Comments on: QuickBooks Inventory: Initial Balances

By: Charlie

Charlie — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:53:41 +0000

There isn’t a simple way to handle this, really. You might contact the people who make the Transaction Pro Importer to see if it will let you import group items and their components. http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2010/01/importing-quickbooks-transactions-with-transaction-pro-importer/

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:01:27 +0000

Thanks, Charlie! We can indeed use Groups. However, we now need to configure all of our parts (thousands) to work this way. Is there any way to change Inventory Parts to Item Groups? Is there any way to batch-configure? We often import item lists using excel. Is this something your software can do?

Thanks,

Mark Summitt

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 17:05:05 +0000

Mark, how many different component items go into an assembly?

Your only two alternatives are inventory assembly items, which you have to build, or group items. Groups are limited to the number of components. The advantage to a group is that you don’t have to “build” it, it is set up to be a make to order item. The disadvantage is that you don’t get sales info on the sold “group” item. See my article comparing these at http://qbblog.ccrsoftware.info/2008/06/groups-vs-assemblies/

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 05:39:03 +0000

Charlie,

I am running a wood components supply business. We have thousands of inventory parts in QBooks, each of which starts life as one of a hundred or so raw material parts (we pull a raw part from inventory, finish it to a certain color). We do not inventory the parts that we sell as finished goods. Rather, we make everything To Order.

I’d like to find a way to keep track of the raw material components. I would like to define each item we sell as an Assembly Part, with the BOM containing the Raw Material Part. Then, when I enter a Sales Order for the Assembly Part, it would relieve the Raw Material Part from inventory. However, it seems that I can’t simply sell the Assembly Part, but must build it first. This would be very cumbersome. Any ideas?

Thanks!

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 00:20:02 +0000

Jim, I wouldn’t recommend doing that change. It could have a huge impact on your financial statements because non-inventory items are posted differently than inventory items, and QuickBooks usually tries to change the transactions to match the types. It could be a disaster.

If you want to see what happens, make a backup of your company file first. THen if you don’t like the results, you can restore that backup.

By: Jim Bovard

Jim Bovard — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:37:54 +0000

Hello Charlie,
Thank you for your great articles! They are very helpful.

I have a question about converting my existing non-inventory items to inventory items. With six year of history of selling these items, can I change over to using them “inventory items” without destrubing the history or am I getting myself into a big mess?

Regards,
Jim Bovard

By: Charlie

Charlie — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 17:26:12 +0000

Valerie, that all depends on what kind of transaction you used to consume the part in the first place, and why it was returned. Let’s say that you sold this item in an invoice, and it was returned because the person didn’t want it. You could just delete the invoice (if this was the only item on it) and that would return the item to stock and remove the receivable. You could create a credit memo and add the item to that memo – that would create a credit and return the item to stock. If you had used an inventory adjustment to consume it in the first place, you could either delete that adjustment or use the same account. There are hundreds of ways of dealing with it, you have to first look at the transaction that consumed the item and then at the reason for the return.

By: valerie sooy

valerie sooy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:36:19 +0000

Charlie,
Thank you for your help. When I do an inventory adj., which adj. account should I use? My book tells me to use 8220-Inventory Adj., however I do not have that option

By: Charlie

Charlie — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:52:04 +0000

Valerie, for the assembly itself, you can either enter a credit memo (if you are reversing out an invoice) or an inventory adjustment.

For the components, that is tougher. You can do individual adjustments if you wish, for each component. Or you can delete the original “build” transaction – but note that this is a bit dangerous for several reasons, and I usually don’t recommend that.

By: valerie sooy

valerie sooy — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:31:56 +0000

When an inventory assembly is returned, how do I get it back into stock