People new to QB have problems with sub-items and how they are used in QB.

The first thing to understand is that each item in the item list is unique, it does not affect anyother item at all in terms of stocking or selling.

When you make a sub-item in QB it is just a way of putting the items in an order that makes sense to you. As an example:

(Sub_items are shown indented here)

Romex wire

romex 12-2
romex 12-3
romex 14-2
ect

You do not stock or sell the parent item. You buy, stock, and sell the sub-item.

You can however get reports on the whole group of sub-items by reporting on the parent item. If you right click on the parent item and select Quick Report, that report will include all sub-items.

The parent item will show in the item list the total quantity on hand of all the sub-items and the total average cost of all the sub-items. Kind of a useless set of numbers in my opinion.

If you sell the parent item it does NOT include the sub-items. No sub-item(s) will be sold.

If you sell a sub-item it can look like you sold the parent, since the parent will show a decrease in the quantity on hand, but remember that all the parent item is showing is the total of the sub-items.

Parent items do not work as a source for the sub-items the way some other inventory systems use them. If you stock the parent item as 25 foot rolls of romex, and you have a sub-item of romex-per-foot, when you sell the romex-per-foot item it will not pull a roll from the parent and stock it as a quantity of 25 in the romex-per-foot item.