QuickBooks inventory tracking: How to add inventory in QuickBooks

As a business owner, keeping track of inventory can be challenging at times, especially if your sales are steadily growing. While tracking inventory may be tedious, it’s essential to running a smooth-operating business. Fortunately, QuickBooks can make tracking inventory easier for you. This allows businesses to save time and money, optimize performance, and increase customer satisfaction.

Many small and mid-sized businesses already use QuickBooks for accounting and overall financial management. If you’re one of them, adding inventory tracking is a simple process. Like other cloud-based software, QuickBooks allows users to access information from anywhere and backs up their work securely. This means that everyone can view the most recent data no matter where they are or when they need those numbers.

In this guide, we’ll go over how to add inventory in QuickBooks in a few simple steps. With QuickBooks inventory tracking, you’ll be able to take control of your entire business to attract more customers and increase your sales. To learn how to add inventory tracking in QuickBooks, use the links below.

• Using QuickBooks for inventory tracking
• Streamline inventory data and management with QuickBooks

Using QuickBooks for inventory tracking

QuickBooks Online Essentials, Advanced, and Plus customers have the opportunity to add on QuickBooks Commerce , an all-in-one platform that grants you total control over your multichannel business. QuickBooks Commerce is a cloud-based inventory management system that you can access on the go. This platform makes tracking inventory easier by allowing you to work smarter, tracking inventory and fulfillment across multiple sales channels and locations in one single platform. With no manual entry and all of your business’s information in one place, nothing will slip through the cracks.

If you’re ready to use QuickBooks for inventory tracking, follow the steps below.

1. Set up inventory tracking in settings

To begin using the QuickBooks inventory feature, you’ll first have to check your subscription and turn on inventory tracking in the settings. QuickBooks Online inventory is only available to QuickBooks Online Plus, Essentials, and Advanced customers. If you don’t see the option to add inventory, you may need to upgrade your plan.

To turn on inventory tracking, follow these steps:

1. Go to Settings ⚙ and select Account and settings.
2. Select the Sales tab.
3. Select Edit ✎ in the Products and services section.
4. Turn on Show Product/Service column on sales forms.
5. You also have the option to turn on price rules if you want to set up flexible pricing for your products .
6. Turn on both Track quantity and price/rate and Track inventory quantity on hand.
7. Select Save and then Done.

After you’ve updated your settings, you can begin adding inventory to QuickBooks.

2. Add inventory items

In QuickBooks Commerce, you can add inventory items as well as service and non-inventory items as line items on sales forms. Below are the steps for how to add different inventory types into QuickBooks.

Adding inventory items

Here’s how to add inventory in QuickBooks in a few simple steps:

1. Turn on inventory tracking in Settings by selecting the gear icon.
2. Go to Sales, then Products and Services.
3. To add a new item, choose either New or Add a product or service. Then select Inventory.
4. Give the new inventory part that you’re tracking an item name, SKU, or category (Tip: You can organize your goods and services into categories or item types to make them easier to find instead of scanning an entire item list).
5. Add your product’s quantity, inventory asset account, and reorder point.
6. Add your product’s tax, sales, and purchasing information.

Adding service and non-inventory items

To add service or non-inventory items , follow these steps:

1. Go to the Sales menu and select the Products and services tab.
2. Select New.
3. Select Non-inventory or Service.
4. Add a name or SKU if you’re tracking SKUs for the product.
5. Select the category that best defines your product or service from the Category dropdown menu (learn more about the different types of item categories).
6. Select the I sell this product/service to my customers checkbox. If you aren’t selling the item, you can leave this box unchecked.
7. Under the Sales information section, provide a description—this is what your customers will see when they view sales forms.
8. Input an amount in the Sales price/rate field. (You can leave this data field blank if you charge a variable rate for services. Instead, add the price when you fill out the invoice or sales receipt.)
9. Click on the Income account dropdown list menu and the account you want to use to track the sale.
10. To track sales tax, select Taxable—standard rate from the Sales tax category dropdown menu. If your item has a special tax rate, select Choose a special category and choose the most appropriate option. Note: If this dropdown doesn’t appear, follow the steps to set up sales tax in QuickBooks.
11. Finish by selecting Save and Close.

3. Keep track of your sales

Once you’ve added inventory to QuickBooks, you can track your sales to analyze how they’re performing and adjust inventory as needed. Inventory analysis is a great way to determine the number of products your business should carry to keep your company profitable and increase sales. To keep track of your sales, follow these steps:

1. Turn on inventory tracking in Settings.
2. Add your inventory products, such as  work in process (WIP) inventory or finished goods.
3. Keep track of inventory that sells. Create an invoice if a customer will pay you later or add a sales receipt if your customer paid on the spot.
4. Restock your inventory using QuickBooks.
5. Use reports to determine the status of your inventory. This lets you review what’s selling well, cost of goods sold (COGS), products on hand, and more.

4. Monitor your inventory levels

Lastly, you can monitor your inventory levels to determine when to restock, analyze your inventory carrying costs, and determine which items are bestsellers. QuickBooks Online allows you to reorder inventory right in the platform so you can track products coming from your vendors. As you receive inventory, your quantity on hand will automatically update.

As you add or remove items from your inventory, QuickBooks automatically increases or decreases both the number of items available and the inventory’s value.

Streamline inventory data and management with QuickBooks

QuickBooks offers tips on how to add inventory tracking to an existing account, how to add product types, and more. With the addition of QuickBooks Commerce, you can easily manage:

• Multiple locations and warehouses
• Product listings and pricing across multiple channels
• Inventory, orders, and accounting all in one platform
• Reordering with automated purchase orders

Because of its popularity with accountants and small businesses, QuickBooks is a great choice for adding automated inventory tracking to your accounting and bookkeeping software solutions. Adding QuickBooks Commerce allows customers to benefit from a single interface for managing accounting, inventory and orders across channels– all from one powerful platform.

Effective inventory management is essential to any growth strategy. Knowing how to add inventory in QuickBooks lets you keep track of your inventory and helps to grow your business.

Find out how QuickBooks Commerce can help you get the most value out of QuickBooks as an inventory management solution and help you sell smarter today.