|
Items: The “whats” of your business
Items
are the most widely used entities in QuickBooks. Nearly all users must use items, and a detailed discussion follows. Customer and vendor records are described in some detail. Handling of the other entities is similar.
Items
serve as the basic blocks of doing business. The concept began with the invoice line items in QuickBooks 1. Items XE "items" are now used to handle anything you buy, keep or sell, plus some other details. Items could be likened to the wheels on a car. If you think of the items as doing the work of an invoice, purchase order, bill, or other form, you will find QuickBooks doing what you expect it to do.
Which came first,
the item or the invoice? The answer is
“both.” Items are designed to fit into
invoices and other documents. Items and
customers must be entered into the lists,
before you start invoicing.
All items have three things:
- Type of item
- Name
- Description
-
Most items also have:
- Unit price
- Account
Type
means that every item is of some type. The type XE "type:item" governs the other information in the item record. (This is no relation to the type labels for customers, jobs, and vendors which are described later.) These item types are used:
- Service
- Other Charge
-
Non-Inventory Part
-
Inventory Part
- Sub-Total
- Discount
- Payment
- Group
- Parent Item
-
Sales Tax Item*
-
Sales Tax Group*
* Covered in Chapter 10
Item name/Number
is used to retrieve the item from the item list.
Description
is just that. It usually is text on the invoice, to inform the customer.
Unit price
or the like adds to the total of the invoice
Account
is the opposing account in a double entry transaction.
Understanding
the workings of items, and how they
connect into invoices, will save many
questions. The invoice shows the item
name in displays, but the name really is not
in the invoice. The invoice record
contains a number, called a pointer, because
it points to a location in a list. When
the invoice is displayed, QuickBooks looks up
the item in the list and displays its
name. This applies to all entities in
lists. For the same reason, changing
the name of any entity in a list will change
the name any place it appears.
On the other
hand, price, description, and some other
information, are copied into invoices as a
default used until or unless you change
it. Subsequent changes to these, in the
item list, will not be reflected in existing
invoices.
How do you tell
what kind of field XE "field:in
item" it is? If a down-arrow
will select an entity from a list, that
usually means you are setting up a pointer,
not copying. And if a new name brings a
notice that it is not on the list, it is
definitely brought in by a pointer.
NOTE
Comprehension of
the three paragraphs above will make the
difference between working on the surface of
QuickBooks, and working in the program. Please do not proceed until you have read this material carefully. Then, as you work, these ideas will soak in. You will not miss the questions that you never have to ask.
|
