The company I just started working for wants to track each transaction using items (not for job costing purposes) verses using the COA with sub accounts. Help!

Good to see you here in the Community, lori13.

I want to make sure you'll be able to track each transaction using items in QuickBooks Online.

QuickBooks offers a user-friendly method for setting up class tracking, allowing you to get up and running quickly. In QuickBooks, you can create classes that you assign to transactions. This lets you track account balances by department, business office or location, separate properties you own, or any other meaningful breakdown of your business.

Turn on class tracking or location tracking in Settings:

1. Click the Gear icon at the upper right corner.
2. On the drop-down list, click Account and Settings.
3. Under Account and Settings, go to the Advanced tab.
4. In the Categories section, select the edit (pencil) icon.
5. Choose the category you want to enable and select the settings for that category.
6. Select Save. Once this feature is turned on, a drop-down menu for Classes or Locations will appear on your forms.
7. Hit Done.

Create class or location categories:

1. Select the Gear icon, then from Lists, select All Lists.
2. Choose Classes or Locations
3. Select New at the top.
4. Enter the information.
5. Select Save.

Here's a helpful article that you can check out: How to set up and use class and location tracking.

Keep in touch if you need additional assistance in tracking your transactions in QuickBooks Online. I'll be around to help.

Thank you for the explanation. I couldn't ask my complete question in depth per how many letters I can use to post haha. What is going on is the company I work for is a appliance service company. They want to track their fleets fuel, gps cost, monthly insurance premium, etc. through "non inventory items" but has no intentions for job costing or tracking their inventory through QBO. We have over 50 plus vehicles in our fleet. I am perplexed why this would be done this way verses setting up 5 sub accounts for the fleet, with detailed memo's. If they ever wanted to have the detail for one truck I could easily export into Excel, sort and sum for them. I feel I am missing why someone would want to create so many items verses a few sub accounts on the COA. Please help me have a better understanding. What am I missing? Thank you in advance.

Thank you for your response. I wasn't able to get as many details in my initial question as I would have liked. Sorry. I feel like I am missing something in regards to the use of items. This company want to track for each of it's trucks within the fleet (over 55 trucks for their service business) the gas, gps, insurance, etc. I understand the importance of this but why not use your COA with say 5 sub accounts and dump all the fuel, gps, insurance, etc. in those sub accounts with detailed memos. If they ever needed to know an exact per truck wouldn't it be easier to just export into excel, sort then sum up the totals rather than creating almost 400 items? I am missing something. What is the purpose of using items versus having sub accounts on your COA? 

Hello there, lori13.

I appreciate you getting back with more details about your concern. Let me share some information about the use of items versus having sub accounts on Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks Online (QBO).

Items are used to help drill down details on what's on your expense transactions but it's not the intended use of non-inventory items. Though you can use non-inventor items to track expenses. Using items is for easy tracking purposes because it helps itemize your reports in QBO.

You might find this article handy for future reference: Add, edit, and delete items.

If there's anything else I can help you with or questions about this, feel free to get back to me.

Thank you for your response. I am still confused as to why not use sub accounts that report from the COA? Sorry, I come from working with companies that use sub accounts through the COA verses items. The company I currently work for uses an external software for their inventory and just drops numbers into QBO. The items they would like me to set up are non-inventory items attached to their COGS. I think my lack of understanding what part items would play in this verses using the COA sub accounts might be where my disconnect is. Can you elaborate? I am walking into a situation of using a "modified hybrid cash basis" accounting and trying to get my footing as to how to move forward. Any help is appreciated.

Hi there, lori13.

Allow me to help share some more information about the difference between using a sub-account and items in QuickBooks Online.

Generally, you can use both (items and sub-accounts) to manage and keep track of the business cost easily. However, using items in QuickBooks allows you to enter more information and link them to the appropriate account. This way, all of the items will be visible when you run a report. As mentioned by my colleague Charies_M, using items is easy for tracking purposes because it helps itemize your reports.

Additionally, let me share the reports you can run based on the method you choose to track your non-inventory items. For expenses recorded directly to sub-accounts, you can use the Balance Sheet and Transaction Detail by Account. Meanwhile, you can run the sales and purchases reports for items, like Purchases by Product/Service Detail, Sales by Product/Service, Sales by Customer, Purchases by Vendor Detail, Purchases by Class Detail, Purchases by Product/Service Detail.

For more information about reports available in QuickBooks, you may want to check this article: Available reports in QuickBooks Online.

Please don't hesitate to let me know if I can be of further assistance. Wishing you well.

Thank you all so very much for your help! So basically it's just a preference to use either or depending on how detailed your memo's could be (using items or sub accounts through your COA)? Am I understanding this correctly? ALSO with all being said, does QBO or any version of QB allow you to run reports using the Hybrid Cash Basis method versus a cash or accrual reporting for your monthly financials?

Yes, it's up to your business preference on how you'll want to track your detailed memos, lori13.

While the option to run multiple reports in QuickBooks is unavailable, we can export these reports and collate them to Excel. Make sure the reports are set to the same Report period and its corresponding Accounting Method. 

The Community is always around to help you with your questions. Have a great day!

Hello Lori,

The company I just started with has the same need, tracking fleet vehicle expenses. Insurance, fuel, maintenance and such. How did you do this in your application? Did you just enter each truck as a non inventory item? 

Hello, I am also curious on how you handled this fleet tracking.  We are not going to use the FAM since records are kept separate for this, but we do need to track other than putting info. into Memo fields all the time!!!  Thank you.

How did you accomplish this without using FAM or entering more text into the Memo fields??  Thank you.

Nice to have you joined this thread, @ljw8.

You’ll want to create an item for the fleet you want to track without using the Fixed Asset Manager in your QuickBooks Desktop (QBDT) software. From there, you can enter more information about the fleet without using the memo field. Let me show you how.

1. Go to the Lists menu.
2. Select Item list.
3. From the bottom page, click the Item drop-down arrow and select New 
4. Select the type of item you want to create.
5. From the Description field, add more information about the item.
6. Fill out the needed details and click OK.

You can also read through this article on how to add items in QBDT: Add, edit, and delete items.

Once done, you can now use the item in creating a transactions and track them. In addition to this, you might want to avail of the advanced inventory feature in QBDT to easily track and manage your inventory. For the complete details about it, check out this link for reference:https://quickbooks.intuit.com/desktop/enterprise/advanced-inventory/

You can always leave a reply in this thread if you have other concerns about tracking items in QBDT. I’ll be around to assists you. Keep safe.

Hmmm, I am not sure what is the best way to track these Fleet items since we only use the Expense side when processing vendor bills and never would show these on a customer invoice.  The GLs would change for the vendor Fleet items.  We do all using GL accts. and Classes, as well as some custom fields to track other.  Maybe I'm missing something here??

Hello there, @ljw8.

The current method you're using in tracking the fleet items of your company is also effective. You'll just need to make sure you've assigned them to the correct accounts to keep your financials accurate.

In case you want to continue the suggested method provided above, the next step is to assign the item when processing a vendor transaction (i.e. Bill). Here's how: 

1. Go to the Vendors menu.
2. Select Enter Bills.
3. Choose the vendor and enter all the necessary detail needed.
4. Select the Items tab, then choose the item name under the Item column.
5. Click Save & Close.

I've attached a screenshot below that shows the last three steps.

To learn more about setting up items in QuickBooks Desktop, you can check out this article: Item List. It also contains answers to the most frequently asked questions such as how many items you can set up and use in a group to name a few.

Additionally, I'd recommend pulling up a vendor transaction report. This will help you effectively monitor all your business expenses and make sure they're accurately recorded. Just visit the Reports menu, then select Vendors & Payables to select the report you need.

You're always welcome to leave a comment below if you have other concerns or follow-up inquiries about tracking fleet items in QBDT. I'm just around to help. Take care.

Not sure if this will work efficiently for us.  I am curious what others do.

Example if I have 100 Fleet vehicles and I want to see at least six different GL accounts associated with those, does that mean I must set up 600 new items to accommodate the various GL accts.  And if so, how will I keep everything under one Unit # or must I sub categorize all???

What is an alternative way to capture these fleet numbers to run reports to show all costs behind them?