Margaret, a pet food manufacturer/guarantor client of mine has her products delivered to distributors across the country. She needed some inventory management consulting and thus hired AccuraBooks for this.

Margaret uses the QuickBooks Enterprise Desktop software for all here company’s bookkeeping, and they were interested in activating the QuickBooks Advanced Inventory Module (also known as Enhanced Inventory Receiving) within the bookkeeping software.

I met with the client to discuss their specific needs, review their books, and develop a plan that would solve their inventory management issues. We began by creating a brand-new item coding system to track all the new products they were launching. We discussed the importance of tracking the entire process within the QuickBooks software, from ordering and receiving the individual components to building, selling, and distributing the final products. Creating the proper Cost of Goods Sold and Income accounts during this process also ensured a smooth and accurate recognition of sales and expenses related to the different product lines. I trained with the client to ensure that they would be able to properly add new components and end products as needed within the course of their business.

The products being produced had differing shelf lives and warehouse locations that would require monitoring and tracking. We activated the Advanced Inventory Module within their QuickBooks Enterprise Desktop file, and set up the extended information fields to accomplish this goal. The Advanced Inventory Module also allowed us to separate the actual receipt dates of product received (from co-packers and suppliers) from the dates of the corresponding bills for these products. Again, I trained with the client to ensure that they would be able to maintain this information in the future.

I further recommended that their inventory stock statuses be reconciled to the actual warehouse reports on a monthly basis, with adjustments being made as needed. This regular check would ensure that counts of product on hand to sell/ship would be accurate, and would provide for the most accurate sales forecasting models possible.

We created customized Invoice, Sales Order, and Purchase Order templates with the QuickBooks file, and trained with the client on the use for each field indicated.

We also reviewed their system of handling all of the shipping and receiving documents- including Bills of Lading- and made certain that all information was being properly routed and processed within QuickBooks. (No Sales Orders are left unfilled, all invoices are sent out to customers after verification of shipment is received from the warehouses, all purchased inventory is updated within QuickBooks after receiving verification of receipt from the warehouses, and all related documents are properly closed out once the order is completely fulfilled).

This client is flourishing and has an operations and finance staff on site to maintain all logistics daily. With my help, they are now able to focus on creating the highest quality products while being assured of the accuracy of their bookkeeping and inventory tracking systems.

Note: AccuraBooks is a bookkeeping firm only, so please consult with your C.P.A. for verification and clarification about the contents of this article.