Xero inventory management: tracked items from a supplier price list

How it works in Xero

• Items: each product is an item with a code, names, purchase and sale prices and tax rates. Xero uses it to fill bills and invoices.
• Tracked items: an item becomes tracked when both the inventory asset account and the cost of goods sold account are set on it. Then Xero keeps its quantity on hand and its average cost.
• What moves the stock: a bill adds quantity and posts to the inventory asset account. An invoice takes it out and posts the cost of goods sold.
• Opening stock: the quantities you already hold go in through the opening balances import for tracked inventory, or an inventory adjustment, once the items exist.
• The ceiling: Xero's own help puts the practical limit around 4,000 tracked items and points larger stockists to a connected inventory app.

Tracked or untracked, line by line, and what the items import can and cannot set, is on the Xero inventory tracking guide.

Where the items come from

• Typed one by one: fine for a few products, not for a whole supplier catalogue.
• The Import Items CSV: Business › Products and services › Import. ItemCode is the key: put the supplier part number there and next month's price list updates the same items instead of creating copies.
• A connected inventory app: the route Xero points to above the 4,000-item ceiling.

The import takes a minute. The time goes into the file before it: a 40-page supplier PDF with section banners, one description covering five sizes, a photographed page from the rep, retyped into the template line by line.

The fast way: the supplier file as an Import Items CSV

The MicroCity engine reads the supplier price list as it arrives, PDF, Excel, scan or photo, and returns a CSV in Xero's Import Items layout: the part number as ItemCode, the supplier price as the purchase price. Fill the inventory and cost of goods sold account columns on the lines you stock, and they come in as tracked items. The layout was tested in a real Xero company: a converted supplier file imported 3 of 3 items. Anything the engine can't read properly is flagged, not guessed. The exact column rules are on the Xero items CSV guide.

Honest limit: the engine returns the import file. It does not connect to your Xero organisation, does not set stock counts and does not keep prices in sync. You import the CSV yourself and check every line first.