Seven distinct item types. Sub-items with three-level hierarchy. Group bundles that expand into multiple invoice lines on one click. Percentage-based discounts and surcharges. Subtotal dividers. Everything serious accounting users expect from their item catalog.
Try It FreeMost accounting software gives you "Service" and "Product" and calls it a day. Kantivo gives you the full vocabulary that real businesses need to write the invoices they actually send. Each type has its own field set in the item editor — pick the type and only the fields that make sense for it appear.
Labor, professional fees, billable hours. The default item type for service businesses. Tied to an income account; no inventory tracking.
Physical product you stock and resell. Tracks on-hand quantity per location, unit cost, and posts COGS automatically on sale.
Physical thing you don't track on the shelf — one-off purchases, drop-ships, consumables. Has an expense account so it works on bills too.
Shipping, handling, fuel surcharge, after-hours fee. Can be a flat amount or a percentage of the lines above it on the invoice.
A display-only divider that shows the running total of items above it. Useful for invoices with labor and materials broken out separately.
A negative line. Flat dollar amount or a percentage of the running subtotal above it. Drop it on any invoice for one-click promo handling.
Service businesses that sell bundles love Group items. Set up a "Spring HVAC Tune-Up" group once with three components (filter replacement, coil cleaning, refrigerant top-off, each with a default quantity). On any invoice, pick the group and Kantivo expands it into a header line plus three editable component rows — fully customizable per invoice but consistent in their default structure.
Want to do the tune-up at three properties on one invoice? Set the group's quantity to 3 and every component's quantity triples automatically. One number, three properties' worth of work captured.
Create a product of type "Group" and add components (each a regular item you've defined) with default quantities.
Select the group on a line. Kantivo inserts a header row plus one row per component, each with its default quantity pre-filled.
Edit any component's qty, price, or description per invoice. Change the group's quantity to multiply every component at once.
Lots of small companies aren't really one business. The events firm doing weddings on the weekend and corporate functions midweek is running two — different customers, different pricing, different margins — out of one set of books. Categories give that company a catalog it can actually navigate, and quietly solve the accounting problem underneath it.
Assign each item to a category and the Products & Services list stops being one long alphabetical run. It becomes sections you can collapse, filter, and scan by line of business. But the setup earns its keep through defaults: a category holds a default income account, a default expense account, and a default class. The income account means new items arrive with the correct revenue account already chosen. The class means an invoice tags itself the moment you add an item from that category — which is what makes Profit & Loss by Class trustworthy, because it no longer depends on someone remembering to tag anything.
Each category renders as a collapsible header carrying its item count and its class. Unfiled items gather under Uncategorized. Never made a category? The list looks exactly as it always did.
Choose the income account on the category, not on the twentieth item you add to it. Kantivo also holds a default expense account for items that turn up on vendor bills.
Class-based reporting usually fails because people forget to set the class. Attach one to a category and the invoice does it for you as soon as a matching item goes on a line.
The flat list of 80 items every catalog eventually becomes is a navigation nightmare. Sub-items let you organize the catalog by category — Plumbing → Repair → Drain Clean — and the items list renders the tree with indents, just like Chart of Accounts. Reports can roll up by category or report on leaf items only.
The hierarchy caps at three levels by design. Plenty for real workflows; few enough that dropdowns stay readable and the items list stays scannable.
Create a "Loyalty Discount 10%" item once. Drop it on any invoice after a Subtotal line and it discounts just that section. Drop it at the bottom of the invoice and it discounts the whole thing.
Same idea for Other Charge items. A "Fuel Surcharge 5%" item drops on long-haul invoices and adds 5% of the running subtotal as a positive line.
Break a complex invoice into sections — Labor, Materials, Travel — each capped with a Subtotal line that shows the running total of items above it without contributing to the invoice total itself.
Non-Inventory Part and Other Charge items can carry an Expense Account so they work on bills, not just invoices. Buy a one-off part, drop the item on the bill, and the expense posts to the right account automatically.
If you've ever wished your accounting software had a "QuickBooks Items" feature, this is it — and then some. Whether you sell bundles, run percentage discounts, organize a deep catalog of services, or just want the printed invoice to read like an actual invoice instead of a flat list — Kantivo's item system is designed around the real ways money actually moves through small businesses.
A Group is for invoicing convenience — it expands into editable lines and never touches inventory levels. An Inventory Assembly is for manufacturers who actually build a product from components, with real inventory consumption and cost roll-up. Use Group for "Spring Maintenance Bundle"; use Assembly for "Bicycle built from frame + wheels + seat."
Yes. Place a Subtotal line between the items you want discounted and the items you don't, then place the Discount line right after the Subtotal. The Discount applies to lines between the most recent Subtotal and itself.
Use a category for a line of business, and a parent item for a family of related things you sell. A category is not itself sellable, so it never clutters the item dropdown on an invoice — which is exactly why it's the right tool for separating Weddings from Corporate Events. A parent item is a real item; reach for it when "Repairs" is something you'd genuinely put on an invoice alongside its sub-items.
Three levels. Parent → sub → sub-sub. Example: Plumbing → Repair → Drain Clean. The cap exists so dropdowns stay readable; in practice few catalogs need more depth.
No. Once the group expands, each component line is fully editable — change the quantity, override the price, edit the description. The group is a starting point, not a contract.
The Group editor has a "Show components on printed invoice" toggle. On = expanded breakdown prints. Off = only the group header line prints with a single combined total.
Yes. Every item type works on estimates exactly as on invoices, and the item selection carries through when you convert an estimate to an invoice.
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