All Entries in the "Manufacturing" Category

Item Types in a QuickBooks Bill of Materials

QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise provides us with 11 different item types, of which 5 can be used as component items in an inventory assembly. Which should you use, and why? Each of the item types have their own characteristics and uses.

FAQ:Why Did QuickBooks Change My Builds To “Pending”?

QuickBooks inventory is date sensitive. In addition, the build transaction requires that you have enough component parts on hand to issue the build.

Understanding QuickBooks Total Bill of Materials Cost

In a prior article I talked about the cost and avg cost fields in the item list. In this article I’ll talk about a related value, the Total Bill of Materials Cost which you will see listed at the end of a QuickBooks bill of material.

Dealing with Scrap in QuickBooks Manufacturing

Many manufacturers have to deal with scrap in their manufacturing process. That is, the consumption of component materials beyond what is defined in the bill of materials due to waste, trimmings, left over sections or other variable consumptions. QuickBooks doesn’t deal with this directly. Let’s talk about some ways to handle it.

QuickBooks Shuts Down When Issuing a Build

In QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise you can create inventory assembly items, and then create a build transaction to manufacturer that assembly. There are times when QuickBooks generates an error and says it has to shut down just after you issue a build, and the build is not recorded.

QuickBooks Manufacturing Forecasts: Component Demand

Having an adequate supply of component parts is critical to a manufacturer. If you run out of something, you can’t build your assembly. If you can’t build your assembly, you can’t fulfill customer orders. So let’s talk about how to avoid this if you are using QuickBooks.

Reconciling QuickBooks Inventory Balances

An important part of controlling your inventory is to make sure that your company financial statements match your inventory status. The inventory asset balance in your Balance Sheet should match the value in the Inventory Valuation Summary report. Unfortunately, these values don’t always match, and in this article I’ll talk about some reasons why this can happen, and ways to reconcile your inventory balances.

Shipping Costs and QuickBooks Inventory

What is the “cost” of an inventory item that you purchase? For many businesses we talk about the “landed cost” of the item, which can include not only the purchase cost of the item, but also the shipping cost of the item. In this article I’ll talk about a few ways to handle this in QuickBooks.

The landed cost of an item is usually considered to be the cost of the product plus any relevant logistics costs, such as transportation, warehousing, handling and so forth. The can also be called the  total landed cost or net landed cost.

Understanding QuickBooks Inventory Cost

If you are using QuickBooks to manage your inventory, you need to understand how QuickBooks deals with the cost of inventory items. I’ve been answering a lot of questions about this in the Intuit Community Forums lately, so here is a quick rundown of how things work.

Understanding QuickBooks Reorder and Build Points

It’s never a good idea to run out of important inventory items that you resell or use in manufacturing. In simple inventory control systems we often set a minimum stocking level that is used to generate a warning when an item falls below a particular on-hand balance, so that you can order (or build) more of the item just before you run out. In this article I’ll examine how QuickBooks handles this process.