For a farmer I would like to see if it is possible to use Manager to calculate the costprice of his cattle.
Let’s say the farmer purchased 100 bulls in April and 50 cows in september. I have made an inventory-item for the bulls and for the cows.
During a period of 12 months the farmer will have to buy salt, fertilizer for his grass, maybe rent land from another farmer, buy food etc. He would like to see at the end of a period how much he spend on salt, how much an labour, how much on fertilizer etc.
But he would like to attribute these costs as well to the inventory-items, as to calculate his margin when easily when he sells his bulls, or cows. So for instance let’s say that he spends USD 5,00 per month, per head on salt, USD 10,00 on medizins per head etc. After a given period he would like to see that this reflected in his itemprice.
Is there a way in Manager to link expense accounts to inventory-items, so that the average costs of the item is updated with each purchase ?
You cannot allocate expenses to inventory items. Manager computes average cost of inventory based on prior purchases. Only further purchases of the same inventory item contribute to the calculation. I know of no accounting system that does that (though there may be some).
To do what you want, you should set up your chart of accounts with appropriate groups to record expenses attributable to inventory maintenance costs. That’s really what your salt, feed, fertilizer, etc. are. The average cost of the cattle does not change. You have just had carrying costs the same way a wholesale warehouse has expenses for storing goods. You could use tracking codes to allocate expenses between bulls and cows, but I suspect it might be hard to divide expenses, since both make use of the same resources. But you could decide on some formula.
I would consult with an accountant knowledgable about your business or talk with others who raise cattle to see how they’ve structured their accounts. You will not be the first with this wish.