Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
On 12/21/2022 4:04 PM, R Losey wrote: Granted, and all good points, but they weren't listed in the original question, so it gives a better idea of what you are looking for. No, I was trying to explain that an "inventory system" deals with things way outside the scope of something like gnucash. Gnucash is handling what is known as the "general ledger" portion of an overall business system. In my use of gnucash (for non-profit organizations) it proved adequate for dealing with "inventory" because this was VERY limited. None of the organizations was doing much more that required inventory than selling and/or giving to volunteers "swag" like organizational tee shirts, mugs, etc. Just needed to track well enough to be able to produce "sales", :"cost of goods sold", and "recognition expense" (for the 990-EZ) and never more than a few batches (FIFO to get cost).and never more than one new batch per year of that. But would be totally inadequate for a business that was selling goods, hundreds of different things, each with batches. Michael D Novack ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Granted, and all good points, but they weren't listed in the original question, so it gives a better idea of what you are looking for. On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 5:47 PM Michael or Penny Novack < stepbystepf...@comcast.net> wrote: > On 12/20/2022 6:00 PM, R Losey wrote: > > I guess it would depend on how detailed you wanted to be... you could > > create an Inventory asset category, and create as many sub-categories as > > you need to. Purchases add to the inventory; sales delete from it, etc. > > Yes, but the connection to general ledger (the sort of things here) are > only a small part of an :"inventory system". OTHER pieces would be > things like (but not limited to) > > 1) Where are these widgets kept? (in what building, on what shelf, etc.) > > 2) What is the re-order point? (when the number of widgets left falls > below X, order more_ > > 3) From whom are they ordered? (supplier information) > > 4) Alternate suppliers (if the one in "3" can't fill the order) > > 5) Usually batch information (cost not necessarily the same for widgets > added to inventory at different times). I've usually just used an > account per batch in the general ledger and so could store that > information in the description but the organizations tended to be > selling very few different sorts of things. > > .. > > Michael D Novack > > > ___ > gnucash-user mailing list > gnucash-user@gnucash.org > To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: > https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user > - > Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. > You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All. > -- _ Richard Losey rlo...@gmail.com Micah 6:8 ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Good idea, Michael! Eric Chapman GnuCash 4.13 on MacOS 13.1 Ventura running on 2018 Mac Mini (3.2 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 On 12/20/22 18:47, Michael or Penny Novack wrote: I've usually just used an account per batch in the general ledger and so could store that information in the description but the organizations tended to be selling very few different sorts of things. .. Michael D Novack ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
On 12/20/2022 6:00 PM, R Losey wrote: I guess it would depend on how detailed you wanted to be... you could create an Inventory asset category, and create as many sub-categories as you need to. Purchases add to the inventory; sales delete from it, etc. Yes, but the connection to general ledger (the sort of things here) are only a small part of an :"inventory system". OTHER pieces would be things like (but not limited to) 1) Where are these widgets kept? (in what building, on what shelf, etc.) 2) What is the re-order point? (when the number of widgets left falls below X, order more_ 3) From whom are they ordered? (supplier information) 4) Alternate suppliers (if the one in "3" can't fill the order) 5) Usually batch information (cost not necessarily the same for widgets added to inventory at different times). I've usually just used an account per batch in the general ledger and so could store that information in the description but the organizations tended to be selling very few different sorts of things. .. Michael D Novack ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
I guess it would depend on how detailed you wanted to be... you could
create an Inventory asset category, and create as many sub-categories as
you need to. Purchases add to the inventory; sales delete from it, etc.
On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 8:55 AM Eric Chapman wrote:
> I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell
> or other assets that will later be expensed as used.
>
> I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other
> English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer to inventory,
> but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first
> definition of "stock" from Apple Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise
> kept on the premises of a business or warehouse and available for sale
> or distribution"; that is basically the definition of "inventory" at the
> bottom of the wiki article referred to below). I will try to use the
> word "inventory" so I do not confuse the term I'm talking about with the
> one meaning ownership securities of a company ("He owns 100 shares of
> XYZ Company stock.").
>
> I found something relevant in the wiki:
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell,
> GnuCash does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows:
> purchases, sales, revaluations for market fluctuations, identification
> of lots/batches).
>
> If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best
> practices? I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
>
> Thank you!
> Eric
>
>
> ___
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_
Richard Losey
rlo...@gmail.com
Micah 6:8
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Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
There are plenty of apps out there of various sorts, many of course are open-source and free, as in beer, and not just as in speech. (usually 'community editions' of paid-for apps, but some are just free, like GnuCash) Some are quite complicated and maybe more than you want to chew on, such as Odoo. (the heard of elephants sized jack-of-all-business-management-things) Others are designed to be much simpler for small businesses or hobbyists like Inventree or PartKeeper. An hour or so with thoughtful, well crafted, and refined web searches should turn up more, and maybe a few hours of reading can land you a candidate or two for installation and evaluation. Only *you* know what will work for you. Of course, to not complicate your life, you'd want something that exports resulting 'book' transactions in CSV, or some other format GnuCash can import. (CSV is likely best though) That will avoid double-entry. You might even be able to automate or script moving info from your outside app to GnuCash. Also, I see you're asking lots of 'accounting' questions. That's fine, as long as you understand, we can't give specific accounting advice here. The best we can do are general examples that *might* be right for you, and then how to implement them in GnuCash. Nothing we say here should ever be relied upon for anything serious or legal. (especially affecting tax-related transactions) Always seek the advice of a qualified accounting and/or legal professional in such cases. They aren't all as expensive as some guess them to be, and their price is usually well worth avoiding the headache and cleanup if you mess up your life without consulting them first. There are plenty of good references on accounting. I'm sure you can find a decent used college text for introductory courses for cheap, maybe even for checkout at your local public or collegiate library, but there are now also plenty of websites dedicated to the general overview of the topic. One I have used frequently as a refresher for my ACCT101 days: https://www.principlesofaccounting.com/ It is simple, well phrased, and to the point. Specifically to this post, Chapter 5 deals with Merchant issues such as recording Sales and Inventory transactions. Regards, Adrien p.s. - cool business! I'm just tackling gardening in earnest for myself this past year. I'm not sure I ever want to get to the point of selling anything, but I've seen advice to 'treat your garden like a business' for management purposes, especially if you use/need it as a primary food source such as in a homesteading approach. If I stumble upon anything geared specifically for that niche, I'll be sure to pass it on. On 12/20/22 11:09 AM, Eric Chapman wrote: Thanks, John, At this point, our needs for this are indeed simple. But I could see them getting more complex in the future. I do understand cost accounting and loved it when I studied it years ago. I wonder if there are stand-alone inventory management programs/apps that would work if our needs become more complex. If anyone knows of any worth researching, please let me know. The set of books I'm looking at this for is for a very small market gardening (farming) operation which started in 2022. Only sold their own produce in 2022. But later may branch out to sell stuff bought from others, or – to complicate things more – may start producing prepared products like jams, jellies, breads, even crafts and such for sale. Then the cost accounting gets much more involved. So I'm just researching and trying to look ahead to what may be needful in the future. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Steve, Thank you. I also think that is a perfectly good way to do it. I do understand Cost of Goods Sold (and I think it should be contra the related sales / revenue (income) account. That's the way I'll do it. Thanks so much! Eric On 12/20/22 11:25, Stephen M. Butler wrote: Eric, As you noted, they are an Asset. Now, I'm not a CPA or even a book keeper (though my wife did that job for a number of years for an architect). Here is how I am doing it. 1. Setup an Asset account for Inventory (or whatever you want to name it). 2. Setup an account for Cost of Goods Sold. (Mine is a contra account in Income -- your CPA might want it as an Expense). 3. Divide your inventory value by the number of items (if only one type of item or break out a similar Cost/Item for each type of item). 4. When you make a sale, reduce Inventory by the COGS for that item and increase the appropriate account from step 2. Note, I didn't use Credit/Debit as I forget which one is supposed to be closest to the window. I think that changed recently when I switched my desk around and the other side of the monitor is now nearest the window. ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Thanks, John,
At this point, our needs for this are indeed simple. But I could see
them getting more complex in the future. I do understand cost accounting
and loved it when I studied it years ago.
I wonder if there are stand-alone inventory management programs/apps
that would work if our needs become more complex. If anyone knows of any
worth researching, please let me know.
The set of books I'm looking at this for is for a very small market
gardening (farming) operation which started in 2022. Only sold their own
produce in 2022. But later may branch out to sell stuff bought from
others, or – to complicate things more – may start producing prepared
products like jams, jellies, breads, even crafts and such for sale. Then
the cost accounting gets much more involved.
So I'm just researching and trying to look ahead to what may be needful
in the future.
Eric
GnuCash 4.13 on MacOS 13.1 Ventura installed on 2018 Mac Mini (3.2 GHz
6-Core Intel Core i7)
On 12/20/22 11:45, john wrote:
On Dec 20, 2022, at 6:55 AM, Eric Chapman wrote:
I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell or other
assets that will later be expensed as used.
I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer
to inventory, but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first definition of "stock" from Apple
Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise kept on the premises of a business or warehouse and available for sale or distribution";
that is basically the definition of "inventory" at the bottom of the wiki article referred to below). I will try to use the word
"inventory" so I do not confuse the term I'm talking about with the one meaning ownership securities of a company ("He owns
100 shares of XYZ Company stock.").
I found something relevant in the wiki:
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell, GnuCash does
not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows: purchases, sales,
revaluations for market fluctuations, identification of lots/batches).
If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best practices?
I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
Unless your use case is very simple indeed best practice is to use a different
program. You'd need to study cost accounting and do it by hand in GnuCash.
Regards,
John Ralls
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Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Thanks, John,
At this point, our needs for this are indeed simple. But I could see
them getting more complex in the future. I do understand cost accounting
and loved it when I studied it years ago.
I wonder if there are stand-alone inventory management programs/apps
that would work if our needs become more complex. If anyone knows of any
worth researching, please let me know.
The set of books I'm looking at this for is for a very small market
gardening (farming) operation which started in 2022. Only sold their own
produce in 2022. But later may branch out to sell stuff bought from
others, or – to complicate things more – may start producing prepared
products like jams, jellies, breads, even crafts and such for sale. Then
the cost accounting gets much more involved.
So I'm just researching and trying to look ahead to what may be needful
in the future.
Eric
GnuCash
On 12/20/22 11:45, john wrote:
On Dec 20, 2022, at 6:55 AM, Eric Chapman wrote:
I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell or other
assets that will later be expensed as used.
I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer
to inventory, but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first definition of "stock" from Apple
Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise kept on the premises of a business or warehouse and available for sale or distribution";
that is basically the definition of "inventory" at the bottom of the wiki article referred to below). I will try to use the word
"inventory" so I do not confuse the term I'm talking about with the one meaning ownership securities of a company ("He owns
100 shares of XYZ Company stock.").
I found something relevant in the wiki:
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell, GnuCash does
not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows: purchases, sales,
revaluations for market fluctuations, identification of lots/batches).
If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best practices?
I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
Unless your use case is very simple indeed best practice is to use a different
program. You'd need to study cost accounting and do it by hand in GnuCash.
Regards,
John Ralls
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Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
> On Dec 20, 2022, at 6:55 AM, Eric Chapman wrote:
>
> I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell or
> other assets that will later be expensed as used.
>
> I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other
> English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer to inventory, but, in
> my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first definition of
> "stock" from Apple Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise kept on the premises
> of a business or warehouse and available for sale or distribution"; that is
> basically the definition of "inventory" at the bottom of the wiki article
> referred to below). I will try to use the word "inventory" so I do not
> confuse the term I'm talking about with the one meaning ownership securities
> of a company ("He owns 100 shares of XYZ Company stock.").
>
> I found something relevant in the wiki:
> https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell, GnuCash
> does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows: purchases, sales,
> revaluations for market fluctuations, identification of lots/batches).
>
> If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best practices?
> I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
>
Unless your use case is very simple indeed best practice is to use a different
program. You'd need to study cost accounting and do it by hand in GnuCash.
Regards,
John Ralls
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Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
On 12/20/2022 9:55 AM, Eric Chapman wrote: I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell or other assets that will later be expensed as used. .. I found something relevant in the wiki: https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell, GnuCash does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows: purchases, sales, revaluations for market fluctuations, identification of lots/batches). If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best practices? I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities. Thank you! Eric Gnucash is only doing the "general ledger" part of accounting. An "inventory system" is doing a LOT more than that, but gnucash can deal with the part of inventory accounting that affects "general ledger" However an "inventory system" would be doing a great deal more than that (beside "feeding" general ledger). It might be doing things like storing sources, alternative sources, reorder levels, shelving information (where ARE those widgets?). It would have its own "reconciliation" process (verify by physical inspection, record discrepancies. etc.). Gnucash does none of those things. A complete "business system" would contain numerous other parts besides general ledger. Some of these parts might be common to all sorts of businesses but others specific to type of business. Thus a dealer in widgets would need inventory but a dealer in services might need billable hours and both might need HR/payroll. Michael D Novack ___ gnucash-user mailing list gnucash-user@gnucash.org To update your subscription preferences or to unsubscribe: https://lists.gnucash.org/mailman/listinfo/gnucash-user - Please remember to CC this list on all your replies. You can do this by using Reply-To-List or Reply-All.
Re: [GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
Eric,
As you noted, they are an Asset. Now, I'm not a CPA or even a book
keeper (though my wife did that job for a number of years for an
architect). Here is how I am doing it.
1. Setup an Asset account for Inventory (or whatever you want to name it).
2. Setup an account for Cost of Goods Sold. (Mine is a contra account
in Income -- your CPA might want it as an Expense).
3. Divide your inventory value by the number of items (if only one type
of item or break out a similar Cost/Item for each type of item).
4. When you make a sale, reduce Inventory by the COGS for that item and
increase the appropriate account from step 2.
Note, I didn't use Credit/Debit as I forget which one is supposed to be
closest to the window. I think that changed recently when I switched my
desk around and the other side of the monitor is now nearest the window.
--Steve
On 12/20/22 06:55, Eric Chapman wrote:
I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell
or other assets that will later be expensed as used.
I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and
other English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer to
inventory, but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA
(indeed, the first definition of "stock" from Apple Dictionary: "the
goods or merchandise kept on the premises of a business or warehouse
and available for sale or distribution"; that is basically the
definition of "inventory" at the bottom of the wiki article referred
to below). I will try to use the word "inventory" so I do not confuse
the term I'm talking about with the one meaning ownership securities
of a company ("He owns 100 shares of XYZ Company stock.").
I found something relevant in the wiki:
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell,
GnuCash does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows:
purchases, sales, revaluations for market fluctuations, identification
of lots/batches).
If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best
practices? I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
Thank you!
Eric
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--
Stephen M Butler, PMP, PSM
stephen.m.butle...@gmail.com
kg...@arrl.net
253-350-0166
---
GnuPG Fingerprint: 8A25 9726 D439 758D D846 E5D4 282A 5477 0385 81D8
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[GNC] How to handle inventory assets in GnuCash?
I am wondering how, in GnuCash, to account for assets bought to resell
or other assets that will later be expensed as used.
I'm in the USA context. As far as terminology goes, I think UK and other
English speaking locales use the word "stock" to refer to inventory,
but, in my experience, that is not common in the USA (indeed, the first
definition of "stock" from Apple Dictionary: "the goods or merchandise
kept on the premises of a business or warehouse and available for sale
or distribution"; that is basically the definition of "inventory" at the
bottom of the wiki article referred to below). I will try to use the
word "inventory" so I do not confuse the term I'm talking about with the
one meaning ownership securities of a company ("He owns 100 shares of
XYZ Company stock.").
I found something relevant in the wiki:
https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Inventory_Handling. Best I can tell,
GnuCash does not have any dedicated way to handle inventory flows:
purchases, sales, revaluations for market fluctuations, identification
of lots/batches).
If I want to deal with inventory now in GnuCash v. 4.13, any best
practices? I'm not talking about massive amounts of items or quantities.
Thank you!
Eric
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