The Item List

The Item List is your catalogue of stocked items: everything you buy, keep on a shelf, count and sell. Each row is one item (or one variation of an item, such as a size or colour) with its SKU, category, selling price, tax and how many you have on hand. You use it to look an item up, check stock before you promise it to a customer, add a new item, copy an existing one, and open an item's own window to edit it, see its history or change its accounts.

The screen is titled Products. Things you sell but never stock, such as labour, a delivery charge or a service call, live on the Services list beside it.

Opening the Item List

• Choose Lists ▸ Item List.
• Choose Inventory ▸ Products.
• On the Home Page, click Items & Services in the Company panel.

To look up one item from anywhere without opening the list, press Ctrl+Shift+I (Item lookup), pick the item, and its window opens over whatever you were doing. See An item's history and drill-down.

The top of the screen

Searching

Type in the search box (Search name, SKU or category…) and the list narrows as you type. The search matches the item name, variation name, SKU and category, and the brand as well when your company uses brands. Each word you type must match, so blue 10 finds "Blue Paint 10 L" but not "Red Paint 10 L". A barcode scanned into the box searches by SKU.

Choosing which location's stock to show

If your company has more than one location, or sells through Amazon's fulfilment centres, a location selector appears at the left of the filter bar. It decides which location the Stock column, the In stock / Out of stock filter, the stock sort and the export all speak for.

• Your own location is marked (here) and is chosen when the list opens.
• FBA (Amazon) appears when Amazon stock has been loaded for your company. Choosing it shows the units Amazon holds for each item, as of the last Amazon stock snapshot.

Filters

The filter bar under the search box offers only the filters your catalogue actually uses, and only the values that are really present, so a filter can never lead to an empty list for no reason.

Picking several values inside one filter widens the list (brand A or brand B). Using several filters together narrows it (brand A and in stock). Remove a filter by clearing its values, or use Clear all.

Include inactive, at the end of the filter bar, shows inactive items as well. It is off when the list opens, so inactive items are hidden.

The columns

How to read the stock figures:

• A red figure means zero or less. A negative quantity means more has been sold or moved out than was ever received; see Stock Levels and Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand.
• A grey figure means the live quantity has not arrived yet and the list is showing the last quantity this computer synced. It turns black once the live figure arrives.
• FBA units are shown apart from your own stock on purpose. They are already at Amazon and cannot be shipped on an invoice from your own location.

Sorting and moving around

• Click a column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse the order. Numbers sort as numbers.
• Use the ↑ and ↓ keys to move the highlight, and press Enter (or double-click the row) to open the item's window.
• Items with no FBA stock sort together at the end of the FBA column.

The list toolbar

Above the column headings:

• Filters adds a condition on any column, and is where you save a filtered view to use again.
• Columns hides or shows columns. Drag a column divider to change its width; Reset widths puts them back.
• The row count tells you how many rows are showing.
• Email sends the list as it is showing, and Export saves it as CSV, Excel or PDF. Both use exactly the rows on screen, in the order on screen, after your search, filters and sort. The export's subtitle names the location whose stock it shows.

Opening an item

Double-click a row, or highlight it and press Enter. The item's own window opens with its price, tax, stock at every location, last purchase, price levels, recent sales and the buttons Edit Item, Delete, Make Inactive (or Make Active), Accounts…, Custom Fields, Sales history, Purchase history and Item ledger. Several item windows can be open side by side. See An item's history and drill-down.

Adding an item

Click New product. The New product window asks for the name, SKU, selling price and cost, the kind of item (single, with variations, or a group), category, unit, tax, serial tracking and reorder settings. When you click Add product, SeroBooks saves the item on the server, brings your catalogue up to date on this computer and shows the new item in the list. See Add or edit an item for every field.

If the catalogue could not be refreshed straight away you see Added — but this till could not refresh its catalogue yet. Press Refresh in a moment. The item is saved; click Refresh a little later rather than adding it again.

A new item starts with no stock. Stock arrives when you receive it on a bill or through Receive Items, so that every unit has a cost and a vendor behind it.

Duplicating an item

Most catalogues grow by near-copies: the same jar in another size, the same shirt in another colour. To start a new item from an existing one:

1. Click the Duplicate icon on the item's row (hover over it to see Duplicate — a new product copied from this one).
2. The Duplicate product window opens with the name followed by (copy), and the original's price, cost, unit, category, tax, whether the price includes tax, serial tracking, warning level, reorder quantity and lead time already filled in.
3. Type the real name over the selected text, and enter an SKU. The SKU is left empty on purpose, because every item needs its own code.
4. Change anything else that differs, and click Add product.

The copy is a new, separate item. Nothing about the original changes, and it carries none of the original's stock or history.

Only a single item (one price, no variations) can be duplicated from this list. An item with variations, whose rows are priced one by one, shows a greyed icon; clicking it gives "item" has variations, which are priced one by one. Copy it from the Admin product page. If the item cannot be read you see Could not read that product to copy it. Press Refresh and try again.

Making an item inactive

An item you no longer sell but that has history (sales, bills, adjustments or stock) cannot be deleted. Make it inactive instead, as in QuickBooks Desktop:

1. Click the Make Inactive icon on the item's row (an eye with a line through it), or click Make Inactive in the item's window.
2. Read Make item inactive? and click Make Inactive.

An inactive item:

• stays on every invoice, bill and other entry that already uses it, and in your reports;
• keeps its stock and its value in inventory (the confirmation says how many are on hand);
• is no longer offered when you add a line to an invoice, bill, purchase order, other form, stock adjustment, transfer or label run;
• is hidden on the Item List until you turn on Include inactive.

To use it again, turn on Include inactive, then click the Make Active icon on its row (or Make Active in its window). Making an item inactive or active needs the Edit Product right.

Merging two items

When the same item has been entered twice, its stock is split between two records, its reorder point never fires, and its reports show two costs. Merge… makes them one.

1. Click Merge….
2. In Which two products are the same item?, search and tick the two records, then click Next.
3. In Merge two products, pick the one to KEEP. Its name is what appears on every future document; the other is marked RETIRE.
4. Read what will move: the number of sold lines, purchase lines and stock adjustments recorded against the retired item, and the stock that will be added to the kept one. If nothing is recorded against the retired item, SeroBooks says so and simply retires it.
5. Click Merge, and confirm Merge and keep "item"?.

The merge cannot be undone from the app. SeroBooks refuses a merge that would not be safe and tells you why before you can start, for example when the two items are of different kinds (a single item and one with variations) or have different numbers of variations.

Permissions

See Roles and permissions explained.

Tips

• To change prices, costs or reorder points on many items at once, use Change Item Prices or Lists ▸ Add/Edit Multiple List Entries… with Items chosen. See Add/Edit Multiple List Entries.
• For the value of your stock, use the inventory reports (Reports ▸ Inventory), for example Inventory Valuation Summary and Inventory Stock Status by Item. See Inventory reports.
• To print shelf labels for items, use Barcode and item labels.

Common problems

"No products match" but I know the item exists. A search word or a filter is excluding it, or the item is inactive. Clear the search box, choose Clear all in the filter bar and turn on Include inactive. If it is still missing, click Refresh: it downloads the whole catalogue again, so an item added on another computer, or one this computer never received, appears. If a thin amber line says Still downloading items, the catalogue is still arriving in the background.

"No products yet." Your catalogue is empty. Click New product, or bring your items across with Import from QuickBooks.

"Could not read the local catalog". The list could not read the catalogue copy on this computer. Click Try again. If it keeps happening, close SeroBooks and open it again.

The stock figure is grey. The live quantity has not arrived yet. Wait a moment or click Refresh. If the Stock may be stale — retrying pill stays amber, check your internet connection.

A quantity is negative. More has gone out than has come in on documents. Enter the missing bill or receipt, or count the stock and record an adjustment. See Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand.

There is no Merge… button. Your role does not have the Merge Products right. Ask an administrator.

Related articles

• Add or edit an item
• An item's history and drill-down
• Item accounts: income, cost of goods sold and inventory asset
• Services
• Change Item Prices
• Stock Levels