# Fishbowl: Credit item types must have a negative cost

> Credit items need a negative cost value in the costing setup.

## What it means
Credit items typically represent inventory reductions or credits. Fishbowl enforces negative cost values for these items to maintain consistency: positive values represent increases, negative values represent decreases or write-offs. If you're seeing this error, you probably entered a positive number in a cost field for a credit-type item.

## What to check
- Verify the item is classified as a credit type (check the item type designation or flag)
- Review the total cost or unit cost field: it should show a negative value, like -10.00
- If you see a positive number, try entering it as negative (with a minus sign) and save
- Check if the item has related cost records that also need negative values

---

*From Israel Lopez Consulting (ILC). Custom Fishbowl Inventory integrations and software, and Fishbowl experts since 2015. Written by Israel Lopez. Questions about this topic, or want to reach the people who wrote it? Visit https://israellopezconsulting.com/contact*