Items

Items are the goods or services that you deal with in your business.

Whenever you create transactions for your customers or vendors, you can add these items and their details will be auto-populated.

Create Item

To create an item in Zoho Books:

• Go to the Items module in the left sidebar and select Items.
• Click + New in the right side of the page.
• Enter the Type, Name and other details.

New Item

Sales Information

Fields	Description
Rate	Rate at which you sell the item to your customers. This rate will be reflected on your sales transactions like invoices, sales orders, etc.
Account	Account used to track sales of the item.
Description	Add notes related to sales of the item.

Purchase Information

Fields	Description
Rate	Rate at which you buy the item from your vendors. This rate will be reflected on your purchase transactions like bills, purchase orders, etc.
Account	The Cost of Goods Sold account is used for tracking the purchase made for items in Zoho Books.
Description	Add notes related to purchases of the item.

Inventory Information

To enable inventory for the item:

• Select the box Track Inventory for this item.
• Fill in the required fields.

Track Inventory

Fields	Description
Account	Account which tracks the inventory of the item. By default, it is Inventory Asset.
Opening Stock	Quantity of the item which you have in hand on the opening balance date.
Opening Stock rate per unit	Cost at which you purchased the item for the opening stock.
Reorder Point	After the stock of the item reaches this level, you will receive a notification.
Preferred Vendor	The vendor from whom you wish to purchase this item.

Associate Tags

You can also associate reporting tags to items in Zoho Books.

• After entering all the required details, click Save.

Inventory for Items

In Zoho Books, you can enter an opening stock for your items. Whenever you make sales or purchase transactions for items in Zoho Books, this stock gets auto-calculated accordingly. For example, let’s say you enter the opening stock for item A as 100. Then, you make an invoice for a customer by selling 70 units of Item A . Now, the stock will get reduced to 30 (100-70). You now decide to purchase 100 units of item A from your vendor and create a bill for the same. Now the stock will be increased to 130 (100+30). This is how inventory tracking works in Zoho Books.

---

Import Items

If you already have a list of items, you can import them into Zoho Books in the CSV, TSV or XLS format.

To know the format of the import, i.e. the columns and data to be included in the import file, you can download the sample import file which we’ll be looking at in the steps below.

• Go to the Items module and select Items.
• Click the More icon in the top right of the page.
• Select Import Items.
• Click the Choose File button under Upload file. You can download the sample file for your reference by clicking sample file.
• Click Next.

Choose File

• You can choose to Skip or Overwrite records. If you choose to overwrite records, you will have to choose a unique field (Item Name, Item ID or SKU) which will be mapped with the equivalent field from the import file. If the values match, then its corresponding fields will be overwritten with the data in the import file.

• Choose the Character Encoding and File Delimiter for your file.

• Click Next.

Overwrite Records

• Ensure that all the fields are mapped correctly in the Map Fields page.
• Mark the box Save these selections for use during future imports if you want to use the similar import format next time.
• Click Next.

Overwrite Records Map Fields

• In the Preview window, click Import.

Import Items

---

Import Opening Stock

You can import the opening stock of your items to update the opening stock quantity, opening stock value, serial numbers, batch details, and bin locations for multiple items at once.

To import opening stock:

• Go to the Items module and select Items.
• Click the More Actions icon in the top right corner of the page.
• Hover over Import and select Import Opening Stock.
• In the Item Opening Stock - Select File page, click Choose File to select the file from your computer that you want to import or click the dropdown for more upload options.
  • Attach From Desktop: Upload files from your computer.
  • Attach From Cloud: Upload files from your cloud account.
  • Attach From Documents: Upload files from documents saved in Zoho Books.

• After selecting the file, fill in the following fields:
  • Character Encoding: The default is UTF-8 (Unicode). Ensure you select the correct encoding based on your file.
  • File Delimiter: The default is Comma (,). Modify the delimiter based on your file.
• Click Next>.
• In the Map Fields page, configure the following details:
  • Default Data Formats: By default, the Date is set to Select format at field level, and the Decimal Format is set to 1234567.89. Click Edit icon to customize the format if needed.
  • Map the Zoho Books Fields to the corresponding Imported File Headers.
• Check Save these selections for use during future imports to reuse the mapped fields for future imports.
• Click Next>.
• In the Preview page, review the mapped fields and click Import.

The opening stock will be updated for the items. Any records with errors will be skipped. You can correct the errors in the import file and import them again.

---

Export Opening Stock

You can export the opening stock details to review your current opening stock, make changes, and import it again to update your records in bulk.

To export opening stock:

• Go to the Items on the left side bar and select Items.
• Click the More Actions icon in the top right corner of the page.
• Hover over Export and select Export Opening Stock.
• In the Export Item Opening Stock pop-up, configure the following export options.
  • Module: By default, displays Item Opening Stock as the selected module.
  • All Items: Select this option to export all items.
  • Composite Items: Select this option to export composite items only.
  • Decimal Format: Select the decimal format for numeric values in the export file.
  • Export File Format: Choose the format of the export file. The available formats are CSV, XLS, and XLSX.
  • File Protection Password: Enter a password to encrypt the export file and protect it from unauthorised access.
  • Under Select the additional fields you want to export, check the fields to include in the file:
    • Batch Numbers: Includes batch details such as batch ID, batch reference number, manufacturer batch number, manufactured date, expiry date, selling price, MRP, and quantity.
    • Serial Numbers: Includes the serial numbers associated with each item.
    • Bin Locations: Includes the bin name and bin quantity for each item.
• Click Export.

The opening stock details will be exported and downloaded in the selected file format.