Overview of importing inventory items

In QuickBooks Desktop and inventory item list is used to track the products that are held in inventory and are purchased and sold by the business. Using the Zed Axis you can import inventory items from text files or from Excel spreadsheets directly into QuickBooks Desktop.

Steps to import inventory items

First download and install the Zed Axis software on your computer. Then follow these steps:

Open your QuickBooks company file as Administrator and open Zed Axis
Select your text file or spreadsheet which contains the inventory items that you want to import.
Set up the a Mapping of the columns in your inventory items import file to the corresponding fields in QuickBooks
Click Import and your inventory items will be directly added to your QuickBooks company file:

More help?

For more information about importing inventory items into QuickBooks, search the Knowledge Base, watch the movies in the Learning Centre, or raise a ticket with Zed Support

Where the fields appear in QuickBooks

Import inventory item

Detailed description of the fields you can map

QuickBooks field	Type	Description
Name	str 31	MANDATORY: The name of the inventory item as it appears in QuickBooks, name must be unique unless it has a Parent Ref. For example if the Item Full Name is Widgit:Green:Small then the Name = Small and the ParentFullName = Widgit:Green
Barcode	Str 50	The barcode number for the item
IsActive	true or false	Whether the item is currently enabled for use by QuickBooks. The default is true
ParentFullName	str	The parent name of the inventory item name, referred to as Sub-item in QuickBooks item list, For example if the Item Full Name is Widgit:Green:Small then the parent name is Widgit:Green
Manufacturer Part Number	str 31	The part number used by the manufacturer of the item
Unit of Measure Set Name	str 31	The unit of measure set consists of a base unit and a number of related units
Is Tax Included	true or false	Whether Prices includes tax or not. Only supported in CA, UK and AU versions of QuickBooks
Sales Tax Code	str 3	Tax code for the item used when selling
Sales Desc	str 4095	Description used when the item is sold
Sales Price	price	Price charged for the item
Income Account	str 159	MANDATORY: Refers to the Income account used when the item is sold
Purchase Desc	str 4095	Description used for the item when bought
Purchase Price	price	Price of the item when bought
Purchase Tax Code	str 3	Tax code used when the item is bought
COGS Account	str 159	MANDATORY: Refers to the account that QuickBooks uses to track the original cost of the goods when bought
Pref Vendor	str 41	Name of the vendor as appear in QuickBooks where the item is usually purchased from
Asset Account	str 159	MANDATORY: Asset account for the inventory item
Reorder Point	quan	Minimum quantity that stock falls to before item needs to be reordered
Quantity On Hand	quan	Quantity held in available stock
Max	quan	Maximum quantity to be held in stock
Total Value	amt	Total value of stock held
Inventory Date	date	Date of valuation

Need to import Custom fields on Inventory Items? More here

Troubleshooting Common Errors

The COGS account cannot be changed - This error occurs when trying to modify an Inventory Item that has been used on a historical transaction in QuickBooks, due to the Inventory valuation calculations and the impact on balance sheet and on Closed Periods, restrictions are imposed by QuickBooks on modifying the COGS Account. As a workaround you could modify the name of the item make inactive and then create a new Item with the required COGS Account.

Invalid Parent Specified - This error occurs when trying to modify a inventory item and the Parent Ref Full Name that has been specified does not exist or is not the correct parent for the item that you are importing. Please check that the parent name appears correctly. Further explanation of how parent names should appear is provided in the table above.

Article ID: 137, Created: October 21, 2011 at 6:29 AM, Modified: May 19 at 11:18 PM

Feedback

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Where is the option for max reorder point?
Frimet Guttman (August 4, 2017 at 4:46 PM)

The field Max has been added to the V12.1 release of Zed Axis
Steve (March 8, 2018 at 3:17 AM)

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How do I import into Custom Fields?
Yvonne L. Gomez (March 5, 2018 at 1:31 AM)

Hi Yvonne, you can import custom fields on inventory items but you need to do it as a separate import type called Custom Fields you will find a detailed explanation on how to do that here:

http://support.zed-systems.com/kb/a156/import-custom-fields-into-quickbooks.aspx
Steve (March 8, 2018 at 1:11 AM)