How do I use Quickbooks Manufacturing once it is set up? What is the workflow? Who does what when?

Hello, raes88.

I also get frustrated when I'm in the dark when I start using a software. That said, I'll be providing you with the steps and the correct workflow for processing your orders. I'll also throw in some of the most important articles to answer your other questions. 

I see that you've already set up your inventory and assemblies from watching Hector Garcia's videos. In this case, let's take care of the of the order workflow. 

Getting an order for the customer is done through sales order. The general idea for this is to prepare a sale for an item that you don't have in stock. Then, order the item from your vendor to be shipped to your customer. 

When you're ready, here's how to create a sales order:

1. Click the Customer menu, then choose Create Sales Orders.
2. Select the customer who ordered the item. 
3. Under the table section, choose the out-stock-item.
4. Enter the ordered quantity, then add other important information.
5. Once done, click the Save button. 

Next, you'll want to order the out-of-stock item from your vendor:

1. On the Sales order screen, you'll want to click the Create Purchase Order button.
2. This will take you to the Purchase Order creation screen. Simply select the vendor you want to order the items from.
3. Add other important details for the purchase order.
4. Once done, click Save. 

From here, you can create an item receipt or a bill. Either way, this will add quantities to your ordered item. 

Finally, go back to the sales order and create an invoice for your customer. 

For customer deposits and advance payments, you can do that by creating a sales receipt and setting the payment method to credit card. The full details and guide can be found in this aritcle: Manage upfront deposits or retainers.

There are two ways to prepay your vendor. This can be done through a check or using an asset account. 

Enhanced Inventory Receiving impacts how you receive your inventory quantities. This also change how the accounting works on inventory. For more details, please check this article: Turn on Enhanced Inventory Receiving (EIR).

In regards to the scanning part, are you referring to the barcode scanning? QuickBooks Enterprise has a feature called Barcode Scanning. This article can tell you more about it: Set up and use barcode scanning in QuickBooks Desktop.

Recording a damaged inventory shop is done through inventory adjustment. You can track the damaged item manually. I do recommend reading this article for the steps: Adjust your inventory quantity or value in QuickBooks Desktop.

We have a number of articles to help you familiarize and navigate the features in QuickBooks Desktop. You can browse a topic in our general help page, then look for an article. 

Do you have any other questions for the features and processes in QuickBooks? Let me know the details down below. I'd be glad to provide guides and the steps. 

Thank you for your detailed reply. I suspected this was the workflow.

The problem I am running into is if I try to create POs from a Sales Order, it wants us to create a PO for one of our assembly items. However, we are a "Just In Time" manufacturer, so we have to order the inventory parts at this point. Is there a way to do this from the Sales Order?

I'm finding I have to jump over to Build Assemblies, try to build something with out stick, click on pending, then make the auto POs from there.

THEN, because we purchase them with a credit card, we have to bill it to a prepay expense account, then when we receive the inventory, make a negative number in the prepay account to set it to 0. This seems REALLY convoluted. Plus, we have a different person receiving the inventory, so how do they know what dollar amount to put in as a negative against the pre-pay account. What if the bill amount is different than the PO amount because of a price increase or shipping? The PO auto generates from the numbers we have for each item in the system, but could be different than the bill. The person receiving the inventory has no way of knowing this and we can end up with money left over in this Pre-pay account?

Hi there, raes88.

Thanks for clarifying exactly what you were looking for. Unfortunately, the process provided by my colleague above is the only current workflow to achieve what you're looking for. You can keep an eye on our blog for information and potential changes made in product with future updates as I can see this feature being beneficial to Users such as yourself, so I'll be suggesting this to the product developers to see about getting it implemented in the future.

You can also reach out to our support team if you have a more specific question. To reach them, you can follow the steps found here. 

Thanks for your time and I hope you have a lovely day.

Thanks - When I reached out to the Support Team, they directed me to the forum. So they didn't really provide much "support."

Another question - Can our shop workers scan out inventory with the barcode scanner? Such as if a part broke and they need to pull another one? How does this work? What are the steps they would follow?

Hi there, raes88.

Thanks for letting me know about the updates you have with the support team.

Allow me to share some details about the workflow available about the first concern you've mentioned. You may refer to the previous post that my colleague James Paul shared. Also, I'd recommend speaking with your accountant to ensure that your books are accurate, they will also help you with entering information on how the money goes around when using a credit card to grant pre-pay for inventory items.

Yes, you can scan using a barcode scanner. However, it should be compatible with QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise. See below for your reference:

• It supports EAN-13 (International Article Number, formerly European Article Number) and Code-128 barcodes
• It produces a single carriage return at the end of the barcode.

Other that, we've also added 3 Bluetooth barcode scanners for the Advanced Inventory Pick/Receive functionality. More details about these scanners is discussed here: Bluetooth Scanners for Advanced Inventory.

Check out these articles about barcode scanning for more details: Set up and use barcode scanning in QuickBooks Desktop.

Also, about the replacement of the damaged item, let's say it has been paid by the customer and you're going to give a new one. You can record a "Zero" credit memo and apply this to the new sale (new item being replaced). You may also share this method with your accountant. I've added this article for more information: Give your customer a credit or refund in QuickBooks Desktop for Windows.

I've included our page about income and expenses for help articles of your future tasks.

You are always welcome to tag my name in the comment section if you have other QuickBooks-related questions. I'd be happy to help. Take care.

Regarding "Build Assemblies"...

Background:

So we got a sales order and because we are a Just In Time/Build to Order manufacturing company, we don't have any inventory on hand. We click on "Build Assembly" to auto-generate the POs and get this in the queue to build once we receive all the inventory items.

The item we are building is composed of about 20 "Sub Assembly Kits." Some of those kits contain custom parts that need to be created from raw materials (Sub, Sub Assemblies).
- Clicking on "Inventory > Build Assemblies" shows the list of Sub Assembly Kits needed, and we can order all parts for the Sub Assembly Kits if we check the box for "Automatically build required subassemblies"

QUESTION:
- When we create the Build Assemblies to start a production order, our production manager would like to see 1) a breakdown of each of those Sub Assembly Kits (there are about 20!) with the parts they are composed of, 2) the sub, sub-assembly for some of those custom made parts, and 3) some custom fields we created to go along with those parts. How do we accomplish this?

Hello @raes88, unfortunately, at this time reports for assembly will only show the assembly itself, not the items within.

I do have a workaround that may provide you with the information you need.

With you or your manager logged into QuickBooks;

• Open Inventory in the top menu bar
• Scroll down to Build Assemblies
• Choose the Assembly Item

This will bring up the list of the components needed to build the assembly item chosen.

I look forward to hearing how this solution works for you and your team!

I don't think this is ideal for what they want, because it's 20 extra steps to open up all the subassemblies and print them out each time. This adds to the overall time to complete a build, and production will not even take one extra step with their foot if they can avoid it to increase efficiency!

I guess we have a few options:

1. They keep a printed list of each sub-assembly at their desk.

2. We remove the sub-assemblies from the main component and just list all the parts.

Neither of these solutions is ideal because 1. We don't want static lists of parts that could become out of sync with our computer system. 2. Our products are complicated and if we have to spell out all the parts for each variation (rather than just adding or removing subassemblies on the build order) it's not very realistic for what we do.

At this point we might start looking around to see what else is out there aside from Quickbooks. So far it isn't improving efficiency in our processes, and that won't last too long in our culture.

Wrestling with similar issues.  We configure products to order at the time of shipment.  Have the sales end of the process down and working 'ok' but trying to figure out how to implement 'production work orders' for our prekitted sub-assemblies. This is so that the team can figure out what kind of time is required, what inventory parts are required and put a schedule together.  As far as i can tell, our QB Enteprise Platinum with advance inventory for manufacturing doesn't understand the concept.  So I'm headed down the path to create a Production Work Order template from a purchase order template, and create 'service' items that can be applied to COGS, then offline mash stuff together in spreadsheets.   Or...just something like Fishbowl or another ERP/MRP that is reasonably priced.

Hi there, GenTent.

It's good to know that you have tried to check for any workarounds. I'd like to share what I know about how inventory process works in QuickBooks Desktop.

Aside from inventory tracking, QuickBooks reminds you when it’s time to build more products. But if you need a quick overview of your inventory status, you can run reports anytime. You can go to Reports menu then select  Inventory.

You're right, you can also look for any third party application that can be integrated to QuickBooks to easily manage the production process. You can check out this link to find any third party application that fits for your company needs: Apps for QuickBooks Desktop

You can also check out the new features added for QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise 2021.

Post your concerns or click the reply button for any follow-up question about inventory management, I'm always here to help. Have a wonderful weekend!