Setting up Sales Categories

Hi Farmer Sue!

Welcome to the Community and thank you for choosing QuickBooks! I’m glad to know that you’re interested in adding sales categories to help organize your records. Let me guide you through the setup.

The sales categories in QuickBooks Online are called Product Categories. The feature works by creating a list of main and sub-categories that you can assign to your items. This way, when you pull up a product-based report, such as Sales by Product/Service Summary, Sales by Product/Service Summary, etc., you will see the total per category.

To create a category and a sub-category:

1. Go to Get paid & pay or Sales, then select Products & services.
2. Select the dropdown More ▼, then Manage categories.
3. Select New category, then enter the name of the category. If you need a create a sub-category, select Is a sub-category checkbox and the main category.
4. Select Save.

You can follow the rest of the steps in this article: Group your products and services into different categories. It has information about assigning categories and also talks about a couple of reports that has category information. It has screenshots, too.

We have a QBO test account with preset data. You can use it if you want to navigate around or try some features instead of doing it in your QuickBooks company. You can also click the Topis and Videos menus above to see more references.

Always feel free to visit us back if you have any other questions about categories or any other features in QBO. Have a good one!

Thank you that's my homework for this evening!!

On behalf of my colleague, JessT, you're most welcome, @Farmer Sue.

I'm glad to know my peer was able to provide assistance to seamlessly set up your sales categories in QuickBooks Online.

Don't hesitate to post again or leave a comment in this thread if you have any other questions in the future. I'm more than happy to answer them. Have a great day!

I have followed these steps and the other ways to manage categories and the option is simply not there. Yes, my cache has been cleared. Nothing works. When will this bug be fixed? We are depending on this for our business! 

Hi there. I appreciate your efforts in trying to resolve your problem in managing the Products & Services categories in QuickBooks Online. I want to discuss some details about it and route you to the right channel for help.

Currently, our product engineers are actively investigating (INV-90400) this issue. Rest assured, they're working to provide new information immediately. I recommend contacting our Customer Support team to ensure your account is included in the list of affected users. Here's how:

Kindly take note of the support hours to ensure agents are available for assistance.

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online account.
2. Go to Help (?).                                                                                                                                                   
3. Choose either tab to get started:

• Assistant: Get fast, customized responses. Enter your concern. If you need more help, hit Talk to a Human.
• Search: Explore the QuickBooks Online knowledge base directly, or select Contact Us and select a way to connect with us:
  • Start a chat
  • Get a callback

You'll want to keep track of sales or inventory transactions after this is settled, feel free to explore this guide: Use reports to see your sales and inventory status in QuickBooks Online.

Don't hesitate to click the Reply button so I can assist you further with handling or categorizing products and services. I'm always available to back you up. Have a good one!

Checking to see the status of this investigation. I cannot imagine we are the only company being affected by this with payments made in a third party and cannot sync to QBO.