If your company sells even a few products, you should be using QuickBooks’ inventory reports.
If you’re just getting started with QuickBooks, you need to create a record for each inventory item you sell. Once you’ve built your records, you can use them in transactions like invoices without having to enter all of the information again. To do this, open the Lists menu and click on Item List.
Right-click anywhere on the screen and select New in the menu that opens, then fill out the window that opens. You may not understand everything that’s being asked on that screen, in which case you should take a QuickBooks training course.
Click on New in this Item List menu to create an inventory record. You may need to take a QuickBooks class to learn how to fill them out.
Maybe you’ve already done this. But whether you have a warehouse or just a closet full of products documented in QuickBooks records, you need up-to-date information on any given day about your stock levels, reorder needs, etc. Though you may do a physical count once a year or so, that, of course, is not practical on a daily basis.
So QuickBooks has a set of reports designed specifically to keep you current on your inventory. There are several of them; here are the most important ones:
Inventory Valuation Summary provides a list of your inventory items along with critical data on each of them, including quantity on hand, average cost, asset value, sales price and retail value. It also calculates the total value of all of your inventory items.
Inventory Valuation Detail, too, lists all inventory items, but it also displays the transactions behind the numbers. How did these transactions affect the quantity and value of your inventory items? As with all reports, you can specify a time period. The report also tells you:
- How each transaction increased or decreased the quantity
- The purchase price (on item receipts and bills)
- How many are available
- Each item’s average cost, and
- The asset value.
The Inventory Valuation Detail Report
Stock Status by Item lets you know what you need to reorder and gives you the date of the next expected shipment. It also displays each item’s averages sales per week and the quantity currently on open purchase orders. In addition, there are columns available for information like quantity on hand and available, and the number of items that are on reserve for pending assembly builds (there’s a separate report that just outlines those quantities).
Stock Status by Vendor offers similar information. Items are displayed in preferred vendor groups to make it easier to reorder items.
Physical Inventory Worksheet can be helpful when you do a physical count. It lists all items and their quantity on hand, leaving a blank field for the actual number.
The Physical Inventory Worksheet
It’s very important that you know how to use QuickBooks reports; they can help you make much better business decisions.
