QuickBooks Online gates class tracking behind the Plus tier at $115/mo — and even on Plus, you can't see your locations or divisions next to each other on one screen. You export reports one at a time and stitch them in Excel. BDFIQ shows every segment side by side on the dashboard, included at every tier.
Join the WaitlistSegment reporting is the answer to one question: which part of my business is actually making money? Most accounting software calls it "class tracking" or "tracking categories" or "tags." The underlying idea is the same.
A segment is a slice of the business you want to measure on its own. For a multi-location restaurant, each location is a segment. For a contractor, each service line (HVAC, plumbing, remodel) is a segment. For a holding company, each underlying business is a segment. The chart of accounts stays the same. What changes is whether you can pull a P&L that's filtered to one slice — and whether you can put two or three slices next to each other on the same screen.
QBO calls this class tracking. It's available on Plus ($115/mo) and Advanced ($275/mo). Xero calls it tracking categories — two of them max, on the Established tier ($90/mo). FreshBooks doesn't really do it. Wave doesn't do it at all. Zoho calls them branches on Professional ($50/mo) and up. None of them put the segments side by side as the default view.
BDFIQ ships segment reporting at every tier — and the default view is the side-by-side comparison, not the filter-to-one-and-export workflow.
Most accounting software hard-codes one segment type (usually "class"). BDFIQ ships twelve, because what looks like a "location" to a restaurant is a "service line" to a contractor and a "property" to a landlord.
Uses Location. Three values: Downtown, Eastside, Airport. Sees revenue, food cost, labor, and store-level contribution next to each other on the dashboard. Knows which store is dragging the group margin before the monthly close.
Uses Service Line. Five values: Roofing, Remodel, New Construction, Repairs, Commercial. Sees which work type carries the strongest margin and which is being subsidized by the others.
Uses Property. One value per rental property. Per-property net operating income on one screen — not seven exports and a spreadsheet. (Pairs with multi-entity if each property is its own LLC.)
Uses Department. Four values: Design, Development, Marketing, Account Management. Sees which department is the profit center and which is the cost center. Useful when one team's compensation tier is up for discussion.
Uses Store as the primary segment and Division as a secondary roll-up (e.g., apparel vs accessories). Two-axis slicing without leaving the dashboard.
Uses Crew + Territory. Which crew is most productive. Which territory is most profitable. Two segment types live at once — not gated to a higher tier.
Three things stand between a QBO user and the segment view they actually want:
A three-location coffee chain on QBO Essentials wants to know which shop is dragging the group's margin. They upgrade to Plus — that's $40/mo more, $480/yr. They configure class tracking on every transaction going forward. They run the P&L by Class report.
In QBO: They get a report with three columns. Useful, but it's a one-time export. It's not on the dashboard. There's no variance-to-prior-month side by side. If they want to see "last 90 days vs prior 90 days" by location, that's two exports and a manual stitch in Excel.
In BDFIQ: They open the Segment Performance dashboard. Three locations are columns. Each row is a P&L line (Revenue, COGS, Gross Margin, Operating Expenses, Net Income). A toggle switches between current period, prior period, and variance. It's the default view, not a special report.
And it's included at every BDFIQ tier — not gated behind a Plus or Advanced upgrade. Because segment visibility is the kind of thing every multi-location operator needs, not a premium feature.
Not just on one report. The segment tag carries through every surface where money shows up.
The default view. All segments as columns, P&L lines as rows. Switch the time frame, toggle variance, drill into any cell. No "run report" button needed.
Standard P&L view has a "Split by Segment" toggle. One click and your columns become Location 1, Location 2, Location 3 (or whichever segment type you've configured).
Period-over-period variance by segment. See which location grew, which slipped, and which line item is responsible — without rebuilding the report each time.
Every segment view exports to Excel with the segments already as columns. Send it to your CPA, your investor, your board — no reformatting required.
Build your own report with segment as a column dimension. Save it, schedule it, or pin it to the dashboard. No SQL. No third-party BI tool.
Every transaction carries a segment tag. Invoices, bills, journal entries, expense receipts — tagged at entry, rolled up automatically.
A real BDFIQ segment view for a three-location restaurant group. P&L lines on the left, locations across the top. Worst-performing location flagged in red.
Airport location flagged: net margin 9.1% (group avg 18.9%). Labor as % of revenue is 36.4% — 8 pts higher than Downtown. [Drill into labor transactions →]
Side-by-side segment P&L on every tier. Twelve segment types. One screen. Join the waitlist.
Join the Waitlist