Why aren't my inventory sales hitting the asset and expense accounts?

Hello GolferGirl,

QuickBooks Online makes doing your books easy so you can get back to doing what you love. To make sure your books are balanced you'll want to ensure that your inventory items are set up appropriately. Let me go over this.

When creating an Inventory item in QuickBooks Online, the Income and Expense accounts default to Sales of Product Income and Cost of Goods Sold respectively. If you're looking at other accounts for transactions containing these items, this might explain why. If you didn't change these accounts when setting up the items, you can do so by following the steps below:

1. Navigate to the Sales tab from the left menu and go to the Products and Services page.
2. Select the blue Edit button to make changes to an existing inventory item.
3. Use the dropdown menu beneath Income/Expense account to choose the appropriate account.
4. Hit the green Save and close button to save your changes.

Previously created transactions with these inventory items will show in the newly selected accounts. To view the Account history or Run a report for an account, simply navigate to the Chart of Accounts from the Accounting tab on the left. Use the search field or scroll down to find the account, then select Account history or Run report on the right.

To better understand which account to select for your inventory items, or which accounts will be affected by inventory sales, please consult your accountant. They can go over the money-movement process between accounts and recommend the appropriate accounts to use for specific transactions and why. If you're already working with an accountant, select the My Accountant tab from the left and enter their email address to invite them to work on your books with you. If you don't have an accountant yet, the Find a pro to help button on the same page will bring you to our database of QuickBooks Certified accountants that'd be happy to work with you and point you in the right direction.

Enjoy your day!