You know the product is in your inventory, but it will not come up when you search for it on an invoice, estimate, purchase order, or package. There are four reasons this happens, in the order they are worth checking.

**1. The product is marked as a one-off.** One-off items are special orders you do not stock, and they are kept out of every line-item search on purpose so that ordering parts for individual customers never clutters the list you use at the counter. This is the one cause where the product looks perfectly healthy: a one-off still reads Status Active, so the Status badge will not tell you anything. Go to Inventory > Products, tick "Include one-off items", and look for a purple One-off badge next to the status. If the item is something you have decided to carry after all, open it, click Edit, untick "One-off item, not stocked", and save. It appears in the search straight away. See Ordering a Part You Do Not Stock.

**2. The product is inactive.** Inactive products are hidden from every line-item search on purpose, while staying in your records and in the Products list. Go to Inventory > Products, set the Status filter to All Statuses, and find the product. If its Status badge reads Inactive, open it, click Edit, tick the Active checkbox, and save. Then reload the invoice or estimate screen you were working on, so it picks the product up (see the last paragraph).

**3. Your search words are not in the fields that get searched.** Line-item search looks at four things: the product name, the SKU, the Invoice Display Name, and the Description. It does not search the brand, the category, or the vendor. So if you are typing a category name ("amps") or a vendor name, you will get nothing even though the product is right there.

The results are ranked, closest match first

  • An exact SKU or name match comes first.
  • Then anything starting with what you typed.
  • Then anything containing it.
  • Then anything whose Description contains it.

That order matters when several of your codes share characters. Typing IR70 puts IR70 at the top, ahead of 2DRIR70, SUVIR70 and the rest, rather than burying it among them. The list holds the 25 best matches and scrolls, so if what you want is not in view, scroll the dropdown before assuming it is missing.

If your SKUs are codes rather than words, search by what the item is instead of what it is called. Typing "ceramic" or "windshield" matches the product's Description, and every row in the dropdown shows that description next to the name so you can tell near-identical codes apart. Filling in the Description on your products is what makes this work; see How to Add a Product.

**4. The product genuinely is not in your catalog yet.** Add it at Inventory > Products > + Add Product, or, if you are mid-sale and do not want to stop, use + Off-Catalog on the invoice to sell it now with a description and price. Off-catalog lines land in the Off-Catalog Queue to be turned into real products, and the invoice cannot post until they are resolved. Prefer the real product when it exists: an off-catalog line does not tie back to the item in your reports, and it does not move stock.

One thing that is not a cause: how recently you loaded the page. The line-item search reads your catalog as it was when the screen opened, so a product you activate or create in another tab appears as soon as you reload that invoice screen.