What Is a SKU?

A SKU (stock keeping unit) is a unique code assigned to a specific sellable product or product variant, used to identify and reference it consistently rather than by its free-text name, which can vary slightly between documents. A product catalog entry pairs a SKU with a name, description, unit price, currency, unit of measure, and category.

Referencing products by SKU (rather than retyping a name each time) is what lets a quote, order, and invoice line item all pull from the same catalog record — so the current price and description populate automatically, while a line item already added to a document keeps the price it was given at that time, unaffected by later catalog changes.