What Are Items in QuickBooks and How to Use Them

QuickBooks is a widely used accounting software designed to assist small and medium-sized businesses in managing their financial operations. It helps simplify tasks such as tracking income and expenses, processing invoices, and generating financial reports. Within this software, “items” serve as foundational components that allow businesses to precisely track and manage the various products and services they offer and acquire.

Understanding Items in QuickBooks

Items in QuickBooks are not limited to physical goods or inventory; they represent every distinct product, service, discount, or charge a business sells or purchases. They are the building blocks for all sales and purchase transactions. Using items helps streamline data entry by pre-populating descriptions, rates, and associated accounts, reducing manual input and potential errors.

Employing items ensures consistency in how products and services are described and priced across all transactions. This consistency aids accurate financial reporting and customer billing. Each item is linked to specific income or expense accounts in the chart of accounts, automating transaction classification. This simplifies generating accurate financial statements, such as profit and loss statements, by ensuring sales revenue and cost of goods sold are recorded correctly.

Different Types of Items

QuickBooks offers various item types, each designed for specific business scenarios:

• Service: For intangible offerings like consulting fees, labor, or professional services.
• Inventory Part: For physical goods that a business tracks for quantity on hand and cost, typically those bought, stored, and resold to customers. For example, a retail store would use this type to manage its product stock.
• Non-Inventory Part: For products bought and/or sold where tracking the quantity on hand is not necessary, such as office supplies or materials used for a specific job that are not resold individually.
• Other Charge: Covers miscellaneous fees like shipping costs, setup charges, or late payment penalties.
• Subtotal: Allows for the calculation of a subtotal for a group of items on a transaction form.
• Group: Enables the bundling of multiple individual items to appear as a single line on sales forms, simplifying complex sales. For instance, a “fruit basket” bundle could include several types of fruit.
• Discount: Used to apply deductions, either as a percentage or a fixed dollar amount, to sales.
• Payment: Records customer payments, such as partial payments received against an invoice.
• Sales Tax Item: Used to calculate and apply sales tax.
• Sales Tax Group: Combines multiple tax components like state, county, and city taxes into one.

Creating and Applying Items in Transactions

Creating an item in QuickBooks involves defining its specific characteristics. Users create items in QuickBooks by navigating to the “Item List” or “Products and Services” section. Key information required includes an item name or number, a detailed description for sales and purchase forms, and a default sales price or rate.

Each item must be associated with the appropriate income or expense accounts from the chart of accounts, such as a “Sales Income” account for revenue or a “Cost of Goods Sold” account for inventory purchases. For inventory items, businesses also specify details like the initial quantity on hand and the inventory asset account to track its value. This setup ensures that when an item is used in a transaction, its financial impact is automatically recorded in the correct accounts.

Once items are created, applying them in transactions like invoices, sales receipts, or purchase orders becomes efficient. When a user selects an item on a transaction form, QuickBooks automatically populates the description, price, and links it to the designated income or expense accounts.