How to record a bill from a PO, without receiving the inventory items? The inventory ordered is still in transit.

Unfortunately, QB programmers did not understand intransit rules or accounting so you can not.

Wait for the delivery then enter the bill, or payment if already made

I see, thank you for confirming.

They should really create two Actions from a PO form, (1) Create a Bill and (2) Create Item receipt.

My current work-around is -

1) book bill when invoiced,

2) check on month-end on what's still in transit,

3) Transfer amount of In-transit inventory, from Inventory account to In-transit inventory account.

4) Reverse on the expected month to be received.

Is this a sound practice? Thank you.

I see, thank you for confirming.

QB really needs to have two actions that can be done from a PO - (1) Create a bill and (2) Create Item receipt.

Currently, I am doing the following:

1) Book the bill when received.

2) At month end, check if there are bills recorded with inventory order still in-transit.

3) Post a journal to transfer the value of in-transit inventory, from the Inventory account to the In-transit account.

Is this a sound practice.

Hello again, @Q-B Online User 1. I appreciate your prompt response. 

Rustler is correct. You'll need to wait for the delivery. Then, enter the bill or if the payment has already made. Since right now, QuickBooks Online has no Sales Order feature which is present in QuickBooks Desktop. For the meantime, you can continue the workaround that you've practised for the scenario that you have.

I understand how the workflow you're looking for is beneficial to your business. To ensure your voice is heard, I can pass a feedback about this. For the time being, you can visit our blog and sign up to our Newsletter. This way, you’ll receive email updates about changes in the product. Our developers get inspiration from customers, so your voice makes a huge impact.

Additionally, I want to ensure that you get the most out of QuickBooks for your business. You can check some video tutorials that are designed to help you get acclimated with the software. They can be accessed at the following link: QuickBooks Tutorials.

As always, you can get back to me if you have any additional questions. I'm here for you. Have a great day!

There seem to be a few things that Quickbooks does not have that would substantially improve its functionality and prevent users migrating to other systems when their business's get larger. Having an intransit stage for products would be really useful, as would a proper bill of lading for outgoing items. I don't understand why Intuit would so easily allow customers to go elsewhere, when you already have them at the early stages of their development.

We use QB Enterprise, so I'm not sure if this process works for Online, but we have an ugly workaround for this problem.

We created an "Other Current Asset" account called Items Pending Receipt. We can then enter the bill with quantity = 0 for all the Items, but put the full pre-tax value of the items in the Expense account. When we later receive the items, we delete the Expense entry and add the quantities received to the Items tab.

This does create yet one more thing to audit, but it solves the problem of entering bills before the inventory arrives.

Overall, it amazes me that this feature does not exist natively in QuickBooks. Our distributors send us the bill the same day that the item leaves the warehouse, and it can take days to weeks for it to land. That can create a messy backlog of payables if we don't get the bills in promptly.

Thank you for helping by sharing your practices, CoryGB.

You can also send feedback about invoicing or billing options for goods that will take days or weeks to arrive. Just visit the Customer Feedback for QuickBooks Online page and click on Give feedback. You can vote on other ideas or suggestions you like.

Feel free to keep on sharing and helping other posters in the Community. Take care and have a good one!

There is a feature inside of Quickbooks Enterprise that is designed for this. It is called Enhanced inventory receiving (EIR). Although this feature will do what you want, it is a feature that can not be turned off. Please be sure to try in a backup file first to make sure you want to change to this method.

How to enable EIR

1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences and select Items & Inventory.
2. Go to the Company Preferences tab and select Enable under "Enhanced Inventory Receiving" section.
3. Review the warning message and select Continue, then OK.
4. You will be prompted to back up your company file.
5. Depending on the size of your company file, it may take a while to complete this process
6. When finished, QuickBooks Desktop will provide a summary of changes that happened during this process.

To see the full article and all of the information regarding Enhanced Inventory Receiving please visit the following link: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/en-us/help-article/product-preferences/turn-enhanced-inv...

Just curious QuickBooks team.    What is the point in your users providing feedback about issues with your software if you do nothing about it?  

Hi Quickbooks team.  Just curious...What's the point of customers providing feedback about functionality issues that could be easily be rectified if you do nothing about it? 

Waiting patiently for your reply!