QuickBooks 2012 Inventory Notes and Item List Problems
One of the new features added to the 2012 version of QuickBooks was item notes – the ability to add a note to your item list records just as you could to many other lists in QuickBooks. Have you used that feature? Have you noticed that sometimes your notes disappear? Or, have you noticed that you are getting multiple items in the item list with blank item names?
“Notes” in QuickBooks are helpful, a freeform place to enter text that is separate from the item descriptions that show on invoices and purchase orders. They are simple to use, just click the Notes button in the Edit Itemwindow.
Unfortunately, at least up to this point, Intuit hasn’t made this really useful. I’ve not found any inventory (or other) report that lets you include these notes, they aren’t included in the Excel export of the item list, and they aren’t included in the QuickBooks SDK so third party reporting tools can’t access it. But, you can see them when editing the item!
There are a couple of problems with this feature, though, that I’d like to point out. Along with ways to get around the problems.
Disappearing Notes
Sometimes when you enter item notes, they disappear! You can enter the information, but when you go back they are gone, and there isn’t any way to get that information back. This can be frustrating if you are entering a lot of notes, which just disappear.
There is a workaround to prevent this. Don’t add notes when you add a new item, always add them when editing an existing item. QuickBooks 2012 has a bug, if you add a note at the same time that you are adding the item, the notes are not saved. So, add the item, save it, edit the item and then you can add your item notes.
Simple! Now, I just wish there was a way to get those notes into a report…
Items with a Blank Item Name
Here’s another item list error that I noticed while exploring the Disappearing Notes problem. My item list has multiple Service Items that have no item name?
How can that be? If you try to add an item without a name, QuickBooks won’t let you. Do I have some sort of file damage, or have I been importing incorrect records through some sort of import? Well, no, I can see this in a brand new QuickBooks company file that has no existing items to start with, that I don’t do any importing with. What is going on?
This is tied in with the prior problem, the “disappearing item notes”. Each time I click the Notes button in the Add Item window, when adding a new item, QuickBooks adds a new service item to the item list. I can delete the item, I can edit it and add a name. Strange!
If I try to verify the file, the verify fails. If I rebuild the company file, QuickBooks detects that there are items with no name, and attempts to correct the problem. You’ll see some odd “Rebuilt” item names in the list. After this, the verify will succeed.
These tests were all performed with QuickBooks Accountant 2012 (Premier) release R8. I haven’t looked at Enterprise, or older releases. It isn’t a problem in 2011 and before, because Item Notes were added in 2012.
My thanks to Judy DeFeo for pointing out the disappearing notes problem (which led me to the second problem), and the workaround, in the Sleeter Group Consultants Network member forum. If you are an accounting professional working with QuickBooks there are a lot of tips you can pick up in the member’s-only discussion forum.
Update: QuickBooks 2012 R9 has been released and it should fix this problem.
Category: QuickBooks Tips/Tricks, Working with QuickBooks
About the Author (Author Profile)
Charlie Russell is the founder of CCRSoftware. He's been involved with the small business software industry since the mid 70's, and remembers releasing his first commercial accounting software product when you had a one-floppy disk drive system, loading the program from one floppy and then replacing that with the other floppy to hold the data. He has a special interest in inventory and manufacturing software for small businesses. Charlie is a Certified Advanced QuickBooks ProAdvisor with additional certifications for QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Enterprise. He also is a Xero Certified Partner. Visit his CCRSoftware web site for information about his QuickBooks add-on products. Charlie can be reached at charlie.russell@sleeter.com He is also the author of the California Wildflower Hikes blog and a regular blog contributor to the Intuit Inner Circle. Connect with Charlie at GoogleSubscribe
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I have not tried the workaround yet to prevent losing notes, but I have been told by another employee that the notes ALWAYS disappear – whether it’s when they’ve been entered with a new item or in the editing mode.
I’ve never see that happen myself. Are you using a current revision? The 2012 product is up to the R8 level now…
It happens in Enterprise Solutions as well. Thanks for the heads up on why it keeps happening.
One way to see all the Notes is to export the Item List to an IIF file.
Thanks for that tip, Cliff. I hardly ever use IIF, and I’m surprised that they included this there. I didn’t even think to look.
There is a “Notes” column in the IIF Item List even before the 2012 release (I just noticed), although it has always been empty as far as I can tell.
What I noticed is that when the list is exported from the Item list using the Excel->Export All Items functions, the notes are not exported.
Niether is is possible to import notes.
Dave, as Cliff mentioned, the IIF export will send out the notes (and I assume the import will also). I mentioned that the Excel export of the item list doesn’t include notes. They are very limited.
QuickBooks 2012 R9 should address this problem. See http://www.sleeter.com/blog/2012/06/quickbooks-2012-r9/
A client reported this problem to me. I was testing it and noted that even when editing an item after it was saved, the notes sometimes disappered as well. We were both experiencing the disappearing notes in QBES 12, R8.
Danny, the R9 release should resolve problems here.
We are using Enterprise 2012 R9, and our notes are still disappearing — even when we go into an existing item and do an edit. Does anyone know if this will be repaired soon?
Cheryl, I don’t see this problem on my QBOE V12 R9 system. This sounds like you have an issue with your particular installation, perhaps a problem in the file itself. Hard to say from here. If you create a brand new test file, does the same thing occur?