I need to know the profit or loss for each product I sell. I entered the cost and the sales price for each product

Ask and you shall receive, @hanaya.

While there isn't a directly relevant version of the Profit and Loss report for individual Products and Services, you can compare a couple different statements to get the information you're seeking. See the steps below to get started:

The Profit - Sales by Product/Service Detail

1. From QuickBooks Online, navigate to the Reports tab.
2. Type Sales in the search bar and select Sales by Product/Service Detail from the pane below.
3. Set the Report period to the date range you need to know the profit for, and click Run report.

The Loss - Purchases by Product/Services Detail

1. From QuickBooks Online, navigate to the Reports tab.
2. Type Purchases in the search bar and select Purchases by Product/Services Detail from the pane below.
3. Set the Report period to the date range you need to know the loss for, and click Run report.

By comparing the information in these reports, you can get the profit and loss from each individual item you sell. I'm including a quick video example below in which I compare these numbers for last year:

You can also check out this guide on customized inventory reporting for more information. Please keep me posted here on all of your QuickBooks needs, I want to ensure your success. Thanks for coming to the Community and take care.

Is there any way to get these on the same report so it can give us the profitability of each item automatically? Comparing these two reports on a regular basis will be quite time consuming. I am hoping we can get something similar to the item profitability report in Quickbooks desktop.

Thank you for posting in Community @JennyDePoint,
 

For now, QuickBooks Online doesn't have an item profitability report. Rest assured, I'll be forwarding this concern to our QuickBooks Product team.
 

Still, you can use the steps which MichaelDL provided as a workaround. You can memorize the report to pull it up easily.
 

Also, you can visit our QuickBooks Blog to check the latest product updates.
 

If you need further assistance, please don't hesitate to drop a message in the comment section. I'm always here to help. Have a great day!

Thanks for the quick reply. I also do not see where I can pull the purchases by Product/Service for a certain customer. I would love to gather that item cost detail by customer. Any thoughts?

Hi JennyDePoint,

You'll want to go to the Reports menu. Then, go to the Expenses and vendors section under the Standard tab to locate the Purchases by Product/Services Detail report. Let me provide you a few information and help you gather the correct information.

As mentioned by @Michael DL, you can pull up the Sales by Product/Service Detail and Purchases by Product/Service Detail report. I have attached screenshots for your guide. 

Once done, you can export and consolidate it to one report.

For future, you'll want to customize reports to show the information on a specific report. 

If you have any other concerns, please let me know so I can get back to you.

Are the reports MichaelDL mentioned available in the Quickbooks Simple Start plan?

Hello @balester94,

The reports mentioned by my colleague, @MichaelDL above, are only accessing via the QuickBooks Online Plan subscription. You can read through this article to learn more: Reports included in your QuickBooks Online subscription.

Last;y, here's an article you can read for ideas about how you can customize a report: Customize reports in QuickBooks Online.

If you have any other questions, leave them in the comments below. I'll \b happy to help.

Oh, no!  This is a serious problem!

Seriously, no item profitability information in QBO?  I already made the switch!  I made a serious mistake, so much time went into migrating from desktop version.  I never thought to look specifically for this report because I assumed such a basic and important function would be there.

In the desktop version the "Sales By Item" report had this information.  How am I supposed to run a retail business without this information?  This is vital information!

I'm so crushed, this is going to be a very expensive mistake.  You folks really let me down for real.

I don't even know what to do, I'm just staring at my screen ready to give up.

Hi what quickbooks plan is this?

Is it possible to see profitability report (Sales, COGS & Gross profit ) per SKU? Thanks

I agree. Did you ever come up with a solution?

I'd be happy to help you generate a report that shows the information you need, kasheezy.

While we're unable to generate the profitability report per SKU, as a workaround, you can pull up and customize the Transactions Detail by Account.

Here's how:

1. Click Reports in the left panel and search for the Transaction Detail by Account report.
   
2. In the report screen, click Customize.
   
3. Go to the Rows/Columns section and select the Products/Service.
   
4. From the Filter section, select Distribution Account and choose All Income/Expense Accounts.
5. Hit Run report.
   
6. This will show the information you need.
   

You can also memorize the report to save its current customization settings. It serves as your record and helps you quickly access it for future use.

If there's anything else I can help you with QuickBooks reports, please leave a comment below. I'm always here to lend a helping hand. Have a nice day!

This report is great for details by product/service but I really would like a summary report. The Custom Summary Report is great but when I select Product/Service for the rows and All Dates then try to filter for a Customer, I get an box that comes up and says you must select a column. Any ideas why? I have tried all sorts of troubleshooting.

You've come to the right place, @HWConstruction.

Let's perform some troubleshooting steps to isolate the issue. To start, let's run your QuickBooks Online account using a private browser. There are times that cache and cookies stored on the browser cause problems when running websites. Refer to these shortcut keys:

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

Once signed in, pull up the Custom Summary Report again:

1. Go to the Reports menu.
2. In the search field, type Custom Summary Report.
3. Click the Customize button and add your customization (select All dates in the Report period field, Group by Product/Service, and Filter for the specific customer).
4. Once done, hit Run report.

To learn more, please see this article: Customize reports and create Custom Summary Reports.

If this works, go back to your regular browser and clear the cache. This will remove the stored cache or cookies to refresh your browser. If the same thing happens, use another supported browser. It could be that the one you're currently using has a temporary issue with QuickBooks. 

Also, I encourage you to visit our QBO Help page, so you can browse articles or even questions of other QuickBooks users that were answered by QuickBooks experts. This will help you earn more QuickBooks knowledge that can help you with your accounting tasks.  

If you need further assistance about customizing your Custom Summary report in QBO, leave a comment below. I'm always here to help. Have a good one. 

Agree!! This is horrible. QB online has let me down on many functions! So upset I spent the time and money to transfer from desktop to online! And now, I feel stuck and much less effective..its horrible! It will cost alot to get rid of it... :(

Those of us that switched years ago are STILL paying for the stupid mistake. QBO is MUCH better today than it was when I signed up but still missing some MAJOR BASIC items such as.

1. Import into TurboTax. Nah, why would that be a priority??

2. These profit by Item things. So we can't tell how much our items should cost or how much they make??

Thanks for joining this conversation, @ddeveaux.

Importing data from QuickBooks to TurboTax will help you and your users instantly import tax-related data. Also, QuickBooks has added tax data import for accountants and their clients with the same single setup. 

You’ll save your users time and improve accuracy at no extra charge to either of you. Please know that, it's still up to you if you want to import your data to TurboTax.

I'd also recommend this article on how to import QuickBooks into Turbo Tax: How do I import QuickBooks data into TurboTax Business?.

For additional questions about sending your tax info, I recommend you contact our TurboTax Support team. They have a dedicated community site to answer all the tax and product questions that you have.

For question number two, you can pull up the reports that my colleagues shared above and compare each data. This way, you'll know how much your items should cost or how much they make. You can also contact your accountant on other ways on how to know the item and each detail. 

I'm adding these articles below on how to manage and adjust your inventory item in the future:

• Understand Inventory Assets and COGS tracking
• How to adjust inventory quantity on hand
• Set Up Products & Services: Non-inventory, Service Items, & More.

I'll be always around here in the Community to help you if you have any other questions and we'll be waiting for your response. Take good care, @ddeveaux.

I cannot BELIEVE that Intuit Quickbooks Support STILL has this same da*n problem after all of these years! I don't even want to waste anymore time then I already have but guess I will.

The post and comments are about QUICKBOOKS ONLINE (QBO)!! That is a separate product for **** sake! As of today NO you cannot import QBO into TurboTax. You have to do data gymnastics by getting a Desktop version, importing QBO to that, THEN importing to TurboTax. Sure, that's going to work well. And NO QBO does NOT have P&L by item.

The stupid links in the answer all point to the Desktop version of Quickbooks. How is it that there is not a fundamental understanding from Intuit Support that Intuit has 2 completely separate Quickbooks types?! I've said for a long time they should put these support things COMPLETELY separate. So much of the junk in here relates to desktop which is virtually useless for QBO customers. And no, posting in the QBO group or adding tags does NOTHING to resolve that confusion by Support.

@WR_ELY what did you end up doing in this area?? We made the huge mistake of switching very early, 2017 or so, and STILL paying for this and do not have solutions for basic things like tax import and item cost. So mad we didn't undo our mistake way back but figured some of these items would be resolved quickly. Years later...nope.

Hi ddeveaux!

You can pull up a Profit and Loss report by products and services in QuickBooks Online. I'll show you how.

Follow these steps:

1. From the Reports menu, search and pull up the Profit and Loss.
2. Select Products/Services under the Display columns by drop-down.
3. Make sure you selected the correct Report period and Accounting method. 
4. Tap Run report.

I also added these links if you need help in customizing and saving  a report in QuickBooks Online: 

• Customize reports in QuickBooks Online

• Run reports in QuickBooks Online

Post a comment again below if you have other concerns in running financial reports. Stay safe!

I just switched back to Quickbooks Desktop.  Everything is all good now.

I just switched back to Quickbooks Desktop.  My sanity has returned.  I gave it a full year and it just did not work at all for a busy retail business. 

Maybe for a more simple business or a service business it would have been okay.  

QBO is just not ready for prime time at this point.

---

@WR_ELY wrote:

I just switched back to Quickbooks Desktop.  My sanity has returned. 

QBO is just not ready for prime time at this point.

---

Congrats! You can still buy the one time license for QBD 2021 or setup a private cloud solution if required. 

Yeah, it is running on my private server.  Works just fine.

Exporting these two reports and combining the data in a spreadsheet does not account for existing inventory, shrinkage, FIFO vs LIFO, etc...so the best you can do is export the data to Excel to calculate an average sales price and average purchase price (assuming a purchase for the SKU occurred in the time period for the two reports). 

I am shocked this basic functionality is not available. Please let me know if there is something I'm not understanding.