Sales Items

An item is anything you sell — a product you ship or a service you perform. The item record holds the name that appears on the invoice, the rate you normally charge, the income account the sale is credited to, and the tax the sale attracts. Setting items up once means every invoice line takes three actions: pick the item, set the quantity, save. This chapter covers the sales side; items you buy are set up the same way under Purchases > Purchase Items (Chapter 24), and the whole record is described in Chapter 27.

The Sales Items list

Open Sales > Sales Items. Each row shows the item name, its unit type, the tax that applies to it and its rate.

The toolbar carries Select for acting on several rows at once, plus the usual Export, Filter and +.

Creating a sales item

1. Go to Sales > Sales Items and click +.
2. Enter the Item Name. This is what appears on the invoice line and on the printed invoice.
3. Set Type to Product for something you ship or Service for something you perform.
4. Under Details, set the Unit Type and the Rate you normally charge.
5. Under Accounts, set Sales Acc. — the income account credited when the item is sold — and the Tax the sale attracts.
6. Click Save.

The item record

• Item Image — an optional picture, useful in the point of sale grid view.
• Item Name — the name the item is identified by. Each item needs its own.
• Item Code — a short unique code for tracking and reference.
• Item Group — the category the item belongs to, used for grouping and for filtering in the point of sale.
• Purpose — whether the item is for sales, purchases or both.
• Type — Product or Service.

Under Details:

• Unit Type — the base unit the rate applies to, Unit by default.
• Rate — the standard price. This is what an invoice row picks up, and you can change it on the row for a one-off price.
• Description — a longer description of what the item is. It can be printed on the invoice.

Under Accounts:

• Sales Acc. — the income account credited when the item is sold.
• Purchase Acc. — the expense account debited when the item is bought.
• Tax — the tax applied when the item is invoiced. Like the rate, it can be overridden on the invoice row.

The Inventory section — HSN/SAC, Barcode (the code a scanner reads to add the item at the till) and UOM Conversions (for an item sold in more than one unit, such as a box of twelve) — is covered with the rest of the record in Chapter 27.

How items reach the invoice

When you choose an item on an invoice row, SAABI fetches its rate and its default tax onto the line. Both can be changed there without altering the item record, so a negotiated price on one sale does not affect the next one. To change the price for good, change the Rate on the item; to run a different set of prices for a customer group or a season, use a price list (Chapter 28) or a pricing rule (Chapter 18) instead.