Which product of qb do you use? Online or desktop?
For qbo, here is a great answer from Rustler:
You can not do it with one step in QBO as you should (and you can in desktop), it takes three steps
use inventory adjust to lower the qty and move the average cost to COGS-shrinkage
look at the transaction in COGS-shrinkage to find the amount QB used
do a journal entry
debit sample expense
credit COGS-shrinkage
For desktop qb: See this post. This is the info from it:
Determine the cost of the sample. Do not consider the retail value of the sample; just figure out how much it cost you. If you have given a customer one widget from a box of 10 widgets and your cost for the box is $10.00, the cost of the sample is $1.00. If the product is something you have manufactured, you need to know the cost of the raw materials used to make the sample. Do not include the value of your time spent manufacturing it.
Create a cost of goods sold account named "Samples." Click on "Company" and choose "Chart of Accounts." At the bottom of the screen choose "New" from the "Account" drop-down menu. Choose "Other Account Types" and choose "Cost of Goods Sold" from the drop-down menu. Click "Continue" and name the account "Samples" on the next screen. Give the account a description, if desired. Click "Save & Close" when you are finished.
Create a journal entry. Go to "Company," "Make General Journal Entries" and enter the date you gave out the sample for the entry date. Debit "Samples" for the cost of the sample and credit "Inventory" for the same amount. Use the Memo column to describe the transaction. A proper description would be "To record cost of sample given to customer." You may want to use the customer name, if available, in the description.
Click "Save & Close" when you are done.
