Creating items

Before you begin to track your inventory, you need to create a record for each item of inventory. An item can be:

■	a physical unit that your company may buy, sell, or inventory

■	a service that your company wants to include on item invoices, for example, ‘Shipping’, ’Handling’, and so on.

When you create an item record, you can choose to buy, sell, or inventory the item. These selections determine what functions you can use the item with. For example, if you want to include a service item on an invoice (such as installation), you need to specify that you sell the item.

An item that you inventory is an item whose quantities and values you want to track. Maintaining an accurate record of on hand levels of these items requires you to do regular maintenance tasks. For example, you may need to record an inventory adjustment to write-off damaged stock.


Select...	For...
I Buy this Item	Items or services you want to include on an item purchase order. This includes items that are not for resale, and you don’t need to track their quantities and values. For example, items for office use only. It can also include raw materials you use as components to build other inventory items.
I Sell this Item	Items or services you want to include on an item invoice.
I Inventory this Item	Items you buy or sell and whose quantity and values you want to track. It can also include intermediate goods used in the productions process, such as parts used to manufacture finished goods.

Inventory opening balances

If you have existing on-hand quantities of inventory items, you need to record the opening inventory level for each item. For more information, see ‘Enter your inventory opening balances’.

To create an item

1	Go to the Inventory command centre and click Items List. The Items List window appears.

2	Click New. The Item Information window appears.

3	In the Item Number field, type a unique identifier and press Tab.

tip : Use the backslash character for service items

The backslash character (\) serves a special purpose: any item number that begins with a backslash won’t appear on printed forms. This is useful for service-type items (such as labour) for which you don’t want to print an item number on the invoice.

4	In the Name field, type the name of the new item.

note : Copy From button

Click Copy From to copy another item’s information to this item record. From the displayed list, choose the item whose information you want to copy. All information for that item will be copied to the current item record except the item number, item name, vendor number, auto-build information and history information.

5	Specify whether you buy, sell, and inventory this item by selecting the relevant options.

As you select the options, fields appear next to them. These fields change according to the combination of selections you make.

6	Enter the appropriate accounts in the fields that appeared during the previous step:


Account	Description
Cost of Sales Account	Type or select the account you want to use to track the costs associated with producing this item.
Income Account for Tracking Sales	Type or select the account you want to use to record the income you receive from the sale of this item.
Asset Account for Item Inventory	Type or select the account you want to use to record the total value of this item.
Expense Account for Tracking Costs	Type or select the account you want to use to record costs associated with purchasing this item.

7	Click the Buying Details tab. The Buying Details view of the Item Information window appears. Complete the fields as explained below.

[Optional] Type the standard cost of an item.

You can use the standard cost instead of the last purchase price as the default price on purchases. To use the standard cost price as the default price, select Use Standard Cost as the Default Price on Purchase Orders and Bills preference in the Preferences window (Inventory tab).

Type the unit of measure (such as each or case) by which you purchase the item. The buying unit is printed on the purchase order. For example, if you buy eggs by the carton, when you order five units in a purchase you are ordering five cartons.

Type the number of items that comprise a single buying unit. This is the number that is added to your on-hand inventory for every buying unit. For example, if you buy eggs by the carton unit but want to track their purchase individually, enter 12 as the number of items per buying unit. When you order one carton unit, your item inventory is updated by twelve items. If you leave this field blank, the value defaults to one.

Enter the restocking information:

•	Type the minimum level of this item you want to keep in inventory. When the number of items drops below this level, a reorder reminder appears in the To Do List.

•	Type or select the vendor from whom you usually re-stock this item.

•	Type the vendor’s number for the item.

•	Type a reorder level quantity for the item. If you set a minimum level for restocking alert, you can create an order for the items using the Stock tab in the To Do List. The default order quantity is taken from this field.

If you pay sales tax when you purchase this item, select this option.

8	Click the Selling Details tab. The Selling Details view of the Item Information window appears. Complete the fields on this tab as explained below.


A	Type the retail price of one selling unit.
B	Type the selling unit of the item (such as each or case). You can type up to five characters. The selling unit is printed on the item invoice. If, for example, you sell by the six-pack, when you sell five units, you will be selling five six-packs
C	Type the number of items that comprise a single unit in this field. This is the number that is subtracted from your on-hand inventory for every selling unit. For example, if you sell by the six-pack, enter 6 as the number of items per selling unit. When you sell one six-pack, your inventory is reduced by six items.
D	Set pricing levels for different kinds of customers. See ‘Creating custom price levels’.
E	If you collect sales tax when you sell this item, select this option.

9	Click the Items Details tab and enter additional information about the item.

10	If this item is stored in multiple locations, click the Locations tab and select the default location for buying and selling the item. For information about locations, see ‘Inventory locations’.

Click OK.