Accounting Codes in ThunderTix: Simplify Revenue Tracking and Financial Reporting - Mon - Jul 13, 2026 - 2:20pm

Maggie Kennedy
Updated: Mon - Jul 13, 2026 - 2:20pm ⚬ 0 Comments Reports
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Accounting Codes in ThunderTix



What Are Accounting Codes?


Accounting Codes — sometimes referred to as GL (General Ledger) codes — are a way for your organization to categorize every type of revenue, expense, and liability that flows through your ThunderTix account. Instead of seeing one combined revenue number per order (like you might on the Reconciliation Report), Accounting Codes let you break each order into its individual financial components — ticket sales, fees, donations, taxes, product sales, refunds, and more — so every dollar is tagged with the code your accounting system expects.


Most organizations follow a standard numbering convention. For example, codes in the 4000s might represent revenue, codes in the 5000s might represent expenses, and codes in the 2000s might represent liabilities like tax collected. Every organization's codes are unique to their chart of accounts, and ThunderTix lets you define exactly the codes and categories that match yours.



Why Use Accounting Codes?


If your organization uses an accounting platform like QuickBooks, Xero, or FreshBooks, you know that reconciling ticketing revenue requires separating ticket revenue from fee revenue, concession revenue, donations, tax collected, and refunds. Without Accounting Codes, this is a manual process of sorting and re-sorting your Reconciliation Report, subtracting donations and fees, and piecing together where each dollar belongs.


With Accounting Codes, ThunderTix does this work for you. You configure your codes once, map them to the right revenue types, and then export a report where every line item is already tagged — ready to import into your accounting system.



Getting Started: Setting Up Your Codes


You'll find Accounting Codes under Reports → Accounting Codes in the left-hand navigation menu.


Step 1: Create your codes. Click the green "+ Add accounting code" button. You'll enter two things:


• Code — The accounting code number from your chart of accounts (e.g., 4001, 7600, 2001). This can be any alphanumeric value.
• Name — A human-readable description (e.g., "Events Mainstage," "Tax Collected," "Donations").
Step 2: Map to revenue types. In the same modal, you'll see a grouped checklist called "Apply to." This is where you tell ThunderTix which types of revenue this code should cover. The available revenue types are:


• Ticket revenue: Event ticket sales, Package sales, Event and package ticket sales, Membership sales
• Donations & fundraising: All fundraising campaigns, Round-up donations, Individual donations
• Products & fees: Product sales, Ticket fee revenue, Shipping fee revenue
• Gift cards & refunds: Gift card sales, Refunds, Refund to a gift card
• Tax
A single code can be applied to multiple revenue types. For example, if your organization tracks all donations under one code (say, 7600), you can apply code 7600 to "All fundraising campaigns," "Round-up donations," and "Individual donations" simultaneously. Every donation in your export will then be tagged with code 7600.


Conversely, if you want to track round-up donations separately from other donations, you'd create a separate code (e.g., 7601) and apply it only to "Round-up donations."


Your selected revenue types appear as removable pills above the checklist so you can review your selections at a glance before saving.



Managing Your Codes


The Accounting Codes page displays all of your codes in a table with columns for Code, Name, Apply to (shown as pills), and Actions.


• Codes are sorted by code number, smallest to largest.
• An Active / Inactive toggle in the top right lets you switch between viewing your current codes and any codes you've deactivated.
From the Actions dropdown on each code, you can:


• Manage — Edit the code number, name, or revenue type assignments.
• Overrides — Set up specific entity-level overrides (more on this below).
• Inactivate — Remove the code from future exports without deleting it. Existing exports are not affected. You'll see a confirmation prompt before this takes effect.
• Delete — Permanently remove the code and all of its mappings. You'll be warned: "The code will no longer be available for any report. If previous reports used this code, future versions of the same report will not include the accounting code."
Inactive codes can be reactivated at any time from the Inactive view.



Overrides: Code Assignments for Specific Events, Products, or Fundraisers


Sometimes a category-level mapping isn't granular enough. For example, you might track most event ticket revenue under code 4001 ("Events Mainstage"), but you want revenue from a specific education series to go under code 4110 ("Events Education"). That's what Overrides are for.


How overrides work:


1. Navigate to the Overrides page for any active code by clicking Overrides in the Actions dropdown.
2. Click "+ Add override."
3. In the modal, select the category (e.g., Event ticket sales, Fundraisers), then choose the specific entity — a particular event, product, or fundraiser — that should receive a different code.
4. Choose which Accounting Code should apply to that specific entity. You can also create a new code directly from this modal if the one you need doesn't exist yet.
5. Click Save.
Override precedence: When ThunderTix generates your export, it checks overrides first. If a specific entity override exists (e.g., "Wicked" is overridden to code 4110), that code is used. If no override exists for that entity, the category-level default is used. If no default exists at all, the line item exports with a blank code so you know it needs attention.


What entities support overrides: Events, Products, and Fundraisers. You cannot override at the individual performance level — revenue from a specific performance resolves to its parent event's override (if one exists) or falls back to the category default.


The Overrides page shows all your overrides in a table. A fallback row at the bottom shows your default code with the label "All other [category] → default" so you can see the full picture. The parent Accounting Codes page also shows a count next to the Overrides action (e.g., "Overrides (2)") when overrides are configured.



The Accounting Distribution Export


Once your codes and mappings are configured, you're ready to generate the Accounting Distribution Export — the report that makes it all useful.


Where to find it: The export is available in two places:


• Reports → Accounting Distribution Export → Run export tab
• Directly from the Accounting Codes mapping page
How to generate it:


1. Select a date range and venue.
2. Click "Generate export." (This button is only enabled once you have at least one revenue type mapped to a code.)
3. The export runs as a background job — just like the Reconciliation Report — and appears in your Downloads page when it's ready.
4. A status banner will let you know when your export is complete.
What the export looks like:


The Accounting Distribution Export produces a CSV with one row per line item per order — not one row per order. This is the key difference from the Reconciliation Report. An order is expanded into its individual financial components.


Key principles of the export:


• Every dollar appears somewhere. Fees, tax, discounts, and refunds each get their own line — they are never rolled into the ticket price.
• Refunds appear as negative amounts. If a ticket is refunded, it shows as a negative revenue line with the appropriate accounting code.
• Exchanges produce paired entries. An exchange nets to zero but both sides (the debit and credit) are represented, dated on the day of the exchange — not back-dated to the original sale.
• Comps and $0 items are excluded. Any line item with a $0 amount is not included in the export.
• The export is self-balancing. For every order, the sum of all line items equals the total amount the customer paid. No cross-reference to the Reconciliation Report is needed.
• Unmapped items still appear. If a revenue type doesn't have a code assigned, the line item exports with a blank Accounting Code column (it's not hidden). The status banner will tell you how many unmapped rows exist and link you directly to the mapping page to fix them.
The Line Type column tells you what category the line belongs to — Event, Fee, Tax, Product, Donation, etc. If you've used an override (e.g., a specific fundraiser mapped to its own code), the Line Type will reflect that as a sub-category.


The Event/Class column shows the name of the event or class associated with the line item, making it easy to see which event generated which revenue.



How Accounting Codes Handle Specific Scenarios


Packages and memberships: Revenue from package sales and membership sales are separate revenue types that can be mapped to their own codes — or combined with event ticket sales under the same code, depending on your organization's needs.


Donations: You can track all donations under one code, or separate them by type — all fundraising campaigns, round-up donations, and individual donations are each independently mappable.


Gift cards: Gift card sales and refunds to gift cards are separate revenue types, so you can assign them to the appropriate liability or revenue codes.


Classes: Class registrations and enrollments are fully supported. If your organization offers classes through ThunderTix, class revenue is mappable to its own accounting code, with the class name appearing in the Event/Class column of the export. (coming soon...)


Exchanges across events with different codes: If a patron moves a ticket from one event (code 4100) to a different event (code 4110), the export shows a paired journal-style entry — a negative amount on the original event's code and a positive amount on the new event's code — dated on the day of the exchange. The original sale entry is never changed.


Multi-payment orders: If an order was partially paid by cash and partially by credit card, the export combines them — it doesn't split by payment method.



Tips for Getting the Most Out of Accounting Codes


• Start simple. Map your major revenue categories first (ticket sales, fees, tax, donations, refunds) and add overrides only where you need the extra granularity.
• Use overrides for events you track separately. If your board or finance committee wants to see revenue for a specific concert or gala broken out from the rest, create an override for just that event.
• Check for unmapped items. After your first export, review the status banner. If it shows unmapped rows, head to the mapping page and assign codes to those categories. Unmapped items aren't hidden — they just have a blank code column — so you'll always know what needs attention.
• Your codes, your structure. ThunderTix doesn't enforce a specific numbering convention. Use whatever code numbers and names match your existing chart of accounts so the export plugs directly into your workflow.

What's Coming Next


The long-term vision for Accounting Codes is a direct integration with accounting platforms like QuickBooks, so your ThunderTix data flows automatically into your accounting system without manual CSV imports. The current Accounting Codes feature and Accounting Distribution Export are the foundation for that integration.


If you have questions about setting up your codes, mapping revenue types, or interpreting your export, our Customer Success team is happy to help walk you through it

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