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Product account codes

Every product can point to the specific ledger accounts Sales Scribe uses when it records that product's sales and costs. You usually don't need to set these — they fall back to…

Product account codes

Every product can point to the specific ledger accounts Sales Scribe uses when it records that product's sales and costs. You usually don't need to set these — they fall back to sensible defaults — but you can override them per product when you want a particular item to post to a particular account.

Before you begin

  • You set these on a product, in the Ledger Accounts section of the product form — see Add a product or service.
  • The fallback defaults live in Settings → Accounting (your organisation's default product accounts) and, optionally, on each category.

The accounts you can set

The Ledger Accounts section is headed "Optional — defaults to category or organization settings". A product can carry:

  • Sales Account — where the income from selling it is recorded. Shown for every product.
  • COGS Account — where its cost of goods sold is recorded when sold ("Cost of Goods Sold — expensed when product is sold"). Shown only for stock items for resale (Track Inventory and For Resale both on).
  • Inventory Asset Account — where the value of stock on hand is held ("Asset account for inventory on hand"). Shown only for stock items for resale.
  • Purchase Expense Account — where the cost is recorded when you buy it. Shown for services and non-resale items.
  • Purchases Account — a direct purchases account. Shown for services and non-resale items.

Which fields appear changes with the Inventory Options you choose, so you only ever see the accounts that make sense for that kind of product:

  • Stock item for resale: Sales, COGS, Inventory Asset.
  • Service or overhead, or a tracked item you don't resell: Sales, Purchase Expense, Purchases.

Leaving them blank — the fallback

Each account list has a "use default" option, and that is the normal choice. When an account is left blank, Sales Scribe works out which account to use at the moment it posts, in this order:

  1. the account set on the product (if any);
  2. otherwise the matching account on the product's category (if set);
  3. otherwise your organisation's default product account from Settings → Accounting (Default Sales, Default Purchase/Expense, Default COGS, Default Inventory Asset).

So you only need to set an account on a product to override the category or organisation default for that one item.

Auto-filling from the category

When you choose a Category on the product form, Sales Scribe can fill several fields from that category to save you time:

  • the Tax Rate, a SKU prefix, and the Track Inventory / For Resale options; and
  • any ledger accounts the category defines (Sales, Purchase Expense, COGS, Inventory Asset, Purchases).

These are only starting points — you can change any of them before saving. Setting the accounts up once on your categories means most products need nothing set here at all.

Important notes

  • Accounts that don't apply to a product are cleared automatically when you save. A stock item for resale can't carry a Purchase Expense or Purchases account, and a service can't carry a COGS or Inventory Asset account — the form hides those fields and the save ignores them.
  • If a required account is missing everywhere (product, category and organisation default) when you try to issue an invoice, issuing fails with a message asking you to complete your accounting settings.
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