Inventory items are your price list: the products and services you put on invoices, estimates and supplier bills. Every invoice line starts with an item, which fills in the description, price and tax for you. Despite the name, Avaza doesn't track stock levels.

Administrators and Finance Managers manage items in Settings › Inventory Items. New accounts start with four: Timesheet, Expense, Product and Service.

Add an item

  1. Go to Settings › Inventory Items and click Add Item.

  2. Enter the Item Name. It's the only required field, and no two items can have the same name.

  3. Optionally add a SKU and a Description. SKU stands for stock keeping unit: your own product code, which must also be unique. The description is copied onto each line you add the item to.

  4. Under For Sales, enter the Sale Price and choose the Tax Rate for invoices and estimates. Under For Purchases, enter the Cost Price and the Tax Rate for supplier bills.

  5. Click Save.

The tax rates come from Settings › Tax. If an item is taxed differently from the rest, for example a product among your services, set up its rate there first. See setting up tax.

You can also add an item while you fill out an invoice or estimate: click Add Inventory Item under the line's Type list. For a long price list, such as products exported from an online store, an Administrator can import a CSV file in Settings › Import Data.

Use items on invoices

On an invoice, each line's Type is an inventory item. Choose it first: the Description, Qty, Unit Price, Disc % and Tax Rate fields open once you do, filled in from the item. You can still change them on the line. See filling out an invoice.

An invoice line for Fernleaf Media: the Type list set to the Expense item, the Add Inventory Item link below it, and the Description, Qty, Unit Price, Disc % and Tax Rate fields

Estimates, credit notes, recurring invoices and retainer subscriptions use the same items. Supplier bills use the item's cost price and purchase tax instead.

To see how much of each item you've invoiced, with its cost and margin, run the Inventory Item Summary report. For the items on your supplier bills, use the Bill Item List report.

Hide or delete an item

To stop using an item without losing it, hide it. Click the item in the list, tick Hide from Invoicing or Hide from Bills, and click Save. The item no longer appears in the Type list on new lines, stays on the documents that already use it, and shows a Hidden label in the list. Hide from Invoicing covers invoices, estimates, credit notes, recurring invoices and retainers.

To delete an item, click it and click Delete at the bottom right of Item Details. Deleting can't be undone, and you can only delete an item that nothing uses. Avaza won't delete an item that is:

  • the Default Inventory Item for Timesheets, Default Inventory Item for Expenses or Default Bill Inventory Item for Timesheets;
  • on an invoice, credit note or supplier bill;
  • on a recurring invoice or retainer subscription;
  • on an estimate;
  • on a task's fixed amount.

Hide it instead. The default items for timesheets and expenses on invoices can't be hidden either. To use a different default, change it in Settings › Invoice & Bill Settings. See invoice and bill settings.

Are inventory items the same as timesheet categories?

No. Timesheet categories describe the kind of work people log time against, such as Design or Copywriting. They're set up for each project in its settings, and they help you report on the different types of work. When a project bills by Category Hourly Rate, the rate is set on the category; with Person Hourly Rate, it's set on each project member. See tracking different types of work. Inventory items are only used for invoicing and bills.

The two meet when you add time to an invoice:

  • Every time line uses the Default Inventory Item for Timesheets from Settings › Invoice & Bill Settings, whatever its category. The line's tax comes from that item.
  • The description is built from the details you tick in Add Time, such as the project, timesheet category, task, person and notes.
  • The price is the time's billable rate from the project, not the item's Sale Price.
  • You can't change the item on a line that came from a timesheet.

Expenses work the same way with the Default Inventory Item for Expenses. So if you invoice by time, one item for time is usually enough: the Timesheet item new accounts start with, set to the tax you charge on your time.

Invoice lines for the Marketing Campaign project: time lines of type Timesheet, described by category, person and task, such as "Design Work – Marcus Lee: Design landing page", and expense lines of type Expense