Sales Income under negetive Purchases of inventory items

I’ve put in 3 received Sales Invoices, totalling $29,500 before tax. They are listed under ‘Purchases of inventory items’ under Expenses, as -29,500 instead of under Sales under Income. The Sales figure is 0.

I can’t figure out why the received Sales Invoices are listed under Expenses instead of Income.

On the sales invoice what account are you selecting when selling items?

Hi itmoto, you’re spot on! I left that field blank, and it must have defaulted to ‘Purchases on inventory items’.
I changed the account fields to ‘Sales of inventory items’ under Income and that did the trick.
Help much appreciated

That still doesn’t explain why was the amount posted to Purchases of inventory items account. If you leave Account column empty, the amount from invoice should be posted to Suspense account.

What version are you using?

G’day lubos, 14.11.8.
Yes, I assumed that it had defaulted to ‘Purchases of inventory items’ when I noticed the error. Not too sure beyond that. I’ll now write some more items into stock via a Purchase Order and repeat the process to see what it defaults to.

Okay I just did the following:

  • Create a Sales Order
  • Copy the Sales Order into a Sales Invoice
  • Leave the Account in the Sales Invoice as ‘Suspense’
  • Created the Sales Invoice (it’d be great if it warned me that I’ve not chosen an Account)
  • Went to ‘Summary’
  • And the Sales Invoice has again been put under ‘Purchases of inventory items’.

While I’m at it, it would be great if Inventory Items had two balances: one for Stock on Hand and one for Available for Sale, so if I had 10 of Item A on hand, and 2 of them commited under a work order, and 3 of them taken under a sales order, the system would tell me that 5 (10-2-3) are available for sale.

I’m trying to reproduce this issue following your steps but still unable to see this for myself. If account is set to Suspense, then amount is posted to Suspense account.

Regarding extra columns for inventory items, I think it’s a good idea but first, I will need to implement some sort of status system for sales orders or purchase orders so the system knows which orders have been already fulfilled.

Regarding the issue with Sales Invoices being listed under Purchase of inventory items, here’s an image.

I’m more than happy to provide a backup file.

I don’t know if it’s got anything to do with it, but in the Purchase Order & Purchase Invoice screen, “Expenses->Purchases of Inventory Items” is not listed - although I suppose it’s better this way - so that someone doesn’t select it instead of “Assets->Inventory on Hand”.

Also, with respect to the image below, I havn’t figured out what this item box relates to;

Cheers

Suggestions for Sales Order statuses that come to mind; On Hold (HLD), On Credit Hold (CRH), To Be Invoiced (INV).

Today’s messages were made using 14.11.12. I will now update to 14.11.14

Perhaps it’s something to do with the fact that I’ve got all the ‘Customize’ radio/check-boxes ticked for Reports and left-hand-side-bar functions.

The Item box is like a shortcut Item that the accounts have been preconfigured for.
They are called Sales Invoice Items for sales invoices and Purchase Invoice Items for purchase invoices.
They can be found under settings - Customise

I did some more playing around. There’s definitely an error with how “Purchases of inventory items” is forming its listings; (the last sentence is the key takeaway)

When a Purchase Invoice is raised, when I go to “Summary” and click on the figure to the right hand side of “Purchases of inventory items”, it takes me to the “Purchases of inventory items” page. The data under “Transaction” and “Description” and “Qty” and “Date” is wrong. The data under “Amount” and “Balance” both say 0, which is also incorrect, as $28.80 is owing to this supplier. For some reason it’s listing a Sales Invoice that was raised before the latest Purchase Invoice was raised. I daresay the association lies in the fact they both respectively sell and buy the same part number. Just then I edited the Sales Invoice to selling a non-item-code line, and the false entry is no longer listed in “Purchases of inventory items”.

When you buy inventory items via purchase invoice that sends the items to asset account - Inventory on hand.

When you sell the item it then gets posted to the expense account - Purchases of Inventory Items, as item is only an expense when it is sold.

On Summary screen, if you click on the figures to the right hand side of Inventory on hand asset account, that is where you will find the purchase invoices.

If you issue sales invoice that is selling inventory items you don’t have yet on hand, Manager cannot determine cost of goods sold since items haven’t been purchased yet. That’s why 0.00 is shown as the cost of goods sold.

I’m actually planning to improve inventory to handle some of these anomalies so if quantity on hand is negative, any purchase of inventory items that are in negative will go straight into Purchases of inventory items expense account rather than to Inventory on hand as it is now.

But it’s an expense when its Purchase Invoice has been raised; the figures do correspond to Purchase Invoices after all.

Surely the Sales Invoices’ lines that contain inventory items should be listed under “Sales of inventory items” and Purchase Invoices that contain inventory items should be listed under “Purchases of inventory items”, with the values only including inventory items. No?

I must reiterate that the Summary → “Purchases of Inventory Items” screen should be listing Purchase Invoices, not Sales Invoices with Purchase Invoice figures.

If the user wants to be able to see association of Sales Invoices to certain Inventory Items, this should be doable under a different tool altogether.

You cannot have an item that is an expense and in inventory at the same time.
If an item is purchased to sell to customers that is put into inventory which hasn’t yet been sold it is an asset, or you could call it a deferred expense, until it is sold then it becomes an expense.

On the summary screen under expenses purchases of inventory items is linked to cost of goods sold. (I believe)

Items that you have purchased and put into inventory can be found on the assets section of the summary screen.

Hi itmoto, thanks for the feedback.

Two points:

  1. I think that instead of being called “Purchases of inventory items” it should be called “Cost of Goods Sold” - just as you describe it. Otherwise it’s misleading.

  2. How can I get a Report / similar of how much has been spent on Purchases of inventory items? (Any inventory item that has an P/O invoice linked with it ofcourse.)

I recommend another Report be made for this purpose which could include the following that come to mind:

  • A list of all Inventory Items with radio-check boxes next to them (all ticked by default, with a button to un-check them all)
  • A certain time frame (current financial year by default)
  • A list of all Suppliers with radio check boxes next to them (all ticked by default, with a button to un-check them all)
  • A selection with how to order the report’s entries (time or supplier or inventory item description or amount)

Cheers