Managing and adjusting stock

Applies to : Office Accounting Express, Professional
Office Accounting has a number of tools to manage your stock. These can be found in numerous places, but especially in the stock form, the product and service list, the reminders and the adjust stock forms.

Product and service List
When you want to look at all products and services together, you can look at the product and service list.

Product and service List
Just like any other list, the product and service list can be customised to include the information you need. The product and service list can also show:
  • Product group
  • Quantity on Purchase Order
  • Quantity on Sales Order
  • If the product or service is a commission product or service
  • Supplier product number
  • Preferred supplier
  • UPC/SKU
  • And any custom field

You can modify the product and service list by selecting Add/Remove content in the View menu. Also remember that lists can be printed or exported to Excel for further analysis.

Modify List layout
Reminders
Office Accounting has a number of reminders on the company dashboard. The ones that have to do with managing stock are the Back Orders and the Stock to Reorder reminders.

Stock reminders on the company dashboar
Click on the individual back orders reminders to open each sales order with back orders and the stock reorder point to open the reorder stock dialog.

Reordering stock
Office Accounting 2008 allows you to reorder stock in a simple way using the reorder stock dialog launched from either the company dashboard or the product and service list.

Reorder Stock dialog
The dialog lists all the stock products that should be ordered, because there is a shortage based on existing sales orders (backorders) or because the quantity on hand has fallen below the stock reorder point.
The quantity to reorder (may differ from the shortage quantity) is calculated as:
Restock level – on hand + on SO
Office Accounting will use the preferred supplier information when opening the purchase orders.

Backorders
Backorders occur when a sales order is created for a larger quantity than exists on hand.

Sales order with backorder
In the example above, there are 2 golf club sets on hand, but the sales order calls for 5, so 3 are on back order (for this particular order). There could potentially be other sales orders for the same product with back orders as well.
Handling the backorder can either be done using the reorder stock functionality mentioned above, or simply by creating a purchase order from the sales order by clicking create purchase order in the toolbar.

Creating a purchase order from a sales order

Creating Purchase Orders from Sales Orders
The purchase order created from the Sales order will contain the same information as the sales order (but the unit price will be the purchase price, rather than the sales price).

Purchase order created from a sales order
In the example above, the quantity of 5 on the sales order has been copied to the purchase order. The user can now adjust the quantity to the missing amount, or as seen above, have the supplier drop-ship all 5 sets directly to the customer to speed up delivery. This is done by simply editing the delivery address and changing the delivery method to drop ship.

When the customer has received the golf sets, the purchase order can be received into stock (to get the proper cost of sales for the products) and sales order can be converted to an invoice.

Adjusting Stock
If you use stock products, you should perform a physical stock count at least once a year at the end your fiscal year. Use the Stock Take Worksheet report in the Suppliers menu to help you count your stock.

Sample stock take worksheet
When you have counted what is actually at hand, you may want to adjust you stock for quantity or value.
The Adjust Stock Quantity form on the Suppliers menu allows you to adjust the stock quantity where the value of the remaining stock is adjusted accordingly (based on the FIFO principle). This is used when the stock has kept its per-unit value, but the quantity differs from what is recorded in Office Accounting.

Adjust Stock Quantity form
The Adjust Stock Quantity and Value form is used when the remaining stock no longer has the value it is posted at; either because it is damaged or the market value has gone down. When this form is saved, the stock is re-valued at the date of the transaction, replacing the entire set of FIFO layers by the new entry on the adjustment date.

Adjust Stock Quantity and Value form
In the example above the remaining tents and volleyball sets were damaged and the value was adjusted accordingly.
Please note that stock adjustments cannot be voided – you will have to make an additional stock adjustment on the same date.