I have handmade products. I cannot figure out how/where to track the cost of each item. Everything has at least four components that go into it, which vary in cost.

First, you need QuickBooks Online Plus, as this version will allow you to track inventory and the related cost of goods sold. When you setup your products and services you map the items that you sell to an income account, and you map the items that you purchase to a COGS account.

Note that you can create parent and sub-account for COGS expenses in your Chart of Accounts.

@lindak1119 

Could be that using inventory will work for you, but I would like to know more about how you do things, inventory might not be necessary or useful since unique items in QB are problematic when using inventory

do you create the finished item when you get an order, or do you just make them and keep them on hand waiting to sell them?

when you make an item, do you make more than one of the same thing, the exact same thing is what I mean?

Hi there! 
I sell origami earrings and origami paper. Let's say I purchase 5000 sheets of origami paper and 100 earring hooks. Some paper will go to make bundles of  24 sheets that I retail for, let's say $10. Other sheets I use them to make the earrings. I make for example 10 earrings to display in my booth and 20 packages of 24-sheets each. The cost of earrings, including paper and metal is $5.00 and I sell them for $15.00. I only make earrings as I sell so I can't calculate an exact number for inventory in advance. Same for the bundles of paper. I have no idea how to put all this in Quickbooks as I don't know in advance how many sheets of the 5000 initial will end up as earrings and how many will be sold as bundles of paper. Any help will be greatly appreciated!
Laura