Is it possible to do a write-off of an inventory kit ?
Example: for our community cinema, we sometimes write-off items that are out of date (e.g. bottle of beer) or are left over at the end of a show (e.g. box of salted popcorn).
The beer is easy to write off, but the box of salted popcorn is actually made up of a number of components - the box, the corn, the oil used to cook it and the flavouring. I could write off one unit of each of those inventory items, but it makes more sense (to me at least !) to be able to write off at the unit level that we work - the product we actually sell.
If not, is this something (albeit very small) that might be considered for an enhancement ?
No, because inventory kits do not exist as separable items. They are only shortcuts for selling things that already exist separately in inventory, are sold separately, but are also sold together on occasion (perhaps at a different price). A box of salted popcorn is not an inventory kit, because you don’t have boxes, popcorn, oil, and salt all available for sale. The situation calls for a production order to produce one finished inventory item from others.
That said, you should really question whether it is worthwhile to go through all the accounting headaches of trying to track popcorn as an inventory item at all. The components have relatively short shelf lives. They are almost impossible to accurately count. They could be treated as consumable supplies.
As stated above, the popcorn product should be created via a production order, then if your “manufacture recipe” makes enough for 12 servings but you only sell 8 then you do an Inventory write-off for 4. Beer out of date - that would be a first.
OK, thanks, so short answer no. It sounds like in accountancy terms I’m not using Manager properly - but as an end-user the workflow we follow does the trick, with that one exception.
It’s DEFINITELY worthwhile going through the process of tracking popcorn. We are a very small not-for-profit and so the profitability or otherwise of a particular film evening is very important. The fact that I know that every single box of salted popcorn sold at £1 gives me a 76p profit, every single box of sweet popcorn 72p and every single box of blue raspberry popcorn 68p is a vital level of detail for us to know. I assumed every business would want to know the profit margin on the products it sells, however big or small the business.
I guess production orders might technically be the right way - but since we actually create our finished items pretty much to demand at the show (e.g. we’ll make 1 batch of salted popcorn / equivalent to 4 boxes and then make up more batches if sales warrant it), creating production orders seems an additional overheard. The inventory kit approach takes care of this, I just report what is sold post-show - whereas the production order path would entail me creating them in addition to the process reporting sales.
Beer out of date - believe it or not we have had a few. Not many, but a few I write them off … and then our volunteers are more than happy to dispose of them in whatever way they see fit !
Well it doesn’t, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking how to write-off Inventory Kits.
With Inventory Kits, if you make a batch of 4 but only sell 3 then you have the problem of 3 sales but material usage for 4 - hence your question.
I write them off … and then our volunteers are more than happy to dispose of them in whatever way they see fit !