Xero Allocation: Split a Package's Price Across Your Revenue Accounts

This feature is switched on per account. By default every package maps entirely to Miscellaneous, exactly as it always has, so nothing changes until it's turned on and you split a package. Please let us know if you'd like it switched on for your account. It works with both Xero and QuickBooks.

Your chart of accounts probably separates food revenue from beverage revenue from labour. Puree already respects that: every quote you send to Xero arrives as one line per master category, so menu items land on your menu account, drinks on beverages, staff on staff. Packages are the exception. Because a package is priced per guest as a single thing rather than as the sum of its parts, the whole package price goes across as one line coded to Miscellaneous. If you sell most of your work as packages, that means most of your revenue lands in one bucket.

What Xero Allocation Does

Open any package (Packages, then edit the package) and you'll find an allocation button next to the price. It's labelled Xero allocation, QuickBooks allocation or Accounting allocation depending on what your account is connected to. Click it and a window opens with your five master categories. Type the percentage of the package price that belongs to Menu, Beverages, Staff and Equipment. That's the whole setup.

As you type, Puree shows the matching dollar figure per guest beside each percentage, plus a running total. It's much easier to sanity check "$30 of food, $10 of drink, $10 of labour" than to reason about three percentages in the abstract, and it's a useful moment to notice that the split you assumed isn't quite the package you actually deliver.

Every package starts at 100% Miscellaneous, which is exactly what a package has always done on an invoice. Miscellaneous is the balancing category: whatever you assign to Menu, Beverages, Staff or Equipment comes off it automatically, so the split always adds up to 100 and you never have to do the arithmetic. A single Reset to 100% Miscellaneous puts a package back the way it was.

A Worked Example

Say you have a wedding package at $50 per guest: canapés, a plated main, a drinks package and two staff. You set the allocation to 60% Menu, 20% Beverages and 20% Staff.

A quote for 100 guests is $5,000 of package. Left alone, that reaches Xero as a single $5,000 line on Miscellaneous. Split, it arrives as three: $3,000 on your menu account, $1,000 on beverages, $1,000 on staff. Your profit and loss finally reflects what you actually sold, and the food and beverage percentages you track start including package work instead of quietly ignoring it.

The maths always balances. Because Miscellaneous absorbs the remainder, the percentages always come to 100, and the shares are rounded so the package's lines total exactly the package price, never a cent out. (Xero and QuickBooks still round tax and any order level discount per line, as they already do for every other line on the invoice, so a heavily discounted order can land a cent or two from the quote either way. That is unchanged by splitting.)

What It Doesn't Change

This is an accounting setting and nothing else. Your customer's quote looks identical. The package still shows as one priced line with its inclusions underneath, exactly as before. Dockets, run sheets and the kitchen see no difference. Nobody outside your accounts ever sees the percentages.

It also doesn't change the package price or how the package is built. You aren't re-pricing anything, just describing where the money you already charge should sit in your books.

One Thing to Watch

The split is read from the package every time a quote syncs, rather than frozen onto the quote when you sent it. That's what lets you set a package up properly and have your existing quotes fall into line. It also means re-splitting a package changes how revenue is coded on older quotes that use it, not just new ones.

Two things keep that narrow. Changing a package doesn't push anything to Xero on its own: the new split is only sent the next time that particular quote syncs, which happens when someone edits the quote or re-sends it. And Xero refuses to alter an invoice that has already been paid or voided, so your reconciled work is not at risk. The case to watch is a quote whose invoice is still open, for an event that has already happened, that someone goes back and edits later.

If you'd rather not think about it at all, duplicate the package, re-split the copy, and use the copy on new quotes. The original keeps its old split, so every quote already built on it keeps its old coding no matter who edits it.

Choosing Your Percentages

There's no single right answer, and your accountant may have a view. Two approaches that work well:

Cost based. Work out roughly what each part of the package costs you to deliver, then use those proportions. This keeps your gross margin per category honest.
List price based. Price the package's contents as if you'd quoted them individually, then use those proportions. Faster to work out, and it matches how the same items would have been coded on a non package quote.

Either way, set it once per package and forget it. Leave any package where the split isn't worth the thought at its default, and it carries on posting to Miscellaneous as a single line, just as it does today.

Getting Started

You'll need an active Xero or QuickBooks connection, and the feature switched on for your account. It's turned on one account at a time, and by default a package maps entirely to Miscellaneous, so switching it on changes nothing until you split a package yourself. Please let us know if you'd like it switched on for yours. Existing quotes pick up a new allocation the next time they sync, so it's worth setting your packages up before your next batch of invoices goes out.

For step by step instructions, see the Connecting with Xero help page or the Packages help page. If a split doesn't land the way you expected in Xero, tell us.

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