Sorry to but in on a carpet cleaners' forum, but now you're into my new territory.
Are you referring to the solutions you use for your everyday cleaning jobs, or do you sell them? Goods for resale would be items bought in which are then sold on, either as is, or in a modified state, so effectively it's a mini profit & loss acount against the sales value of those items.
The cost of solutions for a carpet cleaner would be a direct cost of services provided, so that's where they should fit in to your accounts. It's one of those items which is deductable from your revenue to calculate your gross profit. Then all your overheads (e.g. stationery) go below the gross profit line to calculate net profit.
It sounds to me you are running an off the shelf package which is designed to cater for everyone (but really caters for virtuallyy no one) such as Sage Accounts. Sage in particular is designed more for retail than service orientated businesses, but even with these packages, if there's an account you are never going to use, you can always change the name of the account through the edit function to something you want to use. You can also add accounts, but make sure that you (a) put it in the right section - in this case, as part of your direct costs, and (b) that you make sure you've added it into the package's chart of accounts, or your Profit & Loss accounts won't pick it up.
