SUPPLIES, EQUIPMENT AND SHIPPING · QUICKBOOKS ONLINE & XERO
How to Categorize Staples and Office Depot in QuickBooks and Xero
Last Updated: October 5, 2026Office supply stores are where the office-supplies account quietly stops meaning anything. The same store sells paper, printer toner, furniture, laptops, shipping materials and print services — and at least three of those are not office supplies. The account then contains a desk, a year of paper and a monitor, and nobody can say whether supplies spending is rising.
The Short Answer
| What the charge actually is | Consumables (paper, toner, pens), furniture, IT equipment, shipping and packaging materials, and print or copy services. |
| Where it belongs | Consumables → office supplies. Furniture and IT above threshold → fixed assets. Packaging → shipping or cost of sales. Print services → printing or marketing. |
| QuickBooks Online default | Office Supplies & Software; Furniture and Fixtures or Machinery and Equipment; Shipping and Delivery. |
| Xero default | Office Supplies; Office Equipment; Freight & Courier; Printing & Stationery. |
| Expense or balance sheet | Consumables are expenses. Furniture and equipment above your capitalisation threshold are assets. Packaging bought in bulk for resale orders can be inventory. |
| Bank feed descriptor | Commonly STAPLES or OFFICE DEPOT with a store or order reference. |
Packaging Is Cost of Sales, Not Office Supplies
For anyone shipping product, this is the split worth making. Boxes, tape, mailers and labels are a cost of fulfilling an order, and they scale with orders shipped.
In the office-supplies account they are invisible, and your fulfilment cost per order — which is one of the few levers an e-commerce business can actually pull — cannot be calculated. In a shipping or cost-of-sales account, packaging sits next to postage where it can be compared to units shipped.
The signal is usually bulk: a single large order of mailers is almost certainly fulfilment, not stationery.
Furniture Is Where Thresholds Get Ignored
Office furniture is the category most often expensed when it should be capitalised, because a desk feels like an everyday purchase in a way a machine does not.
Apply the same capitalisation threshold you use for everything else. A chair is an expense; fitting out a floor is not. Furniture missing from the asset register is also missing from insurance schedules, and — in states that tax business personal property — from a filing where an incomplete register can work against you in either direction.
Staples and Office Depot Categorisation FAQs
Should shipping boxes go in office supplies?
No. Packaging is a cost of fulfilling orders and scales with units shipped, so it belongs in shipping or cost of sales where it can be compared against orders. In office supplies it is invisible, and fulfilment cost per order — one of the few levers an e-commerce business genuinely controls — cannot be calculated.
Is office furniture an expense?
It depends on your capitalisation threshold, and furniture is the category where thresholds get ignored most often because a desk feels like an everyday purchase. Apply the same threshold as everything else: furniture above it is an asset, and furniture missing from the asset register is also missing from insurance schedules and personal-property filings.
This page is about where the transaction belongs in your books. Whether a cost is deductible, and how it is treated on a return, is a question for your CPA — and consistent categorisation is what lets them answer it without guessing. Dedicated bookkeepers from $75/month, extra hours at $15/hour, wholesale $10/hour for CPA firms, with a 100% money-back guarantee on your 1st retainer, refundable on the unused balance.
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