.
The practice system has the same fault line. Cliniko reports practitioner revenue two ways, by raised invoices and by closed invoices, and the difference between them is exactly the money that has not been paid yet. Neither report mentions GST or refunds, so a payout taken straight off either one is a gross figure with unsettled edges.
What a practitioner tracking report does not settle
Three things stay outside the slot however carefully it is set up, and it is cheaper to know them now than to discover them in a reconciliation.
- Cost. Tracking on the revenue line gives revenue by clinician. Margin by clinician needs the wage or contractor cost carrying the same option, which is a separate piece of setup in payroll or on the bill.
- Basis. The ledger's revenue by practitioner and the practice system's practitioner earnings report are built differently, so they can both be right and still differ.
- Structure. Under a service entity arrangement the fees a practitioner collects are not the practice's revenue at all, and a tracking option on a revenue line describes a book the practice may not be keeping. That choice belongs to the practice's accountant.
How Ledger Map fills the practitioner slot
The practice approves one standing map before anything syncs, and the practitioner slot is part of it. The option list is proposed from the practice system's own practitioner names, matched by name, and created only once the practice has said yes, which is what the template's consent flag means in practice.
From there each claim line resolves to its account and tax rate through the approved map and carries the practitioner option, and each deposit is posted as one balanced document set against its clearing account, leaving one exact match in the bank feed. A line the map cannot resolve becomes a question with the options laid out, rather than a quiet posting. How it works walks through that approval, and the allied health chart of accounts carries the payer split the slot sits beside.
Questions
How do I set up a tracking category for practitioners in Xero?
Create a tracking category in Xero and name it for the person doing the work, then add one option per practitioner spelled exactly as the practice system spells the name. Point the practice system's Xero settings at that category where it supports one, push a single invoice across, and check the option landed on the invoice line rather than only on the header.
Should each practitioner have their own sales account instead?
It is a real option and Cliniko supports it, since no practitioner information reaches Xero with the invoice. The cost is that the canonical template already splits revenue by payer, so a chart that also splits by clinician repeats the payer block once per person. A tracking option adds one line and leaves the chart alone.
Does Cliniko send the practitioner to Xero?
Cliniko does not send the practitioner as a tracking category. Its own article states that no practitioner information is sent to Xero with invoices, and offers a Xero sales account per practitioner instead. Splose can assign a Xero tracking category to practitioners, and Zanda's integration takes a Xero tracking category name and can pre map calendars to sales accounts.
What happens to a practitioner's tracking option when they leave?
Archive it on their last day. Transactions already coded to the option keep it, so the history survives. Claims lodged in their final week are still with the funder when they walk out and will land afterwards, so treat the archive and the final payout as two jobs on two different clocks.
Can I run a practitioner payout from a Xero tracking report?
You can, but only if the practice pays on the basis the ledger is kept on. A tracking report shows revenue posted, while a split under a receipts arrangement is meant to be paid on money that landed in the bank and was reconciled. Cliniko's own practitioner reports carry the same split, one on raised invoices and one on closed invoices, and mention neither GST nor refunds.
Read next
- Xero how toXero tracking categories for a clinic
- Xero how toArchive a practitioner in Xero tracking
- Xero how toReport by tracking category in Xero
- TemplatesAllied health chart of accounts, by funder
- TemplatesMultidisciplinary clinic chart of accounts
- Practice systemsCliniko Xero integration: what syncs, what does not
- HubTemplates
Sources
Open questions
- No search results snapshot exists for the templates family, so the ranked pages, the People also ask list and any AI answer panel for this query were not read when the page was written. The FAQ pairs come from the corpus's own question list and from two adjacent captures in the same cluster, and a person should check the live results before publication.
- Xero's set up article gives four tracking categories with two active at a time, and 100 options per category as a figure to stay under for report speed rather than a cap. What it does not give is how a practice with a long practitioner list should read that figure against its own report times, so a large clinic has to watch its own reports rather than count to a number.
- Splose documents that practitioners can be assigned to a Xero tracking category but does not document whether the two names have to agree exactly, so the name matching rule here is the template's rule rather than a vendor guarantee.
- PracSuite's article describes applying tracking categories to the invoices and payments its sync creates without naming a practitioner category, so what it can populate beyond its business level example is unverified.
- Cliniko's practitioner sales account article carries a relative update note rather than a date, so its currency could not be pinned.
- Whether a Xero tracking report and a practice system's practitioner earnings report can be reconciled line for line is untested here. They are built on different bases, so a difference between them is not by itself an error.
- Xero Accounting API specification, tracking categories on a line item
Xero. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 30 Aug 2026.
primary
- Sync practitioner invoice items in Cliniko to specific sales accounts in Xero
Cliniko. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026.
primary
- First principles, paying practitioners on receipts
Health and Life. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 23 Jul 2026.
secondary
- Physiotherapy clinic finance
ScaleSuite. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated December 2025.
secondary
Review
Last reviewed 4 Sep 2026 by Shane
General information for Australian allied health practices, not tax advice. Confirm a treatment with your BAS agent or accountant before you post it.
Guided onboarding
Run one real month before you go live.
Sign up, connect Zanda and Xero, and replay a month you already closed. The map is reviewed with whoever owns the books, and nothing posts until you approve it.
Every practice starts from a template. Nothing posts until the map is approved.