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What Is an Inventory Assembly Item?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

In QuickBooks an inventory assembly item is a specific type of Item that is the result of putting together a new inventory part out of a bundle of individual items to enable tracking finished goods separately from individual components. Normally, an inventory assembly item is used when separate raw materials are assembled, packaged, and sold as an inventory item that is separate from the component parts.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

The inventory assembly item type is only available in QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise Solutions. It’s not available in QuickBooks Pro.

It is similar to – but different from – a group item, another approach to managing a bundle of individual items. A group item is a way to quickly add a bundle of items to a form while preserving the ability to track those items individually. Where an inventory assembly item functions like a pre-assembled kit, a group item functions like an “on the fly” kit.

An inventory assembly item is made up of a Bill of Materials (visible by clicking the Full View… button) which can contain a range of item types: service, inventory part, another inventory assembly, non-inventory part, and other charge. Note that a subassembly can be nested within an inventory assembly. However, the Bill of Materials cannot contain these item types: subtotal, group, discount, payment, sales tax item, or sales tax group. Further, there’s a limit of 100 items in the Bill of Materials for an inventory assembly in QuickBooks Premier; for Enterprise Solutions, that limit is 500 items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Bill of Materials Full View

The Cost shown for an inventory assembly item should normally not be entered. When a Cost is not entered, QuickBooks will use the Bill of Materials Cost that appears at the bottom of the table.

An inventory assembly is built from its components parts by clicking on the Vendors->Inventory Activities->Build Assemblies menu selection. During the build process, the Quantity on Hand of the inventory assembly item is increased by the Quantity to Build, and the Quantity on Hand of each component is reduced by the product of that item’s Qty in the Bill of Materials and the Quantity to Build.

Builds in QuickBooks can be either pending or final. If there are insufficient quantities of the component parts, a build will automatically be marked as Pending. You can also manually mark a build as pending by clicking on the Edit->Mark Build As Pending menu selection while the Build Assemblies window is displayed. The Pending Builds report (Reports->Inventory->Pending Builds) supports managing future build requirements.

Here’s an example of invoicing for the inventory assembly item Interior Door kit shown above. Unlike a group item, which automatically adds other items to a form and controls whether these other items are printed, the inventory assembly item appears as a single line item on a form.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Create Invoices Inventory Assembly Item

The price of an inventory assembly item is specified, just like the price of an inventory item, and can be changed directly on a form.

Sales tax for an inventory assembly item is calculated based on the single Tax Code assigned to the inventory assembly.

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What Item Types Does QuickBooks Support?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

QuickBooks supports 11 Item Types.

Items themselves are maintained on the Lists->Item List menu selection, but the Item Types are pre-configured in QuickBooks and can’t be maintained by a user.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 New Item

The 11 Item Types are:

Service
Inventory Part
Inventory Assembly
Non-inventory Part
Other Charge
Subtotal
Group
Discount
Payment
Sales Tax Item
Sales Tax Group

There is a 12th Item Type, Fixed Asset, which is maintained on the Lists->Fixed Asset Item List menu selection.

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What Is a Payment Item and How Should I Use One?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

A Payment Item is a type of Item maintained on the Item list, which is accessed on the Lists->Item List menu selection.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

A Payment Item is used to record a partial payment on an Invoice or Statement made before the original sale. Payment Items shouldn’t be used on other sale documents, such as Sales Receipts or Credit Memos.

Payment Items are typically used by firms seeking the ability to create a single customer document (the Invoice) that reflects the net balance due on the grounds that a single document showing payments deducted reduces customer confusion and improves collections.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Payment Item

Typically, recording a customer payment via the Customers->Receive Payments window is used to record a full or partial payment received at or after the time of sale. Recording a Payment Item on an invoice is an alternate to this approach to reduce an invoice balance. One common use of a Payment Item is to record a deposit or retainer.

A Payment Item is designed to give you the flexibility to control the account to which it is deposited and to specify the associated Payment Method to enable the payment to be grouped with other similar items into a bank deposit. To specify the deposit account, either select Group with other undeposited funds or select Deposit To and pick an account from the pull-down list of accounts.

The screenshot below shows a Payment Item being recorded in the Create Invoices window. The Payment Item is recorded as a negative number and reduces the Balance Due on the invoice.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Payment Item on Create Invoice

One downside to using a Payment Item is that any reference number information, such as a customer’s check number, is not recorded in the typical field for such information, the No. field. Instead, the No. field is populated with the Invoice number.

For those who favor using a Payment Item, the advantage of being able to produce a single document (the Invoice) that reflects a customer’s net balance outweighs these shortcomings.

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What Are Service Items and How Should I Use Them?

Chief Mechanic · August 23, 2010 ·

Service Items are one type of Item and are maintained on the Lists->Item List menu selection.

See our article on all of the Item types supported by QuickBooks for more information.

Generally speaking, Items are designed to pre-fill invoicing and purchasing forms. Service Items normally include charges for labor or professional fees that your firm buys or sells. You should use Service Items for those charges for labor and professional fees that you plan to included on invoicing and purchasing forms.

Once you’ve created a Service Item, you can’t change the type to another type of Item, so use care when choosing the Item Type.

The New Item window appears below. How you record values in these fields depends on whether you’re creating a Service Item that you purchase or an Item that you sell. Some fields only appear if you’ve set a preference.

If you’re creating a Service Item used in purchases, record your vendor’s unit price as the Rate and choose an expense account for the Account. If you’re creating a Service Item you sell, record your typical selling price as the Rate and choose an income account for the Account.

Since you’ll have a chance to change the Description on invoicing and purchasing forms, you can either leave the Description blank, enter the most common Description, or create different Service Items for each unique description. QuickBooks stores the actual description recorded on each line of every invoicing and purchasing form, so the Description you enter when recording the Item is only an aid to filling out a form.

If the Service Item is used in assemblies or performed by a subcontractor or owner, click the checkbox indicating This service is used in assemblies or is performed by a subcontractor or partner. Doing so will allow you to record both the revenue and expense for each Item in separate accounts. Such Items can be used on both sales and purchase forms.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 New Item Subcontractor

When you’ve recorded all relevant fields, click Next to save your changes and enter another Item or click Ok to save your changes and close the window.

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How Many Custom Fields Does QuickBooks Support?

Chief Mechanic · March 20, 2010 ·

For the 2010 version (QuickBooks 2010 and Enterprise Solutions 10.0), Intuit has increased the number of custom fields and provided for data validation in Enterprise Solutions. Compared to 2009, the number of custom fields for Names increased from 7 (out of 15) to 12 (out of 30), and for Items it increased from 5 to 15.

QuickBooks 2010 and Enterprise Solutions 10.0 support up to 30 total custom fields for Names which can be applied to a combination of Customers:Jobs, Vendors, or Employees, provided that no more than 12 custom fields apply to any 1 type of list.

In addition, QuickBooks 2010 and Enterprise Solutions 10.0 support up to 15 custom fields for Items.

Enterprise Solutions 10.0 extends data validation to custom fields by allowing you to specify the type of data a custom field should contain and whether the fields are required on Transactions and Lists. Data types include 1 generic text format, 3 number formats, 5 date formats, 2 phone number formats, and a multi-choice list, which allows you to create a pull-down list of entries.

In Enterprise Solutions 10.0, the Multi-choice List contains list elements you specify, and you can select whether the list can only contain these elements or user-entered text. In all cases, custom fields are subject to a 30 character limit.

QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions 10 Custom Fields Multi-choice List

QuickBooks 2009 and Enterprise Solutions 9.0 support up to 15 total custom fields for Names, which can be applied to a combination of Customers:Jobs, Vendors, or Employees, provided that no more than 7 custom fields apply to any 1 type of list (i. e., Customers:Jobs, Vendors, and Employees). For example, you could create 7 custom fields unique to Customers:Jobs and a different set of 7 unique custom fields for Vendors. Then, you’d have the ability to create 1 additional custom field which could be used only for Employees.

Custom fields are limited to 30 characters. You can’t control the amount of text entered in a screen form, but you can limit the amount that is printed on a printed form. Except in Enterprise Solutions 10.0, custom fields are text entry boxes that accept any character. You can’t control the data entered with pull-down lists or other data type restrictions. Because data entered into custom fields is essentially unrestricted, care must be taken during data entry if these fields are to be used for filtering data; an apparently small change in data recorded for a custom field could result in many records not being found when applying a filter.

Custom fields for Customers:Jobs can be used for data in the header or footer of forms such as invoices and receipts.

In addition, in the 2009 version, QuickBooks supports up to 5 custom fields for Items.

QuickBooks Premier 2009 Custom Fields for Items

Custom fields for Items can be used for data in the section for line items (i. e., the columnar section below the header) on forms such as invoices and receipts.

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