Stock vs Non-Stock Items

[FurnitureBill]

We have an office furniture store where 90% of sales are special orders. Until now, all items purchased were entered as stock items, where inventory was debited and then credited upon customer being invoiced. However, at any given time, the inventory level is all over the place.

What is a better way to handle inventory in a business such as this?

[riscniaga]

hi,

i have a client who does specialty book binding. so perhaps you can use the same techniques:

1. categorise your items into generic classes: e.g. chair, table, pedestal, etc.

2. set them up as 'description' type of items.

3. set up a job id for each customised order you receive. track the materials that you will be using and have used with a manual job sheet form.

4. when starting work 'buy' the items at $0.00 - just a dummy purchase to get the number of items that should be in stock correct. (my client uses this to track the number of books that they need to bind for the order)

5. when buying or using materials specifically for the order charge them to your cost of sales / cost of goods sold and to the job id.

6. when using common materials that may be used for other jobs, use inventory adjustments to charge to the job id.

7. invoice your customers using the item and job id.

these steps will help you track the number of items that should be in stock (not delivered) and sold. the job id will track the profitability for each custom order.

hope that helps.