Many people see that there is an “Item List” in QuickBooks but don’t fully understand what it is used for. I have had a bunch of clients that just create one item in the item list and use that item on every invoice. Then on a per customer/per invoice basis, they change the description and the price for what they are actually billing for. Definitely not the most efficient and accurate way to use QuickBooks.
The easiest way to begin to understand the Item list is to think of it in the sense that you will put into this list EVERYTHING that you would ever bill for and EVERYTHING that you would buy to then resell to your customer. The item list can also handle things such as Sales Tax rates, Discounts, Group, Assemblies etc.
You really should spend some time deciding how you can make Items work for you before you start setting them up and using them. Below are some tips for creating your QuickBooks Item List:
-Use a current list of services and products
-Consider how much detail you want or need to display on your Estimates, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, and Invoices
-Consider how much detail you want or need to track for Job Costing purposes
-Make sure that each of your items are set up to track both income and expenses
QuickBooks allows you to create several different types of items to help you create Purchase Orders, Estimates, Sales Orders and Invoices for your customers and fill out bills and checks to record the money you spend in order to get the job done. Choose from the following types of Items:
-Service – used for tracking specialized labor, consulting hours, and perhaps professional fees that you charge for or purchase from others
-Inventory Part – used for tracking goods or materials that you purchase, track as inventory and then resell to your customers
-Inventory Assembly – (available in Premier and Enterprise versions only) used for assembled goods you build or purchase, track as inventory, and resell
-Non-inventory Part – used for tracking goods and/or materialsthat you purchase for a specific job
-Other Charge – used for tracking miscellaneous labor,materials, delivery charges, setup fees, service charges, recording bounced checks, late fees, opening balances, reimbursable expenses, retainers/deposits, retainage, shipping and handling fees and more
-Subtotal – used to create a total of all items above it on an Invoice, useful for applying a percentage discount or to deduct retainage
-Group – used to associate individual items that often appear together on Estimates, Invoices, Purchase Orders, etc. Build groups so that all of the items that are in the group can be added to the form at the same time
-Discount – used to subtract a percentage or a fixed amount from a total or a subtotal. Do not use this item type for an early payment discount
-Payment – used to record a job deposit from a customer
-Sales Tax Item – used to calculate a single sales tax rate that you pay to a single tax agency
-Sales Tax Group – used to calculate and individually track two or more sales tax items that apply to the same sale – for example, if you have to collect a local, a county and a state sales tax, each of these items would be set up as individual Sales Tax Items and then combine them into a group.
If you need help setting up your item list or if you would like us to review your current setup, give us a call!
Recently I ran into an issue with a client that has POS Pro v10 on multiple workstations and a server. They were complaining of an issue where the system would freeze up when they were entering Purchase Orders. After doing some research, speaking with my associates and Intuit, we think we have figured out what is going on.
First, we found that the freezing happens most often when you are on a PO then try to create an item on the fly from that PO, and then bounce back to the PO to complete it. Now, when Intuit came out with v10, they changed the overall user interface of the program. Some of you may notice that when you open up certain screens in POS v10, they don’t have the same look and feel as the rest of the screens in the program. Unfortunately, upon the v10 re-write, there were some screens that were left in the v9 interface. One of these screens is the Purchase Order screen.
When you open a PO in v10, an additional system task opens up and runs in the background of your computer. This task is a v9 task. When you are on a PO, the system is basically running in v9. Then if you try to add an item to the Inventory list on the fly directly from the PO, once you open up that ‘Add item’ screen, the system tries to decipher if it needs to switch back to the v10 task or remain in v9. Then when you are done adding the item and bounce back to the PO, the system then again has to decide which task it needs to be using.
In a multi-workstation environment, the POS data file is being held on the server workstation. Each of the individual workstations has to reach out to the server for the information. Every time you hit a key or click your mouse, the computer is sending/pulling that information through your network to your server. Since, in the example above, the system not only has to send the information back and forth to the server, it’s also at the same time trying to figure out if it needs to switch back and forth between v9 & v10 tasks and it seems to just be too much for the computer to do at once and therefor freezes up.
What’s the workaround? Simple – before you create your Purchase Order in POS, if there are any items that will need to be created in the Inventory List for you to order, do that first directly on the Inventory List. Then proceed with the Purchase Order.
Check back with us for any updates about this issue.
It’s not uncommon for me to run into situations during POS training where people are confused between the terminology of PO’s and Receiving Vouchers. I thought this would be a good place to give out some pointers for those of you who are in the same boat.
In the world of QuickBooks, Purchase Orders are what we call “non-posting transactions.” What this means, is that PO’s don’t really DO anything, they are just a place holder for an order that you placed with your vendor. Typically, PO’s are done during down time. The process is, you create a PO in POS by clicking on the “Make a PO” button from the home screen. You choose the items that you are ordering from your vendor and put in the quantities that you want to receive. If you are ordering an item that you have never stocked before, you can take the time to add the item on the fly on the PO screen. Once you have your whole order together you can save and print a copy of the PO to then fax or email to your vendor.
Now, as you probably already know, it’s crunch time when the order actually arrives at your door. You want to get the items out on your shelf as quickly as possible so people can buy them but you have to tell the system that the items are now in stock before you can sell anything. Here is where you can be thankful you created a PO earlier. Now, you can go into POS, select “Receive from PO”, choose your PO number and it will pull up the whole order that you already created. You can easily just enter in the quantities that actually showed up and then save the Receiving Voucher. Now with just a couple of clicks, your items are received in and up to date. If there had been items that didn’t show up, the remaining items on the PO will stay open on that PO for once they actually come in – a great way to track back-orders from your Vendor.
Although, entering Purchase Orders isn’t a mandatory task in POS, it is definitely a time saver. Receiving Vouchers ARE mandatory and if you hadn’t created a PO first, you would first have to take the time to enter/create all the items at the time of receiving which most people don’t want to do.
For more help learning how to use PO’s and Receiving Vouchers, give us a call!
What does all this mean for NYC, Nassau & Suffolk?
-For Nassau & Suffolk Counties, any stores selling Clothing or Footwear under $110, will need to charge 4.625% Sales Tax.
-For Nassau & Suffolk Counties, any stores selling Clothing or Footwear over $110, will need to charge the full 8.625% Sales Tax.
-For NYC, any stores selling Clothing or Footwear under $110, will need not have to charge any Sales Tax at all.
-For NYC, any stores selling Clothing or Footwear over $110, will need to charge the full 8.875% Sales Tax.
-For all other counties – Please visit http://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/sales/pub718c.pdf to see the rate for your particular area.
Please be sure to call your contact person at CIAS if you need assistance with changing your rates in QuickBooks or Point of Sale!
All the most current versions of QuickBooks software have tons of standard reports that people can use to gain more extensive knowledge of their business. What some people don’t know is that they can customize any of these reports and even memorize them so you don’t have to customize them every time.
Here is an example: Say you want to run the Sales by Item Summary report but you only want to see it for specific items. You can run the report, click the “Customize Report” button, and go to the “filters” tab. You can choose the Item filter, and then choose “Multiple Items” in the Item dropdown. Put a checkmark next to only the items that you want to see on the report and then click ok. Then click ok again. Now the report will run showing only the items that you want to see. If this is a report that you would like to run on a frequent basis and don’t want to have to customize it every time, you can click the Memorize Report button at the top of the report. Here you can give the report a name and the system will save the report template. Every time you run this report, the system will auto place the filters/changes that you put in and will auto refresh it with the current transactional information. To recall a memorized report, simply go to Reports>Memorized Reports and choose the name of the report that you made. If you need to get to the Memorized Report list to move reports around or delete any, go to Reports>Memorized Reports>Memorized Reports List.
If you are having trouble finding a report that suits your needs, the next step would be to use the Custom Summary Report or the Custom Transaction Detail Report. To access either of these reports, go to Reports>Custom Reports and choose either Summary or Transaction Detail. The detail report will list individual transactions in detail as well as use filters to show only the transactions you need. The summary report will display summaries, not individual transactions. If you are still unsure of which one to choose, select the Help Me Decide option and it will give you some examples of each report.
If you have exhausted yourself trying to find the perfect report and are unsuccessful, please remember that we offer Custom Report Writing services using Crystal Reports. Basically, if the system has the information – we can get it into a report.
