Reed Phillips

Boy my typing stinks...

If you wish to have Items listed as a subitem under the Manufacturer's Name (Manu:Model) in QB, all items must have the same account (Inventory or Non-Inventory). We stock a lot of Extron cables, but we order switchers for the particular project, so we need to have both Inventory and Non-Inventory items for Extron. Anyone have a good way to deal with this in QB?

The only way I can see for now is not to use Subitems, which will turn into a huge list of Part/Model#s in QB.

If the DT data had a field that would allow us to indicate whether or not the item was an inventory or non-inventory part, we could generate a link to QB by appending a suffix to the Manufacturer's Name in the Item Number field Eg (Extron-I, Extron-N). Then we could have subitems of each of these, even though they are the same vendor.

Other ideas?

KeithC

You could use the product description field. You can put description in client description thus opening up product description for your needs. You can print reports using client description and use product description in qb

JordanC

But then your integration is based of description. That will be a hellish nightmare to reconcile the differences in the two databases. . .

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KeithC

Why is it important do differential between inventory and non inventory items. I am not a pro with qb so I don't know why you need this. Isn't an inventory item with a zero stocking level a non-inventory item?

Reed Phillips

Originally Posted by KeithC

Why is it important do differential between inventory and non inventory items. I am not a pro with qb so I don't know why you need this. Isn't an inventory item with a zero stocking level a non-inventory item?

For us it was a big deal. As a commercial systems integrator, we sell projects not items. Our invoices do not show all of the part#s for the items sold. The only way to remove an item from inventory is to sell it. Only then is the cost of the item associated with the job/project. If we treated everything as inventory, we would need to create Shadow invoices to remove items from inventory so the item cost could be accounted for on a project basis. This would be a major pain. A Non-Inventory item can be sold to a Job without it showing up in inventory. As a result, the cost of the item is charged to the project when purchased, not when it is sold. We can then invoice for "Equipment" and Labor which can cover hundreds of individual line items. Thius greatly simplifies the billing and job cost process.

Does this make sense?

We are constantly seeking to improve our job cost accounting without driving everyone nuts in the process. I am open to ideas.

How does everyone else deal with this issue?

KeithC

This is very interesting, I did not know that you could do this. I was always under the assumption that the product belonged to the company until the client took possesion of it, therefore it had to be inventory and go though the inventory cycle--po,receive,invoice.

I can see that this could be a time saver but if the items are not in inventory, then how are they tracked etc..what happens when a tech needs a dvd player allocated to the client...if a product is not used on a job what happens to the product?

Sorry for the questions but this sounds like a really good idea...