QuickBooks Online For Dummies, 2026 Edition, 10th Edition

Chapter 10

Monitoring Inventory and Managing Purchase Orders

IN THIS CHAPTER

Enabling inventory tracking and purchase orders

Getting the lowdown on purchase orders

Perfecting price rules for custom deals

Ahoy there! This chapter covers cargo — er, physical inventory items. Whether you’re buying crates of cutlasses, barrels of peg legs, or bolts of sailcloth — and have a Plus or Advanced subscription — you can track what’s in your ship’s store or perhaps your warehouse. Well, that’s the case provided you’re not doing anything too fancy, like manufacturing your own schooners. QuickBooks Online uses the first in, first out (FIFO) method to value inventory, so the cost of the earliest goods you purchase is applied to the first ones you sell. Don’t worry about stacking your barrels in exact order because QuickBooks handles the cost sequencing for you behind the scenes. But before any of that can happen, you need to enable inventory tracking and start adding items.

Once inventory tracking is enabled, you can start loading the cargo bay. This chapter walks through the process of adding physical inventory items to your Products & Services list, complete with SKUs, sales prices, reorder ...