Some parts you order for one customer and never again: a bed cover for a truck you will see once, a hitch, an install kit for an unusual car. You still need to put them on a purchase order so the vendor can fill the order and so you can track what you bought and who it was for. But you do not want hundreds of order-once parts filling up the product list your team searches at the counter.
Mark those items as one-off.
**What a one-off item is**
A one-off is a normal product in every way that matters. It goes on a purchase order carrying its part number, it receives, its cost feeds your margins, and it counts in stock while you have it. The only difference is that it is kept out of the product search on invoices, estimates, work orders, purchase orders and packages, and out of the Products list unless you ask for it.
**Setting one up**
The usual path starts at the counter. Sell the item with + Off-Catalog on the invoice or estimate (see Selling an Item That Is Not in Your Inventory Yet), then go to Inventory, Off-Catalog Queue, and click Resolve, then Create new product. The one-off box is already ticked for you, because anything sold off-catalog is by definition something you do not stock. Fill in the SKU, brand and category as normal and save.
You can also tick the box on any product directly: Inventory, Products, Edit, then "One-off item, not stocked".
**Fill in the SKU properly**
It is tempting to skip it. Do not. The SKU is the part number printed on the purchase order your vendor reads, so an order without one is an order they cannot fill. It is also what lets the platform tell you that you already have an item when the same part comes back around, which is how you spot the ones you order often enough to be worth stocking. Fill in the brand as well. It prints beside the part number on the order, which is how a distributor knows whose part you mean.
**Finding one later**
Go to Inventory, Products and tick "Include one-off items". One-offs show a purple One-off badge next to their status.
**Turning a one-off into a regular item**
If a part you thought was a one-off keeps coming back, open it, click Edit, and untick "One-off item, not stocked". It appears in the product search straight away and behaves like any other item. Nothing else about the product changes and there is nothing to redo.
One-off items are left out of low stock warnings and the Restock Assistant on purpose. A special order sits at zero stock permanently once the customer collects it, so including it would fill your low stock list with parts you are never going to reorder.