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What Is an Inventory Part?

Chief Mechanic · September 25, 2010 ·

An Inventory Part is one type of Item and is maintained on the Lists->Item List menu selection.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

Generally speaking, Items are designed to pre-fill invoicing and purchasing forms. An Inventory Part represents an item that your firm keeps on hand for sale to customers. It can be stocked and sold on its own or included as part of an inventory assembly.

Here’s a screenshot of the QuickBooks Item List showing a range of inventory parts:

QuickBooks 2011 Item List Inventory Parts

QuickBooks tracks certain information that apply only to Inventory Parts. Fields tracked only for Inventory Parts include:

Quantity On Hand
Quantity On Purchase Order
Quantity On Sales Order
Reorder Point
Asset Account

Some fields are tracked both for Inventory Parts and other item types, such as Inventory Assemblies and Non-Inventory Parts. Some – but not all – of these fields also may be tracked for other item types if you select the checkbox This item is used in assemblies or is a reimbursable charge. These fields are:

Quantity On Pending Builds
COGS Account
Preferred Vendor

The above screenshot shows a mix of inventory parts and sub-items of inventory parts. This structure is often described as a “parent child relationship”, where a sub-item is a child of its parent. While both parent and child items are labeled as Inventory Parts, QuickBooks only tracks quantity information for sub-items (i. e., child items) when this structure is used. It does not aggregate information for parent items where sub-items exist for that parent item.

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What Is a Sales Tax Item and How Should I Use One?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

A sales tax item is a special type of Item, the list of goods and services that you sell. It is used to specify the sales tax rate and the tax authority collecting it that will be charged on each invoice.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

Sales tax items can be grouped into another special type of item, a sales tax group, to combine multiple sales tax items on a single invoice.

You should create 1 sales tax item for each tax authority for which you collect tax.

Sales tax items are maintained on the Lists->Items menu. There is a secondary method to maintain sales tax items by visiting the Edit->Preferences menu and choosing the Add sales tax item… button on the Company Preferences tab of the Sales Tax submenu.

Primary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Items

Secondary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Items

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Sales Tax Items

You can specify the default sales tax item for new customers in the Preferences window. To do so, use the pull down on the Your most common sales tax item selection.

When you add or edit a customer, you can use a sales tax item to specify that customer’s default tax rate. The sales tax item is on the Additional Info tab in the New and Edit Customer windows.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Customer Sales Tax Item

When an invoice is created in the Create Invoices window, the sales tax item can be entered for the overall invoice. This value defaults to the sales tax item for that customer, but it can be changed for this invoice only. For example, this capability could be used to apply a different tax rate on a single invoice for a shipment to a location different from the normal location of a taxable customer.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Sales Tax Item

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What Is a Sales Tax Group and How Do I Create One?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

A Sales Tax Group is a type of Item that is maintained on the Item List. It’s used to combine multiple Sales Tax Items (which are themselves another type of Item) into a single sales tax charge on a customer invoice.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

Since QuickBooks only supports 1 sales tax code (item or group) on an invoice, a Sales Tax Group is a way to reduce the number of codes needed to invoice a customer. In turn, that reduces the chance of data entry error while at the same time calculating all required sales taxes.

Before you can set up a Sales Tax Group, make sure that you have:

Set the preference to collect and track sales taxes
Already created all of the individual Sales Tax Items that will be combined into a Sales Tax Group

With those steps completed, you can create a Sales Tax Group by completing these steps:

Open the Item List from the Lists->Item List menu selection
Click the Item button in the lower left corner of the Item List window
Select New from the menu or press the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + N
When the New Item window appears, choose Sales Tax Group from the pull down menu
Enter the Group Name and Description
Add all the single Sales Tax Items that make up the Sales Tax Group
As you add the Sales Tax Items, QuickBooks will update the Group Rate, the total tax rate for this Sales Tax Group
Click Ok to save your work

Note:

You may observe a minor display bug in early releases of QuickBooks 2009. Here’s a screenshot from QuickBooks 2009 Premier Accountant Edition R3P. Instead of displaying the Sales Tax Group as a percentage similar to a Sales Tax Item, the Sales Tax Group is displayed as a rounded decimal. In this example, the Sales Tax Group is shown as 0.08 even though it is a combination of East Bayshore and San Domingo, for a total of 0.078, or 7.8%. However, although the Sales Tax Group is displayed incorrectly, QuickBooks calculates the tax total for the Sales Tax Group correctly.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Sales Tax Group Display Bug

Here’s a similar display from QuickBooks Premier Accountant 2008 R6P, where the Sales Tax Group is shown as a percentage accurate to 2 decimal places:

QuickBooks Premier 2008 Sales Tax Group No Display Bug

This display bug was fixed in later releases of QuickBooks 2009 and doesn’t affect QuickBooks 2010. If you’re running an old release of QuickBooks 2009, update your QuickBooks to the latest release.

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What Is a Sales Tax Code and How Should I Use One?

Chief Mechanic · September 12, 2010 ·

A sales tax code is a list item that is used to set the overall taxable or non-taxable status of both customers and items (goods or services).

You should use sales tax codes to identify a customer, such as a reseller, from which you don’t collect sales taxes, or to identify goods and services that aren’t taxable even to customers who are otherwise taxable.

Sales tax codes are maintained on the Lists->Sales Tax Codes menu. There is a secondary method to maintain sales tax codes by visiting the the Edit->Preferences menu and choosing the Company Preferences tab on the Sales Tax submenu.

Primary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Codes

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Sales Tax Code List

Secondary Method to Maintain Sales Tax Codes

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Preferences Sales Tax Codes

There are only 2 types of sales tax codes: taxable and non-taxable.

If a customer is marked with a non-taxable code, all invoices for that customer are non-taxable. If an item is marked as non-taxable, no sales taxes will be charged for that item even for a customer who otherwise pays sales taxes.

When you add or edit a customer, you can use a sales tax code to specify that customer’s overall taxable status. The sales tax code is on the Additional Info tab in the New and Edit Customer windows.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 New Customer Sales Tax Code

When an invoice is created in the Create Invoices window, the sales tax code can be entered for each line item on the invoice and for the overall invoice. These values default to the sales tax codes for the item and customer, but they can be changed for this invoice only. For example, this capability could be used to eliminate sales taxes on a single invoice for an out-of-state shipment to an otherwise taxable customer.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Sales Tax Code

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How Do I Choose the Adjustment Account When Adjusting Inventory Quanity or Value On Hand?

Chief Mechanic · September 11, 2010 ·

The adjustment account you choose depends on why you need to adjust inventory and how much detail you want in your GL.

Quantity adjustments can occur as a result of several common business situations, such as theft or discovery of damaged goods that have become unsaleable. If you want a great deal of detail in your GL, you can create adjustment accounts for each type of adjustment.

Typically, the adjustment account you enter will be an expense account for negative adjustments; for positive adjustments, you may want to choose an income account. Unless your general ledger has different accounts for different types of inventory variances, such as defects and shortages, we recommend assigning all inventory adjustments to the same GL account to provide for consistent reporting and to simplify tracking transactions.

In the screen shot below, we’ve selected GL account # 69000, Miscellaneous expenses. However, this account selection won’t provide much detail to allow us to manage inventory adjustments at the financial statement level. If your inventory adjustments are frequent enough or material enough, you may want to create a separate expense account for inventory adjustments. For even more detail, that account could have multiple sub-accounts. Adjustments would be recorded to these sub-accounts based on why inventory was adjusted.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Inventory Adjustment for Quantity On Hand

When you enter a negative quantity adjustment, the inventory asset account (shown on the Edit Item window) for the item you are adjusting is credited (i. e., decreased), and the expense account that you entered as the adjustment account is debited (i. e., increased). For positive adjustments, the debits and credits are reversed. Both Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet accounts are affected by inventory adjustments.

In QuickBooks, while the Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand window is selected, you can press Ctrl + Y to display the Transaction Journal of the debits and credits entered.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Transaction Journal Negative Inventory Quantity Adjustment

Keep in mind that for each adjustment, you can choose only 1 adjustment account or enter 1 memo. You can also enter a Customer:Job or Class. Therefore, you’ll need to group your adjustments based on why you’re making the adjustment.

The debits and credits of value adjustments behave the same as quantity adjustments. Typically, there’s a different reason for a value adjustment. The most common is discovery of a value impairment. In other words, the firm still has the same quantity of an item on hand, but because of changed market conditions or the passage of time, the value of those units has declined. Switching from the default quantity adjustment to a value adjustment is accomplished by checking the Value Adjustment checkbox in the lower left of the Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand window.

Quantity adjustments to fix on hand levels that have become negative are a special circumstance of inventory adjustments. Because QuickBooks uses the average cost method, the impact on accounts from allowing inventory levels to go negative can be far reaching. To gain a better understanding of the impact, read our blog post on the subject.

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Accounting

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Intuit