Sales and purchase ledgers on a product

Q: All my sales go to one ledger although I set ledgers on the products.

Check the product that was sold. A blank Sales ledger on it means the company's Sales ledger is used. Set the ledger and sell again: old invoices keep the ledger they had.

A product can carry its own sales, purchase and return ledgers, so each kind of goods is booked on its own account. A product without them uses the company's ledgers from Configuration. The stock ledgers on the product are not used.

Accounting Products
3 min read
Updated October 20, 2026

For Accountant Administrator

On this page

Four ledgers per product
What stays the same
The stock ledgers on the product
Common questions

Four ledgers per product

On the Purchase/sales info tab of the product form you can name four ledgers:

Field	Used when
Sales ledger	A sale of the product is booked as income on this ledger
Sales ledger return	A sales return of the product is booked here
Purchase ledger	A purchase of the product is booked on this ledger
Purchase ledger return	A purchase return of the product is booked here

You do not have to fill them. A product with a blank ledger uses the company's Sales ledger, Sales return ledger, Purchase ledger or Purchase return ledger from Configuration (Company settings that change selling, Company settings that change buying and vouchers).

Example: a product with its own sales ledger but no return ledger

An office table is set up like this on Purchase/sales info:

Field	Filled with	A document of this kind books to
Sales ledger	Furniture sales	A sale: Furniture sales
Sales ledger return	Left blank	A sales return: the company's Sales return ledger from Configuration
Purchase ledger	Furniture purchases	A purchase: Furniture purchases
Purchase ledger return	Left blank	A purchase return: the company's Purchase return ledger

Each of the four fields stands alone: filling Sales ledger does not send returns to Furniture sales. To keep returns of furniture apart as well, fill Sales ledger return and Purchase ledger return too.

What stays the same

The customer or supplier is always debited or credited with the invoice total, whatever the product ledger is.
VAT, discounts and other adjustments go to their own ledgers, as set in the adjustments (VAT, discounts and sales adjustments, Set up VAT, discounts and other purchase adjustments). A product can also name its own ledger for an adjustment on its Adjustment detail tab.
A service product books to the same four ledgers; it just has no stock.

The stock ledgers on the product

The Inventory info tab also shows Open PL stock ledger, Close PL stock ledger and Close BS stock ledger. These are not used: the profit and loss and the balance sheet read the three stock ledgers in Configuration, for all products together (Closing stock in the profit and loss, the balance sheet and the year end).

Common questions

All my sales go to one ledger although I set ledgers on the products.

Check the product that was sold. A blank Sales ledger on it means the company's Sales ledger is used. Set the ledger and sell again: old invoices keep the ledger they had.

I changed the ledger of a product. Did old invoices move?

No. A saved invoice keeps its own entries. Edit and save it again to re-book it.

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