I am trying to filter my sales by item summary based on a custom field. I have created a custom field that is the name of the manufaterer, so that I can see only item quantities sold by that manufacterer for a certain time period. Whenever I use the filter that I "

Hello JustJeeps,

Thanks for joining us in the QuickBooks Community. I can appreciate how adding this sort of custom field would be useful when it comes to tracking your items and sales. It sounds like you're on the right track for setting up the item and then using the filter options in the Sales by Item Summary report to bring up the results. I'll go over some points to make sure things are set up exactly as needed.

Setting up a custom field for an item is pretty easy. I'll go over the steps just to make sure you have it down pat.

1. Go to the Lists menu and choose Item List.
2. Double-click an existing item to edit it or click Item and New to create a new one.
3. Click Custom Fields.
4. Select Define Fields.
5. Enter in a Label for the field and ensure the checkbox Use is selected.
6. Click OK on each window to save and exit.

If that's what you've done, great! The next step is making sure the custom field is set up on your form template so that it registers as a part of the transaction. Here's how.

1. Click Lists and choose Templates.
2. Double-click to edit the desired template.
3. Select Additional Customization.
4. Go to the Columns tab.
5. Select your custom field item (Note: If you don't want your customers to see it, only check off the Screen box).
6. Click OK on each window to save and exit.

Next, when you create a transaction where you want to use that custom item field, make sure you select the template you just added the custom field to as a column. This will show that column so you can add your Brand information. Once you've saved that transaction, you should now be able to go to the Sales by Item Summary report, add the filter option for the Brand and specify the information you entered, and see results when you run the report.

If you're still having trouble seeing it, check for typos, to make sure the date range is correct, and other such details. For further troubleshooting, please get in touch with the QuickBooks Desktop support team directly. Learn how to get in touch here: Intuit QuickBooks Desktop software support policies. Please note that due to reduced staffing during the COVID outbreak that all QuickBooks Desktop support hours have been reduced to Monday to Friday between 9 a.m. and 8 p.m. ET.

Here are a few articles that may be of use to you.

• Create and use custom fields in QuickBooks Desktop
• Customize reports in QuickBooks Desktop

Have a great weekend!

Thank you for the reply, but this only works for current and future orders. I am trying to find out how much we have sold of a specific brand in the past 12 months. I wanted to go into the items that we sell from a particular brand, add that custom field and have the report give me the historical data from only that brand. Please explain if there is another way or if I am doing something incorrectly.

Hello again. Based on what you've outlined here, it sounds like you added the custom field to the item, but it may not have been added to your forms to trigger the tracking. In this case, going back and editing the form and transactions will ensure that those transactions are also appearing on the reports so you can more easily see your information.

I know this will take some time, but I want to make sure you're able to run your reports and see the information as needed. I encourage you to submit your feedback about this process by going to the Help menu in QuickBooks Desktop and choosing Send Feedback Online.

Let me know if you'd like clarification about any of that.

I did successfully add the "Brand" custom field to our Invoice template, but it does not automatically fill that information onto previously written invoices that would have that or those items on them. Is there a way to make this work retroactively or is the only solution to manually edit all previous invoices? If this is the case then this a definite shortcoming for the platform.

The goal that I am trying to achieve here is to see how many products we have sold from a specific brand in the last 12 months. Our item list is comprised of item numbers, but those numbers do not reflect the brand of manufacturer for each item. The brand name is part of the item description, but I also did not see a way to filter based on specific words in the item description, otherwise I would have just done that with no need to create a separate custom field. I would use the Preferred Vendor option, but we buy multiple brands from each Vendor, so that doesn't work either. Do you know of a solution that will help me create a report to tell me how many widgets we purchased or sold from company XYZ that is either named in the item description or in a custom field added after the transaction has been entered??

I hear what you're saying about needing this to apply to transactions that have already been entered in the system previously. The steps I mentioned in my original response do not retroactively apply on old transactions, meaning you'd need to go into each individual transaction for the period or periods you're seeking the information for to add the brand details. All that carries over from the custom field set up in the item is the name of the field.

Since you purchase the brand items from different vendors, using the custom item field is a good solution for tracking the brand itself beyond the description. You're right, there isn't a way to filter for the description in a report. It you choose the Sales by Item Detail report rather than the summary, you can add the Item Description as a column to the report, which may help. It still doesn't offer the option to filter or sort by that column, however, you'd be able to see the brand names in the descriptions.

I hope that helps.

Hello @JustJeeps ,

What @LauraAB said is true - if you want to filter by your custom fields Brand name, then yes, you would have to edit every entry for the last 12 months to populate that field on the sales invoice or sales receipt.

However, you are on the right track . . . you can filter for the Memo field (which for sales documents, is the same as the Description field.  As long as you type the unique brand identifier that is contained in the Description field, you can filter for that.

I've just tested it on the Sales by Item Detail report, and it absolutely works.  This way, you will not have to edit all of your entries for the last twelve months.

If you opt to edit all your transactions to populate the custom brand field then, unfortunately, the custom field will never be available in reports that have a Total by feature at the top.  So you won't ever be able to keep all your transactions in a report and group and total the transactions by the brand, but you can filter out just the brand you want, and rename the report and save it as a customized report for each brand.

The other option, is to use the Class feature instead of your custom Brand field.  Of course, that would only work if you aren't using Class for another function on the same transactions.  But it would also require an edit to every transaction to add the Class (brand) info.  The benefit of doing this over the custom Brand field and over the filter by Memo field, is that you can Total by Class.  Then you could have one report, with all the classes/brands grouped and totalled, as well as being able to filter by class to get a report with a single class, all classes, or any combination of classes that you choose.

Good luck!