Choosing a Class Type: Rental, Sale, Part, or Service

Last updated: October 14, 2026

Summary

The Type field on a class decides how the class behaves on orders, purchase orders, invoices, and in the general ledger. This article explains the four everyday types — Rental, Sale, Part, and Service — and how to create a class of each.

Prerequisites

The user has the Admin or Manager role, or a custom role with permission to create classes.
The Category and Rate profile the class will use already exist. Both are required on every class regardless of type.
The Inventory profile for the class is known. Each type normally uses a different profile (rental fleet, sale inventory, parts, or expense), so confirm the right one with the accounting team before creating the class.
The tracking method has been decided. See Creating a Serialized or Bulk Class for the difference.

Choosing the Type

Type	What it represents	Billing	Inventory
Rental	Equipment the business rents on a contract and gets back	Recurring. Billed by day, week, or 28-day cycle, with minimum and shift pricing from the rate profile	Usually serialized. Assets depreciate and carry meters, turn procedures, and maintenance schedules
Sale	Equipment or goods the business sells outright	One time. A single sale price; the line closes when the item ships	Serialized or bulk. Assets do not depreciate. Standard cost drives COGS
Part	Items consumed during a repair or service, such as filters, hoses, and fasteners	One time. Priced per unit and added to a repair or work order, or sold over the counter	Almost always bulk, with a costing methodology. Stock is tracked per branch and reduced when the part is used
Service	Labor, service charges, and purchase-order expenses with no physical unit	One time. Priced per hour, per job, or per unit; quantity precision allows fractional hours	None. A Service class never has assets. On POs, Purchasing account type decides whether the cost is Expense or Inventory

The other types on the list: Non-rental, Delivery fee, Kit (rental), and Modifier are covered in their own articles and are not used for ordinary equipment.

A class can have both Rental enabled and Sale enabled turned on. This is how a rental fleet item is also offered for sale, and it lets a unit move from the rental fleet to a sale with the rental-to-sale action, which halts depreciation.

Step-by-Step: Creating the Class

In the left sidebar, open Inventory > Classes. The Classes list opens.
In the upper right of the Classes list, click Create. The New class form opens.
In the Name field, enter the display name for the class.
In the Category field, select the parent category.
In the Rate profile field, select the rate profile.
In the Type field, select Rental, Sale, Part, or Service. The form updates to show the fields that apply to that type.
In the Asset tracking field, select the tracking method. For a Service class, no tracking applies. More information on choosing bulk or serialized can be found here: How to Create a Serialized or Bulk Class
Complete the type-specific fields described in the sections below.
In the Pricing & Accounting sections, select the Inventory profile, Tax code profile, and Commission group.
In the Visibility section, set Order visibility and Purchase order visibility. A Part or Service class that is never added to a customer order can be hidden from orders while staying visible on POs.
At the bottom of the form, click Create. The class appears in the Classes list and can be filtered by its type.

Fields for a Rental Class

Field	What to set
Rental enabled	On
Pricing	Add a rate for each tier the rate profile uses: daily, weekly, 28-day, minimum, and four-hour or hourly where applicable
Avalara tax code (rental)	The rental tax code, if the business uses Avalara
Turn procedure	The inspection checklist run when a unit returns
Depreciation setting	The schedule applied to each asset
Revenue recognition methodology	OEC, Book rate, or Custom. Controls how rental revenue is recognized across the rental period

Fields for a Sale Class

Field	What to set
Sale enabled	On
Pricing	One sale price, either Fixed or Markup over cost
Standard cost	The default cost per unit used for cost of goods sold
Avalara tax code (sale)	The sale tax code, if the business uses Avalara
Depreciation setting	Leave empty. Sale inventory does not depreciate

Fields for a Part Class

Field	What to set
Tracking	Bulk, with a Bulk costing methodology of FIFO, weighted average, weighted average per location, or fixed cost
Quantity precision	0 for parts counted in eaches; 1 or 2 for parts measured by length or volume
Standard cost	The default cost per unit
Pricing	The over-the-counter sale price, if the part is also sold directly
Backordered configurations	Optional. A minimum stock threshold and reorder quantity per branch, with a default vendor
Possible replacement classes	Optional. Equivalent parts that can be substituted when this one is out of stock

Fields for a Service Class

Field	What to set
Default capitalize expense	With the box unchecked, the new expense line starts out not capitalized: the amount posts to the expense account on the class’s inventory profile and the asset’s OEC is unaffected. With the box checked, the line starts out capitalized with auto-distribution, so when the PO is received and billed the amount is spread proportionally across the item lines on the same PO and added to each asset’s OEC
Quantity precision	The number of decimal places allowed in quantities for this class. Enter 0 for items counted in whole units; enter 1 or 2 if labor is billed in fractions of an hour
Pricing	The rate per hour, job, or unit
Allow editing label on orders	On if the line should be renamed per order to describe the work performed
Can be dispatched on orders	Check off if the service is scheduled as a stop on a route, such as an on-site service call

Tips

Use the Type filter on the Classes list to review all classes of one kind at once. The Purchasing account type column can be added through the column picker to tell expense services from inventory services.

Parts and services usually belong to their own categories so they do not clutter the equipment picker on rental quotes.