A bill has two tabs of lines, as in QuickBooks Desktop. The Items tab is for things on your Item List — stock you buy to sell, and services and non-stock items. The Expenses tab is for everything else, charged straight to an account: rent, hydro, the phone bill, a repair, freight billed on its own. One bill can use both. Each tab's name shows its running total, tax included (for example Expenses $226.00). This article covers every column on both tabs, the tax on each line, and the Freight & duty window that adds landed costs to your stock.
A purchase order has the Items tab only. Its lines work the same way.
The Items tab
Adding items
- Scan or type to add items (name / code)…: type two or more letters of the item's name, its variation or its SKU, or scan its barcode. The matches drop down under the box, each with its barcode, stock and cost. Use ↓ and ↑ to move and Enter to add, or click one. Enter with nothing highlighted adds the first match, which is how a barcode scan works.
- Adding an item that is already on the bill adds one to that line's quantity instead of a second line.
- Grid entry (size / colour): for items with size and colour variations, a grid where you type a quantity in each cell. Each filled cell becomes a line; cells already on the bill top up their line.
- Read the vendor's invoice: fills the lines from the vendor's PDF or photo. See Enter Bills.
The keyboard loop for a pile of bills: scan or type → Tab → QTY → Tab → COST → Tab back to the search box for the next item. Typing into QTY or COST replaces what is there.
The columns
| Column | What to enter / what it means |
|---|---|
| LOCATION | For a stocked item: the location the goods are received into. Leave it to receive at your own location. For a service or non-stock item this column shows Expense account instead — see below. |
| ITEM | The item's name (double-click it for the item's full history, Product 360). Under it: Description — what the vendor's invoice called the line, if you want it kept; the SKU and last paid $… (date) — tap to use (what you paid last time) or catalogue cost $… — tap to use (the cost on the item, for an item never bought before); and the batch and serial fields when they apply. |
| QTY | How many you bought. Required and more than zero. |
| U/M | The item's unit of measure, from the item. |
| COST | The vendor's price for one unit, before any discount on the line and before tax. It starts at the last price you paid. |
| DISC. | A discount the vendor gave on this item. Click it to give one, as a percentage or an amount per unit. The tax is worked out on the discounted price. Shows — when there is none. |
| TAX | The tax rate the vendor charged on this line. See Tax on each line. |
| AMOUNT | Quantity × cost after the discount, before tax. |
| CUSTOMER:JOB | The customer or job this item was bought for, if any. |
| BILLABLE | Tick to charge this cost on to the Customer:Job. It then appears in Add Time/Costs when you invoice them. Available once a Customer:Job is chosen. |
| CLASS | The line's class. Shown when your company uses classes. |
| × | Deletes the line. Ctrl+Del, or right-click the line and choose Delete Line, does the same. |
On a narrow window the table scrolls sideways rather than squashing the item names.
Expense account on a service line
A service, a fee or any item that does not track stock has no stock to put the cost into, so its LOCATION cell becomes Expense account. Click it and choose the account the cost is charged to (Charge "item" to). Only expense and cost of goods sold accounts are offered. Left empty on a new line, the cost goes where QuickBooks sends it: the item's own COGS account (set on the item), or else your default expense account, or else Cost of Goods Sold. It never goes to Inventory, because a service has no stock for a sale to take it back out of. If your company has no expense accounts, SeroBooks says so and points you to the Chart of Accounts.
Batch, expiry and serial numbers
If your company tracks batches or expiry dates (see Lot numbers and expiry), each line has:
- Batch / Lot no.: the batch printed on the goods. Leave it empty and SeroBooks labels it from the bill number.
- Mfg date (when your company records manufacturing dates) and Expiry date. An expiry date already passed is shown in red.
For an item with serial numbers, a received bill shows a SERIALS 0/N chip on the line. Click it and scan one serial for every unit. The chip turns green when every unit has one. The bill cannot be saved until it does. Serials are not asked for on a purchase order (or on a bill still Pending from an earlier version), because nothing has arrived yet. See Serial Number Lookup.
The Expenses tab
| Column | What to enter / what it means |
|---|---|
| ACCOUNT | The account the money is for. Type part of its name or number and pick it from the list under the box. Choosing an account fills the line's tax with the account's usual tax code, if it has one. |
| AMOUNT | The amount for this line. See EXCL. TAX. |
| TAX | The tax the vendor charged on this line. |
| EXCL. TAX | Ticked (the usual state on a bill): the amount you type is before tax, and tax is added on top. Unticked: the amount you type includes the tax; when you leave the box it is turned into the net amount, and the tax is shown beside it (type 113.00 at 13% and it becomes 100.00 with 13.00 tax). Available once the line has a tax rate. |
| MEMO | A note for the line. |
| CUSTOMER:JOB | The customer or job the cost is for. |
| BILLABLE | Tick to charge it on to the Customer:Job. |
| CLASS | The line's class, when your company uses classes. |
| × | Deletes the line (Ctrl+Del). Ctrl+Ins inserts a blank line above. |
A blank line always waits at the bottom; start typing in it to add another. Every line with an amount needs an account, or the bill will not save.
Tax on each line
Every line carries its own tax rate, because a bill records what the vendor actually charged:
- An item line starts with the item's own tax rate. In British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba that is often GST + PST; if the vendor did not charge PST (because you gave them your PST number for goods you resell), change the line to GST only.
- An Expenses line starts with the account's usual tax code.
- Set tax for all lines (above the item table when there is more than one line, and under the totals) sets one rate on every item line. Each line can still be changed afterwards.
- A line whose rate is not on this computer yet shows ?; the tax recorded is kept. See Enter Bills.
Tax on an item line is worked out on the cost after the line's discount. A discount off the whole bill (the DISCOUNT tile) comes off after tax and does not change it.
Recoverable tax (GST/HST, and QST in Quebec) goes to your input tax credit account. Provincial sales tax that cannot be claimed back is added to the cost of the goods or the expense. See Tax on invoices, bills and expenses.
Freight and duty (landed cost)
For goods you import, the real cost of an item is the vendor's price plus the freight, duty, brokerage and insurance you paid to get it here. Freight & duty spreads those charges over the lines of a saved bill, so each item's cost includes them.
- Save the bill, then open it again.
- In the panel on the right, choose Freight & duty.
- Choose Add a charge for each charge, or Use this bill's $… to use the shipping already on the bill.
- For each charge, choose the Charge (Freight, Duty, Brokerage, Insurance or Other), type the Amount, and choose how to Spread it: By value (in proportion to each line's value) or Evenly per unit.
- Under What each line costs, check the cost of one unit of each item: the vendor's price, plus its share (+ $… landed), and the new cost per unit.
- Choose Apply to this bill.
The footer shows Goods $… + charges $…. Applying adds the charges to the value of the stock on the bill and moves them out of the freight account they were first charged to (debit Inventory, credit Freight-in). Sales that already used the stock are re-costed. SeroBooks can refuse, for example when the bill is in a closed period or no freight account is set up in Accounting Setup; the reason is shown in the window.
Freight & duty is on a saved bill in SeroBooks only. Charges on goods later returned to the vendor go back to the freight account.
Common problems
Stock went up but the item's cost looks too low. The shipping on the bill is charged to Freight-in, not added to the stock. To include it in the cost of the goods, use Freight & duty.
A service on an older bill is in Inventory. Bills entered before SeroBooks charged an unchosen service line to its expense account left it on Inventory. Open the bill, click the line's Expense account cell, choose the account and save.
The Expenses line total is not what I typed. You typed a tax-inclusive amount with EXCL. TAX ticked, so tax was added on top. Untick EXCL. TAX and type the amount again.
I cannot save because of serials. A serial-numbered item needs one serial for every unit. Click the SERIALS chip and scan the rest, or reduce the quantity.