Accountant tools: Troubleshoot inventory

Overview

Note: The following information applies only to QuickBooks Accountant and QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions.

The Troubleshoot Inventory tool contains several views of potential inventory problems. By changing which items are shown and the inventory criteria, you can see the items in the way that best suits the client's company. After the inventory list is shown, you can Quick Zoom to an inventory item and correct any errors. The status column between the End Qty and Neg Qty? column indicates any irregularities in the inventory, such as negative quantities or items that are out of balance.

Set the display dates

The default value for the To and From dates is the review period. You can change the dates as needed. After changing the To date, use the tab key or click anywhere else on the screen to refresh the display. These dates only apply to the beginning quantity, bought, sold, adjustment, ending quantity, and negative quantity columns.

Note: If the entered From date is later than the To date, CDR automatically makes the earlier date the From date and the later date the To date.

Change the displayed items

There are several views of inventory available. After changing the view, select Refresh to display the inventory list with the new criteria. The Type, Cost, Avg Cost, Sales Price, and % Markup columns have a different background color for readability. The different background color does not have a special meaning.

The Show Items dropdown box has three options. All displays all inventory items, All Active displays only the active inventory items, and Filtered By display inventory items that meet the criteria below this box. If you choose All or All Active, all the criteria items are grayed out and are you cannot choose them. It does not matter if the grayed out items are selected or not. The default choice is Filtered By.

If the Show Items box is set to Filtered By, you can use any or all of the criteria to determine which inventory items are displayed; the list is filtered by the selected items. The five criteria are as follows:

• Qty Bought/Build=0 An item is displayed, if the quantity bought or built is zero.
• Qty Sold/Used=0 An item is displayed, if the quantity sold or used is zero.
• Negative Quantity An item is displayed, if the quantity is negative. There are two radio buttons under the table that specify how to handle displaying negative inventory. If you select the first button labeled as of "to" date and select the Negative Quantity box, an item is displayed if it has a negative quantity at the end of the review period. If you select the second button labeled any time in date range and select the Negative Quantity box, an item is displayed if it had a negative quantity any time during the review period, even if it has a positive quantity on the last day in the period.
• Inactive with Qty on Hand An item is displayed, if it is inactive and shows a quantity on hand.
• % markup less than ...% An item is displayed, if the markup is less than the amount entered. The default amount is 10%. If you clear the % Markup box or change the Show Items option to All or All Active, the percentage is still visible, but it is grayed out. It is not used when it is grayed out, but it is retained, so you will not have to enter it again, if you select the % Markup box or change the Show Items option.

If the list is too large to work on, add or change the criteria to limit it.

How to fix inventory

There are four ways to diagnose and fix inventory problems, as follows:

• The cursor changes to a Quick Zoom cursor when the cursor is over the Name. You can double click a Quick Zoom cursor to open the Edit Item screen for this item and make adjustments. The list will refresh after editing an item.
• You can double click the End Qty or Neg Qty? column to see the Inventory Valuation Detail Report for that item for the period.
• You can select any number of inventory items by clicking the checkbox in the first column for each inventory item. To make the selected items inactive, select Make Selected Items Inactive. The list will refresh automatically after making items inactive. To activate an inactive item, double click it to open the Edit Item window and clear the Item is Inactive box.
• You can adjust the quantities for all displayed inventory items by clicking Adjust Inventory Quantity/Value on Hand at the bottom of window. In the new window, enter a new quantity or the quantity difference for any of the items. If you enter one of these items, the other is calculated automatically. You must select the Adjustment Account and you can add a reference number, job, and class information at the top of the list.When done, select Save & Close to process your changes, or Save & New to process your changes and keep the window open. Select Cancel to close the window without making any changes.After saving, you may receive warnings about the age of transactions. If you did not enter a required Adjustment Account, you will receive a warning message and the changes are not processed.