QuickBooks 2005: The Missing Manual

Hiding and Deleting Items

Deleting items and hiding them are two totally different actions, although the end result is the same—QuickBooks doesn't display the items in the Item List window. The only time you'll delete an item is when you create it by mistake and want to eliminate it permanently from the Item List. As you might discover when you attempt to delete an item, the only time you can delete one is if you have never used it in a transaction.

Hiding items doesn't have the same restrictions and offers a couple of advantages to boot. First, when you hide items, they don't appear in your Item List, which prevents you from selecting the wrong item as you create an invoice or other sales form. Unlike deleting, hiding is reversible. You can switch items to active status if you start selling them again. Suppose you hid the item for bell bottom hip huggers in 1974. Decades later, when 70s retro becomes cool again, you can reactivate the item and use it on sales forms. Of course, you'll probably want to edit the cost and sales price to reflect today's higher prices.

Hiding Items

When you've sold an item in the past, the only way to remove it from the Item List is to hide it. Hiding items means that your Item List shows only the items you currently use. You'll scroll less to find the items you want and you're less likely to pick the wrong item by mistake. If you start to sell an item again, you can reactivate it so that it appears on the Item List once more. If you're wondering how you make an item reappear if it isn't visible, here's a guide to hiding and reactivating items in your Item List:

• Hide an item. In the Item List, right-click the item and choose Make Item Inactive from the shortcut menu. The item disappears from the Item List.

• View all items, active or inactive. At the bottom of the Item List window, turn on the "Include inactive" checkbox. QuickBooks displays a column with an X as its heading and displays an X in that column for every inactive item in the list. The "Include inactive" checkbox is grayed out when all the items are active.

• Reactivate an item. First, turn on the "Include inactive" checkbox to display all items. To reactivate the item, click the X next to its name. When you click the X next to a parent item, QuickBooks opens the Activate Group dialog box. If you want to reactivate all the subitems as well as the parent, click Yes.

Tip

If you find that you're constantly hiding items that you no longer sell, your item list might be too specific for your constantly changing product list. For example, if you create a hundred items for the clothes that are in with teenagers in May, those items will be obsolete by June. Consider creating more generic items, such as pants, shorts, t-shirts, and bathing suits. You can reuse these items season after season, year after year without worrying about running out of room on the Item List, which is limited to 14,500 items. (To see how many items you have, press F2 to open the Product Information window and then head to the List Information section.)

Deleting Items

If you improperly create an item and catch your mistake immediately, deleting the offender is no sweat. Use any one of these methods to delete an item:

• In the Item List window, select the item you want to delete and press Ctrl+D.

• If commands on menus are more to your liking, in the Item List, select the item, and then choose Edit→Delete Item.

• In the menu at the bottom of the window, click Item and then choose Delete.

If you try to delete an item used in even one transaction, QuickBooks warns you that you can't delete the item. For example, you created an item by mistake and then compounded the problem by inadvertently adding the item to an invoice. When you realize your error and try to delete the item, QuickBooks refuses to oblige. If you used the item in one or two recent transactions, you can probably find those transactions and replace the item without thinking too hard. When you've removed the item from all transactions, use one of the methods above to delete it.

If you used the item in numerous transactions, it's easier to find the transactions with the Sales by Item Detail report, which includes a heading for each item you sell, and groups transactions underneath each heading. If you sell lots of items, you probably want the report to show the transactions only for the item you want to delete. Here's how you modify the Sales By Item Detail report and then edit the transactions:

1. To create a Sales By Item Detail report, choose Reports→Sales→Sales By Item Detail.

   QuickBooks opens the Sales By Item Detail report in its own window.

2. To modify the report, in the button bar at the top of the Sales by Item Detail window, click Modify Report.

   QuickBooks opens the Modify Report: Sales By Item Detail dialog box. To produce a report with transactions for one item, modify the date range and filter the report based on the item name, as demonstrated in Figure 4-11.

3. To edit a transaction to remove an item, in the Sales By Item Detail window, double-click the transaction.

   Based on the type of transaction you double-click, QuickBooks opens the corresponding dialog box. For example, if you double-click an invoice, QuickBooks opens the Create Invoices dialog box and displays the invoice you chose.

4. In the Item Code column, click the cell that contains the item you want to delete, click the downward-pointing arrow in the cell, and then choose the correct item from the Item drop-down list.

5. To save the transaction with the revised item, click Save & Close.

   You'll know that you've successfully eliminated the item from all sales transactions when the report in the Sales By Item Detail window shows no transactions.

   Tip

   To be sure that you have removed all links to the item, in the menu bar at the top of the report window, click Refresh to update the report based on the current data in your QuickBooks file.

   

   Figure 4-11. Top: If you know when you first used the item in a transaction, type or click that date in the From box. QuickBooks sets the date in the To box to the current date, which is perfect for this situation. Alternatively, in the Dates drop-down list, choose a pre-defined date range, such as This Fiscal Year-to-Date. Bottom: To filter the report by the item name, click the Filters tab. On the Filters tab, in the Filter list, choose Item. In the Item drop-down list, click the downward-pointing arrow and then select the item you want to delete. QuickBooks displays the modifications to the report in the Current Filter Choices section. Give these settings the once-over and if they look correct, click OK to revise the report.

6. To close the report window, in the upper right corner of the window, click the Close box.

7. Finally, back in the Item List window, select the item you want to delete and press Ctrl+D. In the Delete Item message box, click Yes to confirm the deletion of the item.