Job Costing for inventory items used in Job

JaneBMES

We are an importer of large machinery. Each machine is imported, customised and then sold on to a retail customer. The customisation process can vary greatly and can involve adding many small parts which can not appear on the customers invoice in detail.

We run jobs to track costs for each machine. The problem is we just recently turned on inventory tracking and we cannot get the cost of items from stock to add to the job costing reports as we DO NOT add each stock item on the invoice at the time it is created. Any advice.

Reckon help suggests using "Adjust Quantity on Hand" and this does have a Customer/Job allocation in it but it is not working as this cost isn't allocated to the Job/Machine.

Acctd4

Any system is only as good as the info you tell it eg it can’t take into account Items if you don’t use the specific Item when you buy/sell it.

Have you considered using “Assembly Items”? This allows you to track the individual components that make up a new (finished) Item as well as the finished Item itself.

JaneBMES

It is not possible to know at the time of sale, when the invoice is completed, every part that will come out of our stock on hand to complete the customisation process.

We also do not wish to change the items on the original invoice (that was sent to the customer at sale) as the machines is customised and yet want to keep the inventory quantity correct and apportion the cost to the job. It is like a fixed price project, some of the items can only be picked from inventory as the project unfolds.

We have considered the assembly but this is impractical as it would vary every time. Any other suggestions?

Acctd4

It’s difficult to advise on your specific scenario without seeing the setup but “Group” Items may work for you - The components can be edited (eg added/removed) as required whilst still having a single line “Description” (that’s also editable) for the invoice ?

Note however, that this option isn’t able to track the completed “Item” only the individual components within it.

Graham Boast

Hi Jane

This is something I came up with for another client. The screenshots use the sample file.

Here is the initial sale. The client wants knobs with the doors (Buy $10, sell $20), so I have just added this into an all inclusive price.

To add the cost of the knobs, and to take them out of inventory, I now do a Sales Receipt and add on all the items I use for the job. The trick here is to overwrite the price with a zero.

Here is the journal for the the sales receipt showing the cost (100 @ $10)

And most importantly, the Job profitability report showing the capture of the costs against the job.

I hope you find this useful.

Graham Boast 0409 317366

Reckon Accredited Partner

[email protected]

JaneBMES

Thanks so much Graham,

This is a simple solution and ticks all my boxes. I did look at a zero invoice but it was going to cause havoc with our invoice numbering, be confusing which invoice was which etc but I think we can live with a sales receipt as we do not generally use them day to day for any other purpose.