Service and Non-Inventory Items

Item Types | Inventory Overview

Either service and non-inventory items can be used to sell or charge for non-merchandise services and fees, such as for tailoring, repairs, gift-wrapping, recycling fees, and delivery charges. The on-hand quantity of both these item types is always zero (0).

Non-inventory items are also sometimes used for incidental merchandise items for which you do not wish to track quantities.

Having two item types for these uses allows you to categorize and post the sales to different income accounts in your QuickBooks Desktop financial software and on Point of Sale reports.

To define a service or non-inventory item:

1. Start adding a new item as usual.

2. In the item Type field, select Service or Non-Inventory.

3. Enter information in the other item fields as needed.

- Use the Item Name field to record a description of the service or fee, such as Gift Wrap, Repair Labor, Delivery Charge, Recycling Fee, or Alteration.

- Typically, the average unit cost of these items is $0. Exceptions are when you sub-let a service to an outside company or are purchasing an incidental item, in which case you should enter the unit cost.

- Assign a tax code, if applicable.

- Use the Unit of Measure field, if applicable, to specify the sales unit, e.g. hour, each, piece, etc.

4. Select Save.

Charge for services by the hour

List service or non-inventory items on documents

Learn more about using service items

Collect Government-mandated fees

Use a service item for shipping charges