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Guide 94 · Admin · GA4 + Tag Manager

GA4 property settings: industry, time zone and currency, set once and checked before you trust revenue

Checked 11 November 2026 · Verification: figures recomputed in Python 3, shown in the downloadable file · Steps traced to Google help and developer pages, opened 11 November 2026 · 6-minute read

Property details hold the property name, industry category, reporting time zone and currency. Set them at creation, change them rarely, and know that a change applies going forward only.

Expected signal

After the trace, Property details shows the industry, time zone and currency you chose, and the date of any change is written down.

Download the reference: the property settings reference (JSON) (356 bytes, MD5 1a3d738e6f08221ed09926df1611e51b). It holds the worked example from this guide with every figure recomputed. The file was built for this guide and checked the same day; it was not exported from a live property.

What you need

  • Editor access at property level.
  • The business time zone, not the time zone of the person who created the property.
  • The currency the business invoices in.

The trace

  1. Open Admin, then under Property click Property details. You need Editor access or above at property level to edit a property. The screen lists property name, industry category, reporting time zone and currency.
  2. Set the industry category to the closest match. It feeds benchmark data and recommendations. A shop that picks the wrong industry gets benchmarks for the wrong business.
  3. Set the reporting time zone to the business time zone. The time zone decides where each day starts and ends in reports. A property created in New York closes its day on New York time even if the business is in Toronto.
  4. Set the currency to the currency the business invoices in. GA4 converts every transaction into the property currency at the previous day's rate, so a property in USD shows converted revenue, not invoice revenue.
  5. Check the worked example in the download. A Toronto shop records a sale of CAD 84.00. At a rate of 0.73, the property shows USD 61.32. The arithmetic is 84.00 times 0.73 = 61.32. The CAD 84.00 is the invoice; the USD 61.32 is the report.
  6. Save, and write down the date of any change. A time zone or currency change applies going forward only. History stays on the old day boundaries and the old currency, so a change splits the history in two.

Dead ends

DEAD END — CHANGING TIME ZONE TO FIX HISTORY. A time zone change does not re-date past days. History stays on the old boundaries permanently, so change it once and leave it alone.

DEAD END — READING CONVERTED REVENUE AS INVOICE REVENUE. Revenue in a USD property for a CAD sale is converted at the previous day's rate. Compare it to invoices only after converting back.

DEAD END — THE WRONG INDUSTRY FOR BENCHMARKS. Industry feeds benchmarks. A wrong industry makes every benchmark comparison meaningless, and the setting is easy to overlook.

End state

The sale is CAD 84.00 on the invoice and USD 61.32 in the report, from 84.00 times 0.73. The time zone, currency and industry are set, and any change is dated because it applies forward only.

Sources

Checked 11 November 2026. The click paths above are the ones in Google's help and developer pages, opened 11 November 2026. No step in this guide was run inside a live Analytics property or a live Tag Manager container, because both need a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone. The figures on this page were recomputed in Python 3 and are shown in the downloadable file, which was checked the same day. Google moves menu items without warning; if a path on this page no longer matches, the linked help page is the current map.