This was previously reported and resolved already, seandm69.

I suggest reaching out to our QuickBooks Support Team again. They have the tools to further check the root cause of this issue and might raise an investigation. As my previous colleagues recommend, you'll want to add the SKU in the Description column as a workaround.

To reach them:

1. Go to Help and click on Contact us.
2. Enter your concern in the What can we help you with? field.
3. Click on Let's talk.
4. Choose either Start messaging or Get a callback.

Let us know if you have any other concerns. We're here to help.

yes, I did that back then even did a remote connection and they just told me to use the work around. 

basically accomplished nothing.

I just got off of chat.  I am a fairly new user and my supplier scolded ME TOO for not having a part number on the PO.  I just had not even looked at the pdf since I can see all of the needed information on my purchase order form.  The desktop version does great - So I mentioned that to the chat and they told me "they are two different products".  So now I'm getting really frustrated and tell them "you mean to tell me I have a purchase order system that WILL NOT show a part number?"  Here is their response:  "I'm really sorry but what your're asking is beyond the scope of what we can do.  Here's what I CAN do:  I would be glad to send this suggestion up to have it considered in future improvements....."  WHAT?  A future improvement?  Why would I NOT want a PN on my Purchase order, TO PURCHASE PARTS?  I'm stunned.  I did the work-around and copied the PN over to the Description (and made the description field longer so it won't wrap) .  Did I mention that I am STUNNED?  Why would you not keep a key feature like Part Number or SKU printing ON A PURCHASE ORDER?

That only gives you a visual when you open the purchase order form.  It DOES NOT print when you print it to a pdf (or email).  What good does it do to show ME the PN.  I need my suppliers to see what I am ordering.

Folks of the great QuickBooks Support Engineering or lack there of,

We are now approaching 11 months of waiting for a fundamental fix to this BUG!

Lets get real for a moment, how, in this day and age, could anyone not understand the importance of a requirement such as this.

And for the record, actually research the definition of a SKU (Stock Keeping Unit).  From Investopedia, a SKU is a scannable bar code, most often printed on product labels in a retail store!

QuickBooks appears to be using the SKU field for something entirely different to which I would describe as a Product No, , Part Number,  Product ID etc.

We are SIMPLY speaking of a backend database where products, or service details are stored in unique columns.

Why on earth would we not have the control to create the myriad  of possibilities associated with OUR business. (Don't even get me started on Serial numbers!).

Bottom line, want to please your subscription paying audience, try fixing release problems in a timely fashion rather than absurd workarounds!

Thanks for your patience, allowing me to vent, after reading the repeated requests for nearly a year and comments by QuickBooks support where they never even investigated their recommendations before publishing on a SUPPORT page.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us, kholliday.

I hear you and realize the convenience it can bring without dealing with this issue. I appreciate you explaining how being able to print SKU on purchase order would help you out.

While that feature is currently in our development roadmap, we are working on making consistent improvements that will be helpful for the majority of our customers.

For now, I want you to be updated with the most recent future enhancements in QuickBooks Online (QBO) by visiting our QuickBooks Blog.

Feel free to reach back to me for any questions. I'm here to provide further assistance at any time. Have a good one.

Is there a time frame of when sku/items can be printed to a purchase order.  One would think that if you can choose to see the sku on the PO screen, you can also opt to print or not print the sku on the physical PO.  I just had a vendor tell me that we are the only company that does not show the SKU # in its own column.  

These orders dont get electronically entered by our vendor, a human being has to read the description of the Purchase order and key in everything correctly and should be able to see the qty, sku, description pricing all in separate columns the same way it is shown on the screen to minimize error. 

My vendor just rejected $100k in purchase orders because my SKU numbers are not listed......not ideal and a total waste of time to have someone key it into the description. 

QB - A timeline for when this will happen please. 

I see that this request still has not been addressed by qb developers. We, your customers, need to be able to send out a PO with a part number on it. To not have that as a standard on the PO that prints, e-mails, is bush league. Come on guys, you're Intuit. Make this happen so we don't have to add part numbers to all of the descriptions of our products. You should try using the product you sell in the real world so you know that this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

The feedback from the QB Moderator to add the SKU to the item description is just plain horrible!  Why can't QB add the SKU to the print out of a PO??  How can on expect to place a PO that does not include a SKU??  The other suggestion to make a .pdf print copy of the PO from the screen is manageable but seems to creat an extra process that should simply be integrated into the  PO platform.  

QB has been great - but this is a MAJOR block and one that QB seems unwilling to update.  WTF?

Hi there, @cdg1. 

Thanks for following the thread and sharing your concerns. 

You're right. Adding the SKU to the print out of a PO would be a great and easier process. I'll be sure to submit a feedback request to our product development team, so this can be considered in a future update. 

In the meantime, check out our Blog Site to follow our latest happenings and updates.

Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns. Feel free to reach out to the Community at any time. We're always here for you. Take care!  

What is the timeline for fixing this issue? I would have never switched to QBO had I known that the only answer Intuit has for fixing this printing issue is to add the SKU to the description! This should be a high priority. 

We're currently on Desktop Enterprise with Advanced Inventory, and this feature being "on the roadmap" for the last 3+ years is the one and only reason we can't switch to QBO (and as a result have had to invest thousands of dollars in remote server and software configurations to sync data into QB Desktop). Having seen the power and investment QB has put into its Desktop Inventory and Purchase Orders, I don't understand how even the basics have not made it into QBO at this point. We work with hundreds of vendors each year, and every single one requires THEIR part number on a purchase order, not just our SKU. Oftentimes, customers will come looking for something by the Manufacturer Part Number, not your company's SKU. Desktop has Manufacturer Part Number field AND Purchase Description in case you're purchasing an item differently than you're selling it. 

Most businesses work on a simple model: you buy product and you sell product. HOW has something like Enhanced Integration with Hubspot made it to the release calendar, but adding the most fundamental fields of purchasing has not?

It is beyond belief that after years the issue of SKU's not printing on purchase orders has not been resolved.

The workaround suggested by adding the SKU to the description is ludicrous, for many users that would involve editing thousands of products. Also if (and I do mean if) QB ever fix the issue you will have to edit all products again to remove it from the description.

Meanwhile whilst users are waiting years for QB to fix what is a basic requirement QB developers add new features nobody cares about!

QB do not seem to be listening to their customers, they should learn the lesson of SAGE who dominated the market for accounting software for years but failed to listen to users until their market share had been eroded.

QB you need to get your act together and fix this, its a simple mapping issue that should be fixed by your developers in a few hours. There are no excuses for this! 

I want to see this roadmap of development, because there are so many things that QBO needs to fix.  Instead of QBO fixing a simple report to show the SKU we are asked to edit every item in our inventory to include the SKU in the description.  This is beyond belief.  We are not asking for big sweeping changes, just include something already shown on the Purchase Order, but that item does not show up on the pdf/printed version. 

This information is WRONG, this will only print the SKU on the invoices.  This does not print the SKU on Purchase Orders.  Please try what you suggest before typing up incorrect information.

It is absolutely CRITICAL that Quickbooks fixes this issue. The "workaround" is a ridiculous waste of time.

It's still not fixed.  Putting the SKUs in the description is crazy.  Let's go already.

Hi there, colloranetworkse. 

I understand that your vendors need the product SKU of each purchase order you send. While this feature is unavailable, I'd encourage sending feedback to our Product Development Team to help improve your QuickBooks experience. 

Our engineers have been working on to provide ways on how we can improve our products and services through our customers feedback. I'll be sure to share this to them for future product enhancement.

For now, I want you to be updated with the latest QuickBooks news and improvements of the product by visiting our QuickBooks Blog.

For additional tips and resources while working with your vendor transactions, you can browse a topic from this page: Expenses and vendors.

You can always find me here if you have any other concerns or further questions about purchase orders. Stay safe and have a good one

I gave up on QBO fixing all the problems it has, like this one in particular, but many others.  Therefore I found a new solution for POs, invoicing, etc. and now I get to greatly decrease the amount I pay intuit for this buggy software. I wish I could do away with QBO all together but too many other software solutions only integrate with QBs.  I ask why they don't integrate with other products and they say everyone of our users uses QBs to which I responded we all are forced to use QBs because that is the only accounting software you integrate with.  

If Intuit would just ask people who actually operate a business about their software and implement those changes, or just read these forums and all the supposed development requests we make then it could be improved.  

I can only assume the backend of QBO is incredibly poorly coded if something seemingly as simple as adding a sku field (that is already in the item entry and on the PO entry form) can't be accomplished after all these years. It isn't like we asking for an entirely new field to be added to the item details and then include that information. No this is information already in the item details.

So how many years is it going to take for QB to get SKU's to show on purchase orders?

I assume that changing the font on QB is a much higher priority on the roadmap as the QB engineers seem to spend an awful lot of time working on this rather than something like including SKU's on purchase orders.

It is astounding that this issue hasnt been fixed. The worse thing about it is that when we first got QB it worked. Then it was removed.