Category in Two Places

Problem

The user has put the same Category as a subcategory in two places, for categorizing job costs in Goldenseal job cost accounting software. So job cost reports show extra amounts.

Diagnosis

Check the Category System for duplicate categories. Current versions do not allow the same category to be used twice, but versions 2.31 and earlier did not prevent that.

NOTE-- it's fine if they use the same category in two different category systems. They just can't have it in two places within the same category system.

Solution

Remove the extra category. If they want to have two subcategories named the same thing, they'll have to create two categories and distinguish them somehow.

For example, if they want "cleaning" under both Gargoyle Maintenance and Flamingo Maintenance, they'll need to have "cleaning" and "yard cleaning", or even just "cleaning " with an extra space after it.

Comments

We made a design decision, to have subcategories be independent entities that can only be included in one main category each. This makes it easier to support multiple Category Systems that have the same subcategories under different main categories (as in the Full CSI and Full Construction category systems). That way, it's possible to switch an estimate or project from one system to the other, and keep all the cost subcategories intact.

Entered 2/6/03 by Dennis. Revised 11/6/2010.