Inventory for Antique Store

It's nice to see you here in the Community, GlassOnion3. Let me help you track your products on your business.

To track your item's cost and item sale you will have to create an account for each. Make sure to put your Inventory items in your Cost of Goods Sold Account to easily track them. 

First, to track your item's cost, make sure that your items have the correct prices edited in Sales price/rate and Cost:

1. Go to Sales.
2. Select the Product and Services tab.
3. Edit the prices in Sales price/rate and Cost on each item individually. 
4. Select Save and close, once done.

And then we can go ahead and run an Inventory Valuation Detail report. This tracks the quantity on hand, value, and average cost for each Inventory item.

After this, to track the sales of your items, create an Income Account. The next step is running an Inventory Valuation Summary. This shows your transactions for each Inventory item, and how they affect quantity on hand, value, and cost.

To have QuickBooks automatically process your customer payments in the future and categorize them into the correct accounts, you can visit this article for reference: Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online.

I'd like to know how it goes. I'll be on the lookout for your replies and for more inventory and QuickBooks-related concerns. Stay safe!

@GlassOnion3 

Contrary to what @FaithA posted, you don't need to set up each item in QB.  You can just track your total inventory value without having to go through the time-consuming process of setting up every item. 

This is known as the periodic method of inventory and could be an entire class and, to be honest, is more in-depth than is appropriate for this forum.  The upside to this method is the ease of not having to set up each item.  The downside to this method is that you will not know the exact value of your inventory (and therefore your cost of goods sold), until you take a physical inventory of the store.  You will need to be able to identify the cost of each item on the floor so I assume you have a way of tagging each item with its cost.  When you buy items for resale, record the purchase in QB with a check/expense/bill and assign the purchase to an Other Current Asset account called 'Purchases' (set one up in your chart of accounts).  Then, whenever you take a physical inventory (or make an estimate at month-end), create a journal entry and close out the Purchases OCS to Inventory and COGS based on your estimate or the physical inventory taken.  The journal entry to close out Purchases to Inventory/COGS is debit Inventory/COGS and credit Purchases.  I would strongly suggest researching 'periodic method of inventory' to get a feel for it.  If nothing else, you can assign all the items purchased for resale to the Purchases OCA account and then let your CPA/tax accountant make the adjusting entries at tax time or however frequently you decide.

Tracking inventory in an antique business without item numbers can be a bit tricky, ain't gonna lie. The thing is, antiques are unique, and quickbooks online is more suited for businesses with lots of identical items. But hey, you can still make it work.

Ditching item numbers is fine, but you'll wanna focus on item descriptions. Be super detailed in quickbooks with each item - talk about the category, maker, period, and condition. This stuff will help you later when tracking and reporting.

Now, about tracking costs: when you purchase an item, pop a new item into quickbooks with all those details and key in your purchase cost. It enters the cost into inventory as an expense. Then, when you sell it, just record the sale normally, and quickbooks will adjust youre inventory.

Honestly, quickbooks might not give you the depth of inventory analysis you want, but at least it tracks what you spent and made. If you need more, consider an add-on that specializes in unique inventory. Or hit up a quickbooks consultant - they’re usually great at helping set this up.