Inventory / Roofing Company

Glad to have you here in the Community, @accontractors.

Let's set up your inventory in QuickBooks Desktop so you can get back to working order.

To track the cost and count of the items you purchase in bulk, you can turn on the Unit of Measure feature. Then, create a bill for the materials you want to purchase from your vendor. Here's how to turn on the feature:

1. Go to the Edit menu, then select Preferences.
2. Select Items & Inventory from the left menu and choose Company Preferences.
3. In the Unit of Measure section, select Multiple U/M Per Item from the drop-down.
4. Click OK to save the changes.
5. Once done, enter a bill for the items you'll purchase.

On the other hand, you can allocate the items to the job costs by creating an invoice. This way, the Cost of Good Sold (COGS) will be allocated to the job. Then, if the items were returned, you'll want to enter a refund to add back the items to your inventory. And create an invoice again to re-allocate the items to other jobs.

However, if you don't want to process this with invoicing, you have the option to adjust inventory to allocate which job it gets assigned to for relieving it from stock on hand. Here's how:

1. Go to the Inventory menu, then select Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand.
2. From the Customer:Job drop-down, choose the job.
3. Select the items you want to allocate.
4. Click Save & Close.

You might want to read these articles to learn more about the Advanced Inventory feature in QuickBooks Desktop:

• Set up Advanced Inventory.
• Turn on Advanced Inventory.

Please let me know if you need clarification about this, or there's anything else I can do for you. I'll be standing by for your response. Have a great day.

@accontractors 

The Advanced Inventory feature is fit for a wholesale/trading or a manufacturing company. I would recommend to use a construction management app for your business. It is possible you only need a one time license of QBD Premier + a construction management app.  

Mark, thank you for the reply.  With either of these options (recording the inventory via invoice/refund or by adjusting Inventory manually) is there a way to use the barcode scanner feature?  Our Production Team wants to be able to scan items in/out of our warehouse area.  I watched the demo videos and it seemed like this was only available via Purchase Orders.

Also, please advise regarding thoughts on the other response about QB Inventory not being the correct fit for this type of material / inventory tracking?

Hi, @accontractors.

Thank you for following up with us here on the Community page. I can share with you some information about inventory management with QuickBooks Desktop.

Yes, with advanced inventory, you can use barcodes to make data entry faster and easier on QuickBooks Desktop. After you assign barcodes to items, you can scan barcodes whenever you buy or sell those items. You can also scan barcodes to adjust the number of items on hand.

Here's how you can set it up:

1. In QuickBooks Desktop, go to the Edit menu and select Preferences.
2. Select Items and Inventory, then select the Company Preferences tab.
3. Click on Advanced Inventory Settings, then select the Barcodes tab.
4. Tap on Enable Barcode, then select Open Barcode Wizard.
5. In the Barcode Scanning Setup wizard, select which item field you want to use for barcode tracking. If you’re not sure what to use, choose a field that will be unique for each item, such as the Item Name or Part Number. Then select Next.
6. Select the types of items you want to generate barcodes for. 
7. Hit Next, then Finish.

For more tips about this feature, you can open these links:

• Set up and use barcode scanning in QuickBooks Desktop
• Setup and use the Warehouse Manager in QuickBooks Desktop mobile

On the other hand, you can always turn on or set up advanced inventory as long as you're using the Enterprise version of QuickBooks. Moreover, I would recommend checking out with a professional accountant to get help with the accurate recording that fits your business needs or your industry of business.

I'm adding these articles for additional information about advanced inventory:

• Turn on Advanced Inventory
• Set up Advanced Inventory

If you need to switch to another industry type or edition of QuickBooks, you can also use this link as your guide: Toggle to another QuickBooks edition.

If you have any other questions, please let me know by adding a comment below. I'm more than happy to help. Have a good one!