Item Group

An Item Group is a branch of a tree that sorts items into families such as Raw Material, Products, Services or Office Furniture. Its real value is the defaults it carries: a default income account, expense account, cost center and tax template that flow down to every item in the group unless the item overrides them. That means a new item in the Products group automatically sells through Sale of Goods and buys into Stock In Hand without anyone remembering the accounts. Reports such as COGS By Item Group and Stock Value by Item Group summarise by this field, so a loose or inconsistent grouping makes those reports meaningless. The group itself never posts to the ledger.

1. 01Go to Stock > Item Group > New, or open the tree view from the list.
2. 02Type the group name and pick the parent group, such as All Item Groups.
3. 03Tick Is Group only if other groups will sit under it.
4. 04In Item Group Defaults add the company and default income, expense and cost center accounts.
5. 05Add a default Item Tax Template if every item in the group carries the same VAT rate.
6. 06Save, then pick the group on each Item so the defaults apply.

Create under Setup > Item Group and pick one on every Item.

Group Office Furniture for chairs and tables.