Xero how to
Xero tracking categories for a clinic
A Xero file holds two active tracking categories. The canonical allied health template spends the first on Practitioner and the second on Location, both matched by name, and carries the payer in the revenue account code instead, because there is no third slot. Set both up before a practice system starts syncing, and spell the options the way the practice already spells them.
Key facts
- The slot budget
- Two active tracking categories in a Xero file, which is the whole budget a practice has to spend11
- What one line can carry
- Xero's own API specification states that any line item can carry a maximum of two tracking category elements, and says the same of a journal line12
- How many options fit in a slot
- Xero's set up article gives 100 options per category as the figure to stay under so reports load quickly, rather than as a count the software refuses. The limits it does state are four categories in an organisation and two active at a time17
- Slot one in the canonical template
- Practitioner, matched by name and created with the practice's consent, so the option is the name the practice already uses16
- Slot two in the canonical template
- Location, matched by name and created with the practice's consent. The template names the category and leaves what counts as a location to the practice16
- Where the payer goes instead
- Into the revenue account code, because both tracking slots are spoken for before the funder question is even asked16
- How long a name may be
- A category name and an option name each stop at 100 characters in Xero's API specification12
- What Splose pushes
- A category assigned to a location and a category assigned to a practitioner, travelling with the invoice when it is emailed or marked as sent11
- What Cliniko pushes
- Nothing on this front. Cliniko's own integration article does not mention tracking categories at all, so the options have to be added after the invoice lands1
Two slots, three questions
A clinic owner asks their ledger three things. Who saw the client, where the work happened, and who paid for it. Xero gives them two active tracking categories, so one of the three has to be answered somewhere else. Deciding which one, before anything is created, is the whole job.
The limit is not a soft one. Xero's published API specification puts it on the transaction itself: a line item carries a maximum of two tracking category elements, and a journal line carries the same maximum. There is no arrangement of categories that lets a third dimension ride along on the same line.
It is very frustrating to work with only 2 at a time.13
That comment sits on an open Xero product idea asking for more active categories. It had gathered 244 votes when it was read for this page, and Xero's own community manager describes the work as exploratory rather than committed. Treat two as the number to design around.
What goes in the first slot
Practitioner. It is the cut a practice asks for by name whenever a payout, a hire or a departure comes up, and the hardest one to rebuild from exports after the year is closed. The canonical allied health template puts it in slot one, matched by name and created with the practice's consent.
- One option per person who bills, whether they are employed, contracted or the principal.
- The option name is the person's name as the practice system holds it, because the two are matched on the name and nothing else.
- Admin staff get no option. A line with no practitioner is a real answer, and those lines group on their own on the report.
- A person who leaves keeps their option, archived rather than deleted, so last year's columns still read.
- The list stays a list of people, not of roles or disciplines, because a longer option list buys nothing and costs report speed.
The alternative that circulates is one revenue account per practitioner. It works for three people and gets unwieldy at ten, because every practitioner then needs an account for every payer. Tracking exists so the chart of accounts does not multiply.
What goes in the second slot
Location, in the wide sense. The canonical template names it that, and the useful reading is where the work happened rather than which building it happened in. Zanda's own Xero export guide reaches the same list from the other direction, offering a clinic, in home services and telehealth as the options of one category.
A single site practice has a choice to make here, and it is the only genuinely open decision on the page. The slot can carry sites, or it can carry discipline where a practice runs physiotherapy and psychology under one roof, or it can carry a funded program that has to be reported on separately. It cannot carry two of those.
Why the payer is not a slot
Funding source is the question a clinic asks over and over, and it is the one that gets no slot, because the account code answers it better. A payer changes the tax rate, the clearing behaviour and the timing of the money, so it is already doing work that belongs in the chart of accounts rather than in a reporting label.
Chart of accounts structured by NDIS service line so plan management, support coordination, and direct supports are tracked separately15
Read the rows sideways. Five payers, five accounts, two different tax rates, and not one tracking option consumed. The same five lines can all carry the same practitioner and the same site, so a report shows one clinician across every payer they billed without a third category. It is also why the chart of accounts has to be built first: a practice that starts with tracking and one sales account cannot answer the payer question later without a rebuild.
Setting the two categories up
The clicking is short. The decisions above are the long part, and the order below exists so one is not made accidentally by whoever creates the first category.
- Write down the two questions the practice asks its numbers most often, before opening Xero, because those two are the two categories. Where: Before Xero: on paper, with whoever reads the reports.
- Create the first category for the person doing the work, and give it the name the practice already uses out loud rather than a system word. Where: Accounting, Accounting settings, Tracking categories.
- Add one option per practitioner, spelled exactly as the practice system spells them, since the option is matched to the practice system by name. Where: Accounting, Accounting settings, Tracking categories.
- Create the second category for where the work happens, with one option per clinic and one for each way of delivering that the practice bills separately. Where: Accounting, Accounting settings, Tracking categories.
- Check the revenue accounts already split by payer, because the funder cut has nowhere else to go. Where: Accounting, Chart of accounts.
- Open the practice system's own Xero settings and point its practitioner and location fields at the two categories, where the system supports it. Where: The practice system's Xero integration settings.
- Push one invoice across and open the line in Xero, checking it carries both options and the account the payer belongs to. Where: Sales, Invoices, the invoice, line item.
One sourcing note on those screens. Xero's own set up article carries the same path and the platform limits behind it, and the vendor integration guides describe the same screens.
Which practice systems actually push them
A category with no options arriving on invoices is decoration. Whether the practice system can put an option on a line before it reaches Xero decides whether this setup runs itself or becomes a monthly coding job.
| Practice system | What the vendor documents |
|---|---|
| Cliniko | Not supported |
| Zanda | Up to two, pre-assigned per batch |
| Halaxy | Not mentioned in the Xero articles |
| Splose | Locations and practitioners |
| Nookal | Not mentioned in the Xero articles |
| coreplus | Not mentioned in the Xero articles |
| PracSuite | One category, chosen under the Businesses heading and applied to the invoices and payments the sync creates |
| Bp Allied | One required, carrying the practitioner, with 100 options given as the vendor's own ceiling |
| Gensolve | Not stated |
| Jane App | None |
Splose is the one that documents both slots: a category is assigned to a location and a category is assigned to a practitioner, and both travel with the invoice when it is emailed or marked as sent. Zanda documents two as well, set in its Xero export settings rather than on the line, so a batch that mixes two sites carries one label for both.
PracSuite is worth a second look, because the row above reads not stated while PracSuite's own tracking article documents one category, chosen under the Businesses heading and applied to the invoices and payments the sync creates. Practitioner and site are not mentioned in it, and the row is due a re-read.
Cliniko sits at the other end. Its integration article does not mention tracking categories anywhere, so invoices arrive in Xero with no options on them and something has to add them afterwards. That gap is the reason this page is a decision rather than a click path.
Naming options so they last
Names are matched, not mapped. The template matches on the name, and a mismatch shows up as a second column on a report rather than as an error anybody sees. The names are worth ten minutes before anything is created.
- Agree the spelling once, in the practice system and in Xero, and write it somewhere a new starter will find it.
- Use the name the practice says out loud, not a code. Xero holds a category name and an option name up to 100 characters each, so there is no reason to abbreviate.
- Keep initials out of it where two people share them, because a report column has no other way to tell them apart.
- Do not rename an option to reuse it for somebody else. Xero holds the option by its id and the name is only a label, so a rename reaches every transaction that option has carried.
The archive path has a page of its own, because a practitioner's money keeps arriving after their last day. Archiving a practitioner in Xero tracking covers what to do with the option and what the final payout waits for.
What the two slots give back
The output is a profit and loss with the options as columns. Xero's report endpoint takes two tracking categories and two tracking options and no more, which is the same limit again in a different place, so the report is exactly as wide as the setup allows and no wider.
With Practitioner in the first slot, that report answers the payout question from the ledger rather than from an export. With Location in the second, it answers whether a site or a delivery mode is carrying itself. The payer question is answered by the revenue accounts running down the left of the same page.
Two things are worth checking before quoting a number off it: which basis the report is on, because cash and accrual differ where a funder pays in batches, and whether wage cost carries an option at all, which is a separate payroll setting covered on Xero payroll tracking for practitioners.
What Ledger Map does with it
Ledger Map holds one standing map for the practice, approved by a person before anything syncs. The map resolves each fee line to its revenue account, its Xero tax rate and its practitioner option, so the account code carries the payer and the tracking slots stay free for the two cuts above.
The options themselves are the practice's own names, taken with consent rather than invented, which is what keeps the Xero side and the practice system side matching. For the money, each funder deposit is posted as one balanced document set and one exact match is left in the bank feed for a person to accept. How it works shows the map and the approval step it goes through.
Questions
How many tracking categories can a Xero organisation have?
Two active at a time. Xero's own API specification states that a line item carries a maximum of two tracking category elements, and its profit and loss report endpoint takes two tracking categories and no third, so the limit shows up in the data and in the reporting rather than only in the settings screen.
What should an allied health clinic put in its two tracking categories?
The canonical allied health template spends the first slot on Practitioner and the second on Location, both matched by name. Practitioner is the cut that cannot be rebuilt later and drives payouts. The second slot is the open one: sites for a multi site practice, discipline or a funded program for a single site one.
Can I use a tracking category for funding source instead?
You can, and it costs you one of the two cuts above. The template puts the payer in the revenue account code instead, because the payer already changes the tax rate and the timing of the money, so it is doing chart of accounts work rather than reporting work. That leaves both slots for practitioner and site.
Does my practice management system push tracking categories into Xero?
It differs sharply. Splose assigns a category to a location and a category to a practitioner and sends both with the invoice. Zanda carries two, chosen per batch in the export settings. Cliniko's integration article does not mention tracking categories at all. The table above lists what each vendor documents.
Should I create a tracking option for every client?
No. Clients belong in the contact record, which is where a practice can already run a receivables report by name. Xero's set up article puts 100 options per category as the figure to stay under for report speed, so a client list is a list built to be slow, and the report becomes unreadable long before load time is the complaint.
What happens to a tracking option when a practitioner leaves?
Archive it rather than deleting it. Xero holds a tracking option as active, archived or deleted, and an archived option keeps its name, so the columns on last year's reports still have a label. The final payout is a separate job, because funder money keeps landing after a last working day.
Read next
- Xero how toXero payroll tracking for practitioners
- Xero how toArchive a practitioner in Xero tracking
- Xero how toReport by tracking category in Xero
- Xero how toXero tracking categories or Xero Projects, for a clinic
- Practice systemsSplose Xero integration and the NDIS lump sum
- Practice systemsCliniko Xero integration: what syncs, what does not
- HubXero how to
Sources
Open questions
- Xero's set up article gives no count at which a category stops working, only the figure to stay under for report speed, so a practice that wants a very long option list has its own report times to go on and nothing else. Xero's API specification caps a category name and an option name at 100 characters, which is a different fact and is not the option count.
- PracSuite's tracking article names one selection under the Businesses heading and does not say what happens where the Xero organisation already carries two categories, so the table records the one category it documents rather than a limit.
- Halaxy's support page refused an automated fetch when the integration pages were built, so its tracking category behaviour reads not confirmed rather than absent.
- Whether the second slot should carry sites, disciplines or funded programs is a practice decision that depends on who reads the report. The corpus leaves it open and the product exposes it as a setting rather than choosing for the practice.
- The session's web search budget was already spent when this page was written, so the ranked results and the AI answer panel for this query were taken from the manifest's reading on 2 September 2026 rather than looked at again. A person should check them before publication.
- Xero Accounting API specification, tracking categories and line items
Xero. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 30 Aug 2026.
primary
- Tracking categories, increase the maximum number of active categories and options
Xero Product Ideas. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 1 Sep 2026.
secondary
- Xero tracking categories, a setup guide
LedgerLogic. Retrieved 3 Sep 2026. Source updated 20 Feb 2026.
secondary
Review
Last reviewed 3 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.
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