Categories for Products and Services

It's good to see you here, @54201fts_as,

I want to help you further with this, first, are you logged in as the Master Admin or Company Admin of the company file? If so, you should be able to use the Categories feature. We use this new feature to keep track of company sales/expenses and help organize reporting.

You can try opening a private window, and try it again. Unexpected issues in QuickBooks are sometimes affected by the amount of data stored in the cache. This is because a regular browser will constantly overwrite itself and will not remove history unless done manually.

Private browsing will not save any history, so it's a great place to identify issues in the browser. Use these keyboard shortcuts to launch a new private window:

• Google Chrome: press Ctrl + Shift + N  
• Mozilla Firefox: press Ctrl + Shift + P
• Safari: press Command + Shift + N

Follow these steps to assign categories to your product and services: 

1. Go to Sales, then Products and Services.
2. Tap New or Add a product or service.
3. Select an item type like for example. Inventory.
   
4. Add a Category and all the product details, then hit Save and close.
   

If it works, clear the cache to resolve browser issues in QBO. Using a different browser can also help.

See these guides for more information about managing your products and services in QBO:

• Add inventory products in QuickBooks Online
• Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online
• Change product and service item types in QuickBooks Online

This forum is always open if you have other product or service concerns. I'm also here to assist you further. Just message or mention me in your posts. Have a safe week ahead!

It gives me the prompt to change to categories now, but is consistantly asking me to rename and when I do sometimes it says I need a more unique name or its already used, I have been trying to edit names for over an hour now, and now the ones its previously approved as changed, are being mentioned to have to change! I need my items to be in categories to make my inventory much easier, but I, for the LIFE OF ME CANNOT GET IT TO CHANGE

Joining the thread to help you manage your categories, 54201fts_as.

You would usually get the message to use a different or unique name if the ones you're typing in are already associated with an existing inventory. This inventory might be oinactive which is why you can't see it in the list. Follow these steps on how to check:

1. Go back to the Products and Services section.
2. Click the Funnel or Filter icon beside the Search bar. 
3. Select All for Status, Type, and Category.
4. Click Apply. 

Review the list to check if the names are already used. If they are, you can rename them first before using them in the new categories. 

I would also recommend reaching out to our phone or chat support teams in case the error remains. They can take a closer look at this to determine what's causing the issue. Here's how:

1. Click the Help menu in the upper-right hand corner of your QBO account.
2. Type in "Talk to a human" in the chatbox, then press Enter.
3. Select Get help from a human.
4. Click Chat with us or Have us call you. 

Feel free to check out these articles as well for additional guidance and future reference:

• Add Sales Tax Categories to Your Products and Services
• How to Use Bundles
• Import Products and Services Into QuickBooks Online

Please know that you can add more replies to this thread if you follow-up questions. You can also join us again in the Community if you need anything else when working in QBO.