In QuickBooks Desktop, an inventory item is any merchandise or part that a business purchases, tracks as inventory, and then resells. In QuickBooks, information about an inventory item is grouped into three categories:

  1. Purchase Information: PurchaseDesc, PurchaseCost, COGSAccountRef, and PrefVendorRef.
  2. Sales Information: SalesDesc, SalesPrice, and SalesTaxCodeRef.
  3. Inventory Information: AssetAccountRef, ReorderPoint, QuantityOnHand, TotalValue, and InventoryDate.

To see all of the request parameters and response fields for , check out our client library’s amazing autocomplete.

In addition to the inventory item operations documented herein, Conductor can fetch, create, and update every other inventory-related QuickBooks Desktop data type:

  • Inventory assembly items
  • Inventory transfers
  • Inventory adjustments
  • Inventory sites

We will document these data types in the future. In the meantime, contact us if you need help with them.

Fetching inventory items

It is quite simple to fetch inventory items. There are many optional request parameters you can use to filter the results.

Fetching all inventory items
const inventoryItems =
  await conductor.qbd.itemInventory.query("{{END_USER_ID}}");
Fetching all inventory items with a filter
const inventoryItems = await conductor.qbd.itemInventory.query(
  "{{END_USER_ID}}",
  {
    NameFilter: {
      MatchCriterion: "StartsWith",
      Name: "Test Inventory Items",
    },
  },
);

Creating inventory items

Creating vendors is also quite simple. There are many optional request parameters available, but the only required one is Name.

Creating an inventory item
const END_USER_ID = "{{END_USER_ID}}";
// Use unique names for mock objects because QBD requires each to be unique.
const UNIQUE_SUFFIX = Math.random().toFixed(6);

// An inventory item requires an income account, asset account, and a COGS
// account. These will usually already exist for an end-user, but we create
// mock accounts below for this example:
const incomeAccount = await client.qbd.account.add(END_USER_ID, {
  Name: `Test Income Account ${UNIQUE_SUFFIX}`,
  AccountType: "Income",
});
const assetAccount = await client.qbd.account.add(END_USER_ID, {
  Name: `Test Asset Account ${UNIQUE_SUFFIX}`,
  AccountType: "FixedAsset",
});
const cogsAccount = await client.qbd.account.add(END_USER_ID, {
  Name: `Test COGS Account ${UNIQUE_SUFFIX}`,
  AccountType: "CostOfGoodsSold",
});

const inventoryItem = await client.qbd.itemInventory.add(END_USER_ID, {
  Name: `Test Inventory Item ${UNIQUE_SUFFIX}`,
  IncomeAccountRef: {
    ListID: incomeAccount.ListID,
  },
  AssetAccountRef: {
    ListID: assetAccount.ListID,
  },
  COGSAccountRef: {
    ListID: cogsAccount.ListID,
  },
  PurchaseCost: "50.00",
  SalesPrice: "100.00",
});