Quickbooks Online products list out of order

Making sure that your product lists are arranged in proper order while creating sales transactions is my priority, @amwarner15.

Yes, you're correct. When you create invoices/sales receipts/estimates. the Product/Service drop-down menu should show your lists in (alphabetical) order. The same as those in the Products and Services screen. Please see the screenshot below for your reference.

When your product list is out of order, this can sometimes be caused by the browser's overtime collection of data from frequent page visits. To isolate this matter, you can perform some troubleshooting steps.

You can start by pulling up your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account using a private browser (incognito). Here's how:

• Press Ctrl + Shift + N (Google Chrome)
• Ctrl + Shift + P (Firefox)
• Control + Option + P (Safari)

Once signed in, go to the + New button to create a sales transaction (invoice/sales receipt/estimate). If the Product/Service drop-down menu shows your lists in (alphabetical) order, return to your default browser and clear its cache. This will refresh the system and remove older data that causes viewing and performances issue. However, if this matter continues, I'd recommend using other supported browsers.

Also, adding products and services as items to your sales forms will give you more detailed financial reports. To further guide  you in tracking and managing the product and service items you sell, you can check out this article: Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online.

Keep me posted on how it goes. You can leave a comment below if there's anything else you need, and I'll gladly help. Take care, and have a great day ahead. 

I'd done all of that- made sure my products were there and in order. Opened my browser in incognito, cleared caches, tried different browsers, and none of it worked. And then I screen shared with someone at Quickbooks and they couldn't figure it out either.

The system is guessing what the order should be in the drop down menu and there is no rhyme or reason for what it is picking. It's not the most common items, it's not the out of stock items, it's not recently purchased or updated priced items. 

For example - in my products list - it is ordered as:

1) ang0005

2) ang0010

3) ang0015

And continues for hundreds of items in numerical order

When I type "ang" in the drop down menu, before today, it would bring up all items that start with ang followed by the numerical order as listed above. Now it brings up random suggested ones and has no order to it and I can't scroll through all of them and I can't memorize thousands of items exact codes. So when I type in "ang" it now brings up

1) ang0270

2) ang0330

3) ang0025

4) ang0010

and so on and it makes it incredibly difficult to produce estimates/invoices in a timely manner. My team is creating 100s of these a day and it just got way harder with no fix in sight.

I have turned off all automation features and that fixed nothing. Nothing about my systems have changed from yesterday to today. I have no clue why its doing this. 

Thanks for following up with the Community about this, amwarner15. I appreciate you performing all of Rea_M's troubleshooting steps.
 

Since your products and services drop-down list still isn't displaying properly when creating transactions, I'd recommend getting in touch with our Customer Care team. They'll be able to pull up your account in a secure environment, conduct further research, and create an investigation ticket if necessary.
 

They can be reached while you're signed in.
 

Here's how:

1. Click the Help (?) icon.
   
2. Hit Contact Us.
   
3. Enter a description of your situation in the What can we help you with? field, then choose Let's talk.
   
4. Select Start messaging or Get a call.
   

Be sure to review their support hours so you'll know when agents are available.

Please feel welcome to send a reply if there's any additional questions. Enjoy the rest of your day!

This is beyond frustrating. We are going on 9 days of this problem. I have reached out to Quickbooks by chat and phone and I am simply being told they can't do anything and being brushed off. This is a Quickbooks specific problem so I'm not sure how to fix this without their help.

I have sent laptops home with all of my employees and it does this on their internet at home. I have tried on both Windows and IOS. I have renamed all of my products hoping it would correct it, but it still reads this out of order. My employees are getting irritated with the amount of time creating invoices is taking.  My customers are losing patience every time they call and it takes us a long time to sort through items to get them a price. I have missed phone calls from customers because my phone lines are getting backed up with people waiting for estimates. 

I'm paying for this service each month and to be treated so poorly by the customer service is unacceptable. I'm not sure that posting here will do anything for me but I am at a lose of how to get my Quickbooks operating properly again. 

I am currently dealing with this same exact issue and have tried all options offered. It is very frustrating.

This is not the kind of experience that we want you to have, @LatherLab.

Since you're still having an error after trying those troubleshooting steps provided by my colleagues above, I suggest reaching out to our Customer Support team. They can get into your account in a secure environment, isolate the issue you're having and help you in resolving it. 

You can reach our Customer Support for QuickBooks Online (QBO) by going to the Help icon at the top right of the account. Follow the steps below: 

1. Go to the Help icon to connect to a live support agent. 
2. Click on the Contact Us button and provide some details about this concern.
3. Provide us with some information about your concern in the What can we help you with? box and click on Continue.
4. You'll now be provided options on how to connect to our Customer Support.

You can check this article for more information about the different types of support we offer and their availability: QuickBooks Online Support.

The following article will tell you more about tracking product and service items you buy and sell and your product quantities: Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online. It'll also guide you on how to add them to your sales forms.

Reach out to me if you still have questions about your account. I’ll be more than happy to help. Have a great rest of the day!

I don't like that you're dealing with this too but it makes me feel a little less crazy. The Quickbooks Customer Support did absolutely nothing for me and pretty much said it's my problem to deal with. Hope it is fixed at some point!

Two weeks of dealing with this issue still unfortunately. I spoke with Customer help and I was recommended to wait it out until this week. That the problem should be resolved by now... still no fix. Very frustrating especially since it randomly changes the product list too! So the products are never in the same spot half the time. 

Are you still dealing with this? We are. This morning things were back in order and now all of a sudden they aren't again. Really tired of paying for a service that is not operating properly, making the job harder, and the customer service is terrible. 

I have been having the same problem, it started about 4 months ago. Everything is out of order and we have hundreds of products so entering an invoice takes much more time. I guess I'm a bit relieved it's happening to others, as maybe they will fix the issue quicker. It is very frustrating when QuickBooks increased the monthly fee and it doesn't work properly. Don't mind paying for something that is efficient.

Thanks for joining this thread and letting us know you're experiencing the same problem as the other users, @ebgcust.

I'm joining in to share some insights about this sorting concern of your product list. The general suggestion if QuickBooks is not functioning correctly is to try browser troubleshooting. 

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

If it works, clear the cache to resolve browser issues in QBO. You can also use a different browser and see if the issue persists there.

If that doesn't fix it and this has been a recurring issue for you, we highly recommend getting this reported to our engineers. They can check the log files of your account to diagnose what's causing the repeated problem. 

To get a hold of a representative to check your account, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Help menu then choose the Search tab.
2. At the bottom click on Contact us.
3. Enter the keyword Account Management and Billing in the What can we help you with? box.
4. On the next screen, scroll down to How would you like to connect with us section.
5. Choose Chat with us to initiate a discussion with a live agent.
   
6. Enter you account contact information then press Get a chat.
7. When using this option, make sure to enable pop-up windows. The chat box will appear at the bottom right section of your monitor, and an agent will be with you shortly after.

Reach out to us during our operations hours. You will see it here: Support hours and type.

We ask for your patience regarding this concern. Please update us on the result after trying the troubleshooting or after contacting our support. I want to make sure this concern is resolved.

Yes been dealing with it the same amount of time. I've opened several cases with Quickbooks and they close them without resolving the issue, so I don't know if this will ever get fixed. The customer service has pretty much put the blame on me. I hired an IT team to come in and try to solve it and they found nothing on end that could be the issue and it is the Quickbooks program itself. My quickbooks does it on any type of computer, any type of server, and all of my users are affected. And emptying caches or opening incognito does absolutely nothing.  Beyond frustrated to pay for a service that doesn't work and creates more headaches. Not happy it's happening to you, but yes also glad I'm not going crazy here like the customer support of quickbooks seems to act like. 

I've opened several cases now with the support team/engineers and they have closed every case without solving the problem. Is this the only solution? I have wasted hours and hours sitting on the phone with the support team to try to solve this and nothing has worked.

Seeing the same issues, and also contacted customer support (even less than helpful, and a compete waste of my time). Also, ran incognito, ran on different computers and different browsers, with no changes.

As stated above, even the most basic of software solutions from 20 years ago has this very basic functionality.  So frustrating, Quickbooks Online! How can you roll out software that is INFERIOR in so many ways to the predecessor QBDT? And, with so many users experiencing the same issue, and you're not hustling on this???!!?? If my customers were this frustrated, we would hire whomever we have to (even outside consultants) to get this fixed.

Did anyone find a work-around, or get theirs fixed yet? 

Unfortunately I am still STRUGGLING terribly over here with this issue still reoccuring. Constantly having to fix or correct invoices because even when you pick an item.... it will then choose to select a completely different item. This has been an extreme burden and affected my daily tasks every single day since SEPTEMBER. It is now January and unfortunately I just dont have the time to speak to someone and take hours out of my day to be told they will get back to me and the problem should be resolved shortly....... months later... still waiting. 

NO! It is still going on. I've opened numerous cases and then they close them with no fix. Incredibly frustrated with the terrible customer service. I really need to cancel this and find something different because I'm not sure why I'm paying for this when it doesn't work. 

Yes I keep being told this will be fixed...and nothing. With the time it takes me to make invoices, I don't have time to keep calling QB on this. Ridiculous

I am joining this discussion.  I was so hopeful when I read the first entry, but then the comments. :-(  My issues are not as pressing as some people here but this problem needs to be fixed ASAP.  How do you train new people when things are out of order like this?  I have tried all the tips and tricks which at this point mostly seem to just distract you for a bit so you don't notice nothing is being done to correct the problem.  

Get on this quickbooks! 

Hi there.

Our employees are having this issue too and it's extremely frustrating for them. When they start to type "service" , instead of anything STARTING with "service" coming up, anything with that word in it at all, even at the end of the title, comes up first. If you type "O" to search items that start with O, it brings up any word with an O in the middle of it. Please fix the product and service sorting!!

Hello, vmdavis0213.  

I'd like to barge in and ensure that your employees will be able to speed up the process of creating your invoices.  

In QuickBooks Online (QBO), the parent items are sorted alphabetically. However, the sub-categories will be listed under the parent item, which breaks down the sorting of the products/services.

To get you done faster, you may consider manually typing the first 2 or 3 letters of the item name from the Products/Services section. This way, you can find the item easily. 

I got you these articles that you can use for reference. These links provides detailed information about filtering your transactions and adding items in QBO:  

• Filter, search, and sort with custom fields
• Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online

Let me know by leaving a comment if there's anything else you need help with. I'm always here to have your back. Keep safe!

This reply does not help the issue at hand in anyway unfortunately. Quickbooks needs to investigate more into what is causing this. I should not select a product item and another name pops up in place causing major issues in invoicing on a day to day basis. When typing in the ENTIRE work of the product and the product still doesn't show up as the first choice--there is a deeper coding problem. I have never dealt with this issue until September.... and it seems like a new glitch is added in each month since. 

This is not the impression we want you to experience when creating an invoice. LatherLab.

I've checked our records and there's no reported case about this one. Since the recommended troubleshooting steps are not working, I'd suggest reaching out to our Customer Support team. They'll pull up your account in a secure environment and investigate what's causing this issue. Here's how: 

1. Go to the Help icon to connect to a live support agent.
2. Click on the Contact Us button and provide some details about this concern.
3. Provide us with some information about your concern in the What can we help you with? box and click on Continue.
4. You'll now be provided options with connecting to our Customer Support.

You can check this article for more information about the different types of support we offer and their availability: QuickBooks Online Support. To learn more about tracking product and service items you buy and sell and your product quantities, check out this article: Add product and service items to QuickBooks Online.

Feel free to visit our Invoices and payments page for more insights about managing your company's income and sales transactions.

I'd like to know how you get on after contacting our support as I want to ensure this is resolved for you. Just leave a comment below and I'll get back to you. Take care always.

Stop

This solution doesn't work. Please read the thread. I don't know how many cases I've opened now over the past year to not get a fix. At this point they will no longer open cases for me and tell me it's a one off problem and have only suggest I leave "feedback" through the program and hope the engineers fix it. I don't understand what QB customer service doesn't understand about this. It doesn't work across multiple servers and operating systems. We can't fix this. QB needs to fix this. They charge us monthly for something that doesn't work right. I'm just glad I don't use their payroll and have that headache that so many complain about on QB social media posts.