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Is there a way to search by/display Item Description in the Inventory Center?

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
December 11, 2018
4 replies
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Quickbooks has a 31 character limit for item names. A lot of my item names are longer than that and abbreviations aren't always helpful when other employees are using QuickBooks to search for and add these items onto billing, bidding, etc. for jobs. QuickBooks won't allow me to have multiple items with the same names (understandable) but sometimes the only difference between these item names are the sizes or some other small property about them so I need to list that in the description. I've read about categories and creating parent types, but some of our inventory items have several categories they fall under... we are an electrical services company that has thousands of items that we use for jobs. When we can't always use the search bar to look for an item in this huge list because of various abbreviations, it makes it difficult to locate the correct item (unless you know the exact item number, but if an employee doesn't have this and they need to get this done quickly, this becomes a problem).

Like I mentioned above, many items have several categories they fit under, and it would be a huge amount of work and hassle to edit each of those thousands of items and add category columns so that all the proper categories are in place. One way I have thought about getting around this problem is to write the full item name in the description (since description allows more characters) and have the description displayed next to the item name in my Inventory Center. Is this even possible? And if so, would I be able to enter text in the search bar to look for an item and have that text produce results from the description category? I want to check before I do this because it would still require me to do a significant amount of editing to my inventory, though it would be less than adding all the categories for each item.

If Quickbooks even had a 50 character limit I would easily be able to accomplish what I need without going through all this hassle but in order to get around this limit I need to find another solution. Someone please help! Thank you

QuickBooks Desktop

Best answer by qbteachmt

This is a Basic List Management tool:

Right Click the Items List, the Items listed in Inventory Center, Chart of accounts, Customer or Vendor Names, etc, to see the Customize Columns tool. Add Description from the left to the right.

Now, in Centers, if you are viewing it, you can "find" it, from the Find box above the names.

Also, do you know how to open it Full View? Description is already there. The smaller view shows the transactions on the right; Full View shows only the List.

I have some screenshots that are Customer Center; there are exact same functions for your Items Center.

qbteachmtAnswer

This is a Basic List Management tool:

Right Click the Items List, the Items listed in Inventory Center, Chart of accounts, Customer or Vendor Names, etc, to see the Customize Columns tool. Add Description from the left to the right.

Now, in Centers, if you are viewing it, you can "find" it, from the Find box above the names.

Also, do you know how to open it Full View? Description is already there. The smaller view shows the transactions on the right; Full View shows only the List.

I have some screenshots that are Customer Center; there are exact same functions for your Items Center.

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arkvalleyinfoAuthor

Hi, thanks for your response. I actually just figured this out a few hours after I posted my question. Thanks for the helpful screenshots!

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arkvalleyinfoAuthor

I am wondering if it would help you to categorize things in the Item List. If you look at the New item window, you can name something then make it a Subtime of a specific category.

For instance, if you have an Item called LIghts, then items such as flood lights, incandecent lights, CFL lights, and so on would all be subitems of Lights. Once the word Lights is typed in, a list of all the various lights shows on-screen and the specific item can be selected.

I totally realize that rearranging everything to make it easier to find a specific item would be a HUGE undertaking, but it might save time and confusion in the future...

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arkvalleyinfoAuthor

Hi there, thank you for your response. I did think of using sub-item categories, as mentioned in my question details. I was trying to find out if there was a more simple solution, since I do have thousands of items and several categories for each... But if there isn't a simpler solution I will be adding the sub-item categories. Hope there's something else I can do, thanks for your response!

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arkvalleyinfoAuthor

I don't put names in items name, only number because I have the same problem that you. My company is for food, and you can imagine how many items similar? I put for categories numbers and them the last is the classification. In the description I put characteristic of the product, and in the new note the rest.

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arkvalleyinfoAuthor

Hi there, thanks for responding. That's an interesting way of getting around those pesky character limits... I wish I would have been able to do much earlier, but most of the (thousands!) of items are already in QuickBooks. I can't erase them so I would have to go in and edit every single item if I were to organize it this way. What a hassle... I wish QuickBooks just had a larger character limit or none at all... Thanks for the suggestion though.

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elloyd3710

Our company is also in the electrical field and while we came up with an item number system to get around most of this we run into the same multiple category issue which is subjective to the opinion of the person entering the parts into the system. The easiest solution Quickbooks could allow for is to: include the descriptions of items as a cross-reference so as you're typing into the item list it would also search the description for the item.

In our trade there is an official product designation (what gets used mostly but not what people call it), the name a supply house would call it, and the name a person in the field would call it; again when searching the list you have to guess what the item was entered in under.

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