@miniLG, you did not say, but if this is a startup business, you should have no starting balances at all. Starting balances are only for migration from a prior accounting system.
oh. This is a business that we purchased this Nov as an existing business- is that what you mean by a start up business? Sorry for my ignorance. Our bank account didn’t start at $0 when we took on the business and there was inventory included in the purchase price so how would I enter these things if that is the case.
In this case it is correct to have a starting balance.
So the owners of the business contributed this equity by buying the business. When you enter this equity it should then balance.
OK thanks so I have now entered a starting balance for owner’s equity to equal the sum of starting stock and bank balance amount and so the starting balance equity figure has disappeared so I think that is correct now (hopefully) Many thanks!
The cost of goods sold, retained earnings and inventory on hand are still wrong though. Will have a bit more of a look into it then send through screen shots as not entirely sure what is going on now.
Here is a screen shot of the cost of goods sold
.As you can see only credit notes, not sales are showing up in the account.
Here is a screen shot of an edit screen for a sales transaction which looks fine to me but the item sold haven’t posted to the cost of goods sold account
Please note that until a week or so ago this was all working fine as far as I can tell.
@miniLG, you have not shown complete screens in your various screen shots, so it is not possible to follow the trail. The sales invoice, for example, includes no dates. The Inventory Items tab list does not include the breadcrumbs at the top of the screen, so we don’t know what you are showing us.
Let’s stick with the clutch cylinder spring. Please construct a complete illustration of the problem you think you have using that item. Provide all the information listed in post #18, showing full screens with breadcrumbs. Describe each screen, telling us what you think you should see but don’t. Remember, no one can see anything you don’t show us.
Sorry - took me a while to work out how to do all that - hopefully it is visible now.
As you can see the item sold in the invoice comes off the inventory but the cost of goods sold account is only recording credit notes.
My apology. I should have asked for three more screen shots:
- Please go to the Inventory Items tab and post a shot of the Edit screen for the clutch cylinder spring. I want to see whether you assigned it to a custom income account.
- Also, go the Settings tab, then Starting Balances. Click on Set Date and show the start date you have set.
- Also in Starting Balances, drill down on the Inventory on hand account and show the Edit screen for the clutch cylinder screen. I want to see if you correctly entered the value of your starting inventory of 2 units. If you did not, this could explain the problem, especially if you did the same thing for other inventory items. Without the correct starting values, there is no cost of goods to post upon a sale. What you have shown so far suggests you may have operated for a year before purchasing something and establishing an average cost.
Well, so far, everything looks OK. We are down to two more possibilities.
First, verify that the reporting date range on the Summary page is set correctly and includes the span of time during which you sold things that are not showing up. I will feel very stupid for not suggesting this earlier if it turns out you just have your dates set incorrectly.
The next part you will have to do this yourself, because it involves meticulous tracing of average cost versus quantity on hand for inventory items. Luckily, you aren’t using delivery notes, goods receipts, or production orders, so the effects of sales and purchase invoices and credit notes are instantaneous.
What I want you to try to understand is the history of average cost of an inventory item and how that effects the cost transferred from Inventory on hand to Inventory - cost when a sale is made. You started with 2 units of the clutch spring worth $3 each. Trace every transaction affecting the clutch spring. If a sales invoice was issued during a time when nothing was in stock or the average cost was zero, it won’t show up. And a credit note will replenish inventory at the most recently used average cost. Something fishy may have happened, because you started with the $3 average cost, show $3 as the purchase price, but somehow come up with a current average cost of only $2.80. Look at your freight-in charges, any customs fees charged, etc.
Since no sales invoice is showing, I believe whatever has happened is systematic. But I don’t think it’s a bug, or thousands of people would be complaining. (And I would be able to reproduce the problem.) If you can figure out what happened with the clutch spring, I will almost guarantee the same thing happened to every other inventory item.
Thanks,
Dates are correct. Will do the tracing as soon as I can. It seems odd that everything was working 2 weeks ago and has now gone crazy. Will keep you posted
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Have just checked the average costs of the springs after each transaction and they look fine. Starting balance purchase was $3 for this item but subsequent purchases were at $2.80 each and so the average cost figures work out. No sales were made when inventory was out of stock.
Any more ideas? Last time this happened (in May) it was moved to the bugs category and then resolved but I don’t know if it fixed itself or an if an update fixed the problem. (see beginning of this post).
@miniLG I can reproduce the issue. This was a case when viewing figures on cash-basis, Manager would eliminate from general ledger all inventory cost transactions related to sales invoices whether these invoices were paid or unpaid. The correct approach is to eliminate inventory cost transactions only for unpaid invoices and retain inventory cost transactions for paid invoices.
This has been fixed in the latest version (20.7.94).
The one thing I didn’t think to try.
Fixed ! Thank you both so much for your efforts. I have learn a lot along the way. Such a stressful time for this to happen.