Product Cost for Advertising Adjust Sales Account by Invoice

For accurate accounting you may want to write off the cost of a manufactured item to an Advertising account instead of posting it to a Sales account.
This may be proper accounting for items used in Trade Shows, free samples, or supplies to Reps.
The technique can be used to adjust product cost and inventory to any desired ledger account.

There are multiple ways of doing this.
2 options that work:

Single Invoice

Insert an Order then Invoice using the Customer named “Advertising” (or whatever you want).
Enter the Sell Price 0.00
Post the Invoice
Click the TRX Inspector button
Double click the Cost of Goods Sold line (5xxx account)
On the Transaction Details window Edit the Account to the expense account you want.

Monthly Posting

Insert an Order then Invoice using the Customer named “Advertising” (or whatever you want).
Enter the Sell Price 0.00
Post the Invoice

At the end of each month (or whatever time period you want) run the Invoice Gross Profit Report for the Advertising Customer.
Select Cost Summary – Invoice Number, and enter the Customer Code in the Search area.
The total Cost of Goods Sold column can be used for an entry in the Ledger > General Journal to CREDIT Cost of Good Sold (maybe 5100) and DEBIT the expense account.

Inserted by AG on 09-17-2026