Products

Thanks for getting in touch with the Community, larrysrsp.
 

When creating products, your Sales price/rate field is used to specify an amount you charge customers for purchasing the item you're creating. If you charge a variable rate, you can leave this field blank, then add your price when filling out invoices or sales receipts with the product on them.
 

Your Cost field is where you'd enter the amount you spend to purchase each of the product you're creating.
 

I've also included a detailed resource about creating and managing products which may come in handy moving forward: Add product & service items
 

If there's any additional questions, I'm just a post away. Have an awesome Friday!

ZackE, I have a question about that.

Should that work for Inventory as well as Non-Inventory Products?  I've tried it for Inventory items, and it seems that whatever price I first assign is what remains as the price for that product.  And there's also the question of what value is used for the cost doing it that way.

I have vendors that create various kinds of art, so have unique items at differenct costs each time they stop in to sell things.  I'd like to use Inventory Products for them as you describe, and maybe have a set % markup so the cost could be determined from each sale price.  Is there some way to do that?

I appreciate you joining the thread, @oceanbeachesglass. Let me give you additional information about setting up products and services in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Yes. The idea shared by ZackE works for both inventory and non-inventory items. When recording your sales entries, the system will use the sales price you've entered. However, you can always modify the amount if you need to either on the product's setup or when recording your entries. 

To update the rate through the Products and Services window:

1. Go to the Gear icon, then Products and Services.
2. Locate the item.
3. Click on Edit under Action.
4. Modify the Cost or Sale Price from there.
5. Repeat the same steps for other products.

I'm adding these screenshots as your visual references.

It works the same with your purchase transactions. The cost will be determined by the item's price/rate. 

On the other hand, setting a % markup for your costs and sales prices is not an option for now. I understand the importance of this feature for your business. For now, I recommend sending this idea directly to our product developers so they can consider this in the future.

Here's how:

1. Sign in to your QBO account.
2. Go to the Gear icon at the top, then Feedback.
3. Enter your comments or product suggestions.
4. Hit Next.

Once done, your valuable suggestion goes to our designated team to help improve your experience in QBO. You can track feature requests through the QuickBooks Online Feature Requests website.

If you want to control the price of your products and services, you can set up rules for them. You can offer discounts or charge different rates by item. I'm adding this material for more information: Set price rules in QuickBooks Online.

It's my pleasure to share these details with you today. If you have follow-up questions, let me know by leaving a comment below. I'm always here to help. Have a good one!

Hi Angelyn,

Well, this sounds good in theory, but in practice it just won't work unless you have only a small handful of Sales on any given day.  There's enough tedium already in just entering the Sales, but to even know which Items to edit before even starting Sales entry would be difficult.

One other solution I can think of is to add all the possible permutations of all Inventory Item prices - which would be substantial, but probably doable - but would also turn into a big job once there are any price changes.  I've been able to export QBO Items for edit, and then import them, but there are invariably problems that crop up with the process.  And editing them Item by Item is just way too slow (QBO seems to have slowed down substantially over the years I've used it).

Another solution, of course, is to find POS software that's usable for one's business that can also sync with QBO just the way you need it to.  That's been my Holy Grail for the at least the past decade, but is far more elusive than you'd guess.  "Seamlessly sync your POS and Accounting software" is more like "Endlessly fix all the syncing problems between your POS and Accounting software".  It's just never as slick as promised.

So, ideally, there would be some kind of connection between the Price and Cost for QBO Inventory Items.  There's virtually always a stable mark-up % we set for any given item, so it's hard to see a downside.  I'm not holding my breath, though.