These are the options that I have in Quickbooks Desktop Pro 2020 (see screenshot below):

I find you post helpful, but something feels amiss. Why is this basic concept of classes essentially "crippled" in the pro version? What I am trying to do seems like the "most basic" use case of classes and yet it is essentially unsupported. 

I am relatively new to the product and perhaps there is an alternate solution to run reports where it will:

1. always display the class name next to "non-split" entries (bonus if it can handle splits)   AND
2. use class as a filter to only show totals for Accounts based on on the class

If I cannot do this easily, and it requires purchasing a more expensive version, then something seems really wrong. I am a one man-shop running a small family business. I would really expect the product to let me use classes in a "straight forward" manner that did not require an up-sell to a version primarily used by accountants, dedicated CFO-types or accounting departments.

Please advise.

Many thanks again for your detailed reply.