Please note this is the second in a series of posts on QuickBooks Software Point of Sale by our staff Point of Sale expert, Leah Swain.

There are 3 main ways to add inventory to QB POS.  We will touch on each now and get into more detail on how to do so after this section.

• First, most efficient is to request a UPC File Download from your Vendor.  Most vendors can scale their inventory file down to items that you have purchased in the past. You can use the Inventory Import Default Template found HERE as a reference to map the file for proper import.  More on that later. 

• Build your own excel file using the Default Template listed above. You can access the same template from your POS by following these steps:

  • Inventory Tab

  • Item List

  • Select the Green “I Want To..” Menu

  • Export to Excel

    • For editing items in the future use the same process to export items you wish to correct by highlighting all the items you need edit before exporting.

    • For the template click “Inventory Item Selected” If you have no current Items in your Item list, manually build an item to proceed. See Manually Building Items below.

  • Select Next

  • Chose where you would like to save the template

  • Select Next

  • Check the box stating “Open the spreadsheet when export is complete”

  • Select Export

• Manually building items is the most time-consuming way to complete large item imports but is the easiest way to add individual items as you go daily. This process is done through the “New Item” selection under Inventory Tab at the top file menu bar. Let’s take a closer look at this window with Nellie, and I will tell you about each field.

Note: Areas defined with an asterisk are required.

• Item Name*: REQUIRED. Name the Item here. You can use item names, descriptions, or Item numbers for example: Canvas Coat, Men’s Jacket, or Vendor Item Number 1000704. (Note: do not include sizes, attributes or color codes as normally listed with vendor numbers.)

• Type: there are 5 types of Inventory Items:

  • Inventory: Physical inventory items that you keep on hand for sale in the store.

  • Non-Inventory: Items sold as special orders but do not normally keep on hand.

  • Service: A service you offer your customers for at a set fee.

  • Assembly: A Specialty Item built from individual Inventory Items. For example: You may sell fishing line, rods, and reels. When you take those three items and put them together for a full fishing rod you are building an assembly. Use this Type to define what inventory item “pieces” go together to form a single item for sale.  Each individual piece must have its own Item in inventory before being added into an assembly Item. Assemblies must be “built” and “broken” to be available for sale. More information when we cover Building Assembly Items in a future post.

  • Group: Like assembly but doesn’t need to be Built or disassembled for pieces to be sold. For example: You sell Baseball Bats, Gloves and Balls. You can have a Little League Group item that is a bundle including a Bat, Ball and Glove at discounted price when purchased together however the inventory is not holding each item in an assembly, so they can be sold separately as well. See: Creating a Group Item Below.

• Department*: Departments are essential when running inventory reports or using price manager for discounts in the future. The best way to define departments is to think about your store and the items location or how you may want to run sales.  For example: Cosmetics, Youth Apparel, Women’s Accessories etc. Be aware you can run reports based on vendors or manufacturers therefore that information does not need to be incorporated into department information.

• Item Description: A brief description of the item. Example: Men’s Lightweight Pocket Tee

• Size: Size of the item. Note: if you have items that are the same but differ only in size or attribute you will enter these using the style grid. More info Below see: Using a Style Grid.

• Attribute: Specific Quality of the Item used to differentiate it from another item of the same style name. Example: Red, Wide, Regular, Slim, Galvanized

• Regular Price: What you sell the product for.

• Unit Price: Leave this empty! The computer will calculate this as you go to keep your inventory value correct based on your previous item costs. If you set this number initially it will not calculate correctly going forward but will remain as the initial cost provided manually.

• On Hand Qty: Tells you the number of this item in store currently. Again, Leave this blank.  You do not want to change quantities in this field. More information below see: Making a Quantity Adjustment.

• Tax: Select the tax that should be calculated when this item is sold from the dropdown menu. Note: Tax levels are defined during the initial file set up.  Please reach out to KHB Office if you need assistance in how to define tax codes for your company.

• UPC: The UPC code (bar code) for the item. This field is able to read from the scanner. When adding items manually place your cursor in this field and scan the UPC using your register scanner. It will populate the UPC for you.  UPC codes MUST be 13 digits when they are imported from an excel file.  Add proceeding zeros to UPCs that fall short of this requirement. If an item does not have a UPC number, you can search for it by name at the time of sale or create your own UPC’s by adding a zebra printer to your system. Give KHB Office a call and mention you read about Jonas for special pricing.

• Quick Pick Group: Here you can assign a quick find button for items that have no UPC or are sold often. Example: Groceries use this button grouping for large items like cases of water or products that are difficult to scan. Quick Pick Groups must be assigned to show in the dropdown menu. Items can be added to groups after being created, so don’t worry if you need to come back to this later. More information below; see: Setting up Quick Pick Groups.

• Print Tags: Option allows you to print UPC tags when setup with Zebra Printer. This also defines the item for selection when you request to print UPCs from the Receiving or Purchase Order processes.

• Unorderable: Select this to show the item is no longer able to be ordered. There may be times you have items that you can no longer order because the vendor has discontinued them. However, you have them in inventory still, so you don’t want to delete them from your POS.  This option allows you to keep it on file without it generating on suggested purchase orders.

• Use Serial Number: This option turns on serial tracking for this item.  Every time the item is received or sold it will prompt you to enter in the serial number.  This will help you in tracking serial numbers and keep record of the serial number of an item sold to the customer.

• Earn Commission/Earn Rewards: Here you select if you are tracking commission for this item when your employee makes a sale or if it should be tracked for rewards programs for your customers.

• Shipping Information: Weight L/W/H. Not required but is useful if you do ship orders.

• Vendor: Who you purchase the product from. You can add up to 5 vendors using the ALT Vendor button. Each alternate vendor field allows you to enter a Vendor Name, UPC, Alternate Lookup, and order Cost specific for that vendor while still tracking the sale information in the same item. Its very useful if you resell products you buy in bulk from various retailers.  It allows you to take advantage of sales between vendors while maintaining proper inventory tracking. Intuit people are thinkers!

• Order Cost: The cost of an item when you purchase it from the vendor.

• Reorder Point: The quantity of the item you want to keep on the shelf. Example: If you want 4 items on the shelf at all time set your reorder point to 4. When your inventory counts gets to for the item will automatically prompt you to reorder on a suggested PO.

• Item Number: You can set these item numbers as an alternate look up. If you choose to not set these yourself the system will automatically assign them for you.

• ALU: Another option for an alternate look up function.

• Base Unit of Measure: This field is used to set up items that are sold in separate units. For example: You buy a case of water and sell it as individual bottles.  Another example is if you buy screws by the pound but sell them by count or by ¼ pound or ½ pound. For more information see Adding Units of Measure.

• Color: This is a customized field that was added to show as an example. For more information, see: Adding Custom Fields

• Cogs: Cost of goods field is used to map item costs to the correct expense account in your financial software. We recommend QuickBooks Software Pro Desktop for best results. I recommend using your department name plus COGS for the best reporting results. Then you can track sales versus cost against each department.  Example: Men’s Work Boots= Dept. Men’s work Boots COGS=Cost of goods sold.

• Income: Used to map sales income to the correct income account in your financial software.

• Asset account: Use this field to map which account you want to assign your inventory asset to. By default, this is set to Inventory Asset for inventory items.

• Not Shown in Example: There is a greyed-out camera icon to the right of your item name. You have the option of clicking on that icon to add a photo of the item you are creating.

**NOTE: You can add up to 100K items in QB POS, I have seen inventory lists as high as 115K items, but functionality and software speed really become hindered once you exceed 100K.

We will continue to fine tune our inventory items in our next blog post.

If you like this article or need help with business management, QuickBooks, or other tips, you can find more info on how we can help you by contact us. You can also check out our Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube Channel for more content.