Background

An Item is an asset that is intended to be sold in the ordinary course of business. Items may not be immediately ready for sale.

An item can be a physical unit that your company may buy, sell, or inventory and/or a service that your company wants to include on item invoices.

When you create an item, you can choose I Buy, Sell, or Inventory the item. These selections determine what types of transactions you can put the item on.

• I Buy this Item - Items or services you want to include on an item purchase order. This includes both items that are for resale and not for resale. You don’t necessarily 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.

How to Create an Item

1. Go to the Inventory module and click Items List. The Items List window appears 
   
    
2. Click New at the bottom left. The Item Information window appears 
   
    
3. In the Item Number field, type a unique identifier and press TAB - this field is alphanumeric and can include letters and numbers.
4. In the Name field type the name of the new item.
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 selections you make. 
   
    
   Note on the 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.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
6. Enter the appropriate accounts in the fields that appeared during the previous step:
   • Cost of Sales/Expense Account: If you only buy the item and don't inventory it you would choose a relevant Expense Account. If you do keep track of the inventory and sell the item as well you would choose a relevant Cost of Sales Account.
   • 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.

The only information that needs to be filled out is in the Profile tab. If you want to, you can continue filling out the other item information in the other tabs if desired, or you can click the OK button at the bottom right.

Entering More Detailed Item Information

Beyond the Profile tab, you can enter further information regarding your item. This can either be done while creating the item or later by accessing that same item from the Items List. This section will cover the different tabs of item information.

• Item Details Tab
• Buying Details Tab
• Selling Details Tab
• Other Item Information Tabs

The Item Details tab of the Item Information window enables you to enter additional details about an item, including a description, custom lists and fields, and a picture of the item.

Item Number and Item Name: The item number and name are displayed at the top left of the window.

Picture If you have a picture of the item, you can add it by double-clicking the field. You can display graphics in .tiff, .jpg. .pict, or .gif format. You can have 3 different pictures, the larger image will be considered the main image and will be used as the default image. If you’ve renamed or moved a picture that was previously displayed, Cannot find specified graphic file will appear in the Picture field. You need to add the picture again. These images cannot be added to invoices.

Description: Enter a description of this item in this field. 

Use item description on sales: Select this option if you want the item description you entered in the Description field to appear in place of the item name on printed invoices and purchase orders.

Custom List #1, #2, #3/Custom Field #1, #2, #3: If you want to record additional information about your items, you can create custom lists and custom fields for your items. The field information can then be included on customized reports and forms. This support page has further information regarding the creation and use of custom lists and fields.

Brand: Enter a specific brand associated with the item. This can be useful for filtering the item list.

Weight: Enter the weight of an item in measurements of either Kilograms, Grams, Ounces or Pounds.

Tags: Enter tags associated with the item. These are mainly for use in Shopify.

Attach/Docs: Click to attach a document to this record. If Docs is displayed, a document is already attached to this record. Multiple documents can be attached to one record. These documents are for internal use - things like schematics, etc - these do not get emailed out with invoices.

The Buying Details tab allows you enter information about items that you purchase. This tab is only available if you marked "I Buy This Item" on the Item Profile tab. All of this is optional information.

Last Purchase Price: This is not a number you enter - but a number that the system will automatically pull in once you purchase this item. Purchases are the only thing that effect this price - inventory adjustments do not.

A: Standard Cost - What the item typically costs you to buy it. 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 on Purchases:

• Click on Setup from the menu bar at the top of the screen
• Choose Preferences from the dropdown menu
• Click on the Inventory tab
• Check the box that reads "Use the Standard Cost as the Default Price on Purchase Orders and Bills"

B: Buying Unit of Measure - 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.

C: Number of Items per Buying Unit - 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.

D: Optional Restocking Information Enter the restocking information:

• Minimum Level for Stocking Alert: 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.
• Primary Vendor: Type or select the vendor from whom you usually re-stock this item. This does not mean you HAVE to buy from them - but if you use the To-Do List it will default to creating a Purchase Order from this Vendor.
• Vendor Item Number: Type the vendor’s number for the item. This will only show on Purchase Orders for the Primary Vendor.
• Default Reorder Quantity: 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.

E: I pay sales tax when I buy this item - If you pay sales tax when you purchase this item, select this option.

The Selling Details tab allows you enter information about items that you sell. This tab is only available if you marked "I Sell This Item" on the Item Profile tab. All of this is optional information.

A: Base Selling Price - Type the retail price of one selling unit.

B: Selling Unit of Measure - 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: Number of Items per Selling Unit - 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. If you do not enter this it defaults to 1.

D: Price Levels - Set pricing levels for different kinds of customers. See Item Price Levels and Quantity Discounts.

E I collect sales tax when I sell this item - If you collect sales tax when you sell this item, select this option. This works in conjunction with Customer settings - so if a Customer Card is marked as tax exempt - even if this is checked - the Customer setting will override this one.

F: I sell this item in my web store - If you Use Shopify and sell items in your web store you can check this off so that the product syncs back and forth between Shopify and AccountEdge.

History: The History tab is where you can view sales history activity for previous fiscal years and the current fiscal year for the selected item. This window is editable and if you change the history details of an item, you will affect inventory reports for the related period. If you need to change the value of an item in the current fiscal year, you can do this in the Adjust Stock window.

Auto-Build: If the item you are viewing is a finished good, meaning it is an item built from other component items in your inventory, this tab contains details of the component items used to build the selected item. Build Items contains further information on auto-build.

Locations: The Locations tab consists of two sections, Shopify Locations and General Locations. For information on Shopify Locations please see Web Store Stock Control. General Locations is an optional tool for tracking inventory between multiple physical locations you own (such as a store and a warehouse). For information on General Locations please see Inventory locations.

Variations: The Variations tab of the Item Information window is where you create variations of the selected master item. This tab is available only if you’ve selected either an existing item without previous buying or selling history, have selected a master item where variations have already been created, or you have selected a new item. AccountEdge Item Variations has further information regarding the use and setup of Variations.

Serial Numbers: The Serial Numbers tab of the Item Information window is where you find a list of serial numbers assigned to the selected item. This view also displays the ending date of the warranty for the selected item. If the selected item is a Master Item, then the serial numbers assigned and used for both the Master item and all its variations will be displayed. Track Serial Numbers has further information on this feature.

Importing Items

Instructions on Importing Cards. To Import card information you will need to have the .txt file ready to import, then once in AccountEdge:

1. Go to File in the upper left corner of the menu bar.
2. Then select Import Data in the drop-down menu (third from the bottom).
3. In the second drop-down menu select Items (4th from the top).
4. The import file window appears.
5. After making your choices select Continue (as a note - if your file is one with Headers this tends to be easier).
6. Choose the .txt file you want to import.
7. Once chosen the Import Data window appears.
8. Select Auto Match to match up the fields that are being imported. If the field names in your text file don't match AccountEdge exactly you can match on a one to one basis by selecting the field on the left and then clicking a matching field on the right.
9. After any selections are made, click import.

An Import log is generated that shows you if your records were imported with or without warnings or not at a all. This support article has further information on importing with AccountEdge and troubleshooting any errors received. This support article was specifically designed for those coming from another software.

Next Steps

If you have existing inventory quantities you want to proceed to entering your inventory opening balance, if not you can start entering transactions.