It’s pretty common for companies to have significant amounts of “out-house inventory” items, which aren’t in your facility but you need visibility of the quanties without being able to easily lay eyes on. Thus it can be a challenge to keep track of them…
Rarely does this apply to inventory stored in a shed in the back yard with a moon on the door… Most commonly it’s inventory en route from your vendor, or inventory you’ve staged at a customer site. So, how to track each of those scenarios?
Inventory from a vendor which you own while it’s being shipped to you, called “FOB Origin,” is best handled by creating a warehouse specifically for receipt and tracking while en route. As an example, we have numerous clients purchasing items from overseas manufacturers and we’ll create a warehouse named ON-THE-WATER or EN-ROUTE to receive POs into as soon as the items are released from the vendor. For additional visibility we create bins in that warehouse with the expected arrival date as the name of the bin, such as 20231015 for October 15th. When the items subsequently arrive on your doorstep, you then transfer the inventory from your ON-THE-WATER warehouse to your MAIN warehouse so they’ll be available for shipment. During this transfer is also a good time to implement a business process for inspecting the items.
For inventory staged at a customer, often called vendor-supplied-inventory (as you’re your customer’s vendor), we recommend creating a warehouse called ONSITE and then a “bin” for each customer—or if you have numerous customers with this scenario you can create a separate warehouse for each customer. When staging inventory to your customer, do a <Warehouse Transfer> to the ONSITE warehouse and have all Sales Orders for their reported usage “ship” from the ONSITE warehouse to decrement the quantity there and maintain correct/current quantities at the staging location.
Your staff will then have easy visibility to the quantities of these remote items and this approach of using separate warehouses also provides clear and complete reporting for tax and insurance purposes of inventory not under your roof—including a simple means of validating the GL asset accounts via reporting inventory “by warehouse.”
We hope the above has generated some thoughts on how to use your accounting and financial management system to improve your business processes—as, not-your-CPA, we always try to be more than just software assistance!
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Note: If you run AccountMate Payroll, you should have received an email from us regarding the Annual Payroll Tax Subscription—with the usual “10% early payment” discount. We look forward to hearing from you soon to lock in that discount.
Regards,
Kevin E. Stroud
kestrou@nexlan.com
NexLAN, LLC
https://nexlan.com
AccountMate Core Modules Classes Oct. 4 – Nov. 9
AccountMate for SQL/Express Core Product Training | October 4 – November 9, 2023
Offered three times per year, the six-week online AccountMate SQL/Express Core Product Training covers the major features and functionalities in each of the core modules that make up AccountMate for SQL/Express.
This training class is held on Wednesdays and Thursdays and has been divided into multiple sessions with varying lengths depending on the module (4-5 hours per session). You can pick and choose the session (module) you want to attend or sign up for all of them.
Class details:
Any AccountMate customer that is on a current Lifecycle Maintenance Plan can send one or more trainees annually to the Online Core Product Training for AccountMate SQL and Express at no-charge. Contact NexLAN for details about how many users your company can send for free.
Call or email NexLAN to register, or if you have questions.
Handy Template Editor for Your Notification Emails in Acumatica
Did you know you can easily customize the email notifications that your Acumatica system sends to your colleagues, customers, and vendors? Like, your invoices, shipment notices, orders received alerts, late payment notices—Acumatica has a ton of built-in stock templates like these, and a Notification Template Editor for them too.
Examples of what you can edit:
- Add your logo, signature, contact info
- Edit the wording
- Add your own wording, like a message about your 3% restocking fee or credit card fee, or a notice about your holiday business hours
- Tweak the layout, colors, bullets, italics, etc.
These are easily adjustable; you don’t have to be a technical person to use the visual Notification Template Editor. The editor is an example of how Acumatica makes it easy for users to configure common things without requiring a programmer. (It’s also possible to do more advanced email editing by adding HTML code in the template editor, if you wish.)
Here’s a screen shot showing the template editor:
And here’s a Sales Quote notification template that is customized with color, our logo, and contact info:
To try the template editor, do a search for Email Templates, then find the notification you want to edit from the notification lookup. If you’d like a short orientation, we’d be happy to walk you through the steps, for free, to get you comfortable making template edits! Contact us.
Acumatica Webinar Oct 10 —How to Work with Live Acumatica Data in Excel
Make Better, Faster Business Decisions with the Power of Live Data | October 10, 2023, 1:00 – 1:30 CDT
Hands-down one of the most widely used Acumatica add-ons is Velixo. Velixo’s Excel-based reporting, planning, and analysis software reports on Acumatica data in real time, using simple functions based in the Excel everyone knows and loves.
Attend this webinar to learn how your business can take advantage of:
- Real-time, pixel-perfect reports
- Direct data writeback to Acumatica
- Acumatica’s enterprise-level security
- Full integration with Microsoft 365
Register for the Velixo webinar here and you’ll also receive an email with a link to the recording after the event.
Acumatica Webinar for Manufacturers Oct 26—Predictable Growth Using Metrics
Achieve Predictable Growth with Strategic Manufacturing Metrics and KPIs | October 26, 2023, 1:00 – 1:45 CDT
Measurable, informative metrics are everywhere in manufacturing organizations, from accounting to sales, from quality to production, and beyond. Discover how other manufacturing companies, like Curran, identify and prioritize top-line metrics and use modern cloud applications to gain real-time insights through role-based dashboards, live reports, and inquiries with drilldowns to source transactions.
The webinar will cover how to reduce waste, increase throughput, and understand job costs for greater profitability. As well as how to boost sales, maximize resources, and improve profits with a comprehensive, modern manufacturing ERP system.
Register for the manufacturing metrics webinar here and you’ll also receive an email with a link to the recording after the event.
AccountMate Tech Note: How to Reverse or Adjust Sales Taxes in an Invoice
There may be instances where you will need to change sales taxes charged to an invoice, such as when you have entered the wrong sales tax code, or there is a change in the prevailing tax rate.
Article #1162: How to Reverse or Adjust Sales Taxes in an Invoice covers the two ways to reverse or adjust sales taxes in AccountMate. You can use either the Create Invoice or Apply Payment function. This Tech Note explains how to make the reversal or adjustment using these two functions and illustrates the generated journal entries.
AccountMate Tech Note: How to Record Recurring Expenses in AccountMate
Certain types of expenses involve fixed sums of money and recur regularly. Some of these expenses are incurred at regular intervals and will be paid only when they become due. Others are paid in advance and only require some means of allocating the lump sum payment over the periods that will benefit from it. These two groups of expenditures are called Recurring Expenses. AccountMate handles differently each of the two types of recurring expenses.
Article #1097: How to Record Recurring Expenses in AccountMate identifies the functions that you can use to record the expenses and explains the circumstances under which each function should be used.
AccountMate Tech Note: Understanding the Manufacturing Overhead Costs
It is crucial for manufacturing companies to properly account for and control production costs, especially overhead costs. To apportion manufacturing overhead costs to their products, the applied overhead cost can be either a fixed amount or a percentage of the direct manufacturing cost. AccountMate supports both methods.
Article #1124: Understanding the Manufacturing Overhead Costs discusses the two methods for apportioning these costs to manufactured products. It also discusses the relevant accounting entries generated in AccountMate and provides some tips on resolving issues that users may encounter when recording overhead costs.
Acumatica Technical Tips
How to Issue a Customer Refund
Q: Is there a process in Acumatica to issue a customer refund in a way that isn’t tied to the credit memo process?
A: You can get this done in just a few steps:
- In AR Payments & Applications, enter and release a document of type Customer Refund, using a Customer Clearing account on the line(s) where the revenue account normally appears. On the Documents to Apply tab, add in the open document to be refunded (Credit Memo, Payment, or Prepayment).
- If the customer is not already a vendor, in the Customer Profile screen, click the (…) actions menu and choose Extend to Vendor. Acumatica will create the related vendor for this customer.
- In AP enter either a Bill followed by a Check, or enter a Quick Check using a printable Payment Method. Then on the Bill or Quick Check, use the Customer Clearing account from Step 1 where an expense account normally appears on the line. Use the Cash Account from which the payment will be issued to the customer. Print and Release the check.
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How to Delete a Debit Memo Reversal
Q: A debit memo was entered in the system when it should not have been. I was able to remove the invoices and attach them to the correct payment. But now I have an Open Debit memo. How can I remove it?
A: An accounts payable credit adjustment may be used to correct a debit adjustment that was created in the vendor account. Use the Bills and Adjustments (AP301000) form to create an adjustment. Then on the Checks and Payments form, under Documents to Apply, apply the adjustment document.
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How to Ship and Print Multiple Sales Orders at Once
Q: Can I create shipments on multiple sales orders and print them all at once instead of going into each sales order individually and creating the shipment?
A: You absolutely can. In the Sales Orders workspace, under Processes, you will find two screens:
- The Process Orders screen where you can create shipments in bulk for selected Sales Orders
- The Process Shipments screen where you can print Pick Lists and/or Shipment Confirmations in bulk for selected Shipments
In both screens, clicking the drop-down in the Action field will show your options for actions to take on that screen for the records you select.
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How to Change a GL Account’s Type
Q: Is there any way of changing the account type of a GL Account in Acumatica?
A: Here are two ways. (Remember to apply journal entries if there’s a balance in the account.)
Starting in Acumatica 2023 R1, you can directly change the type of account. Use the Chart of Accounts (GL202500) form and update the setting in the Type column.
Or, in any release, you can change the type this way—which has the advantage of documenting that the account type was changed:
- Set up a new account of the desired type
- Use the GL Reclassify feature to move the historical transactions from the old account with the incorrect type, to the new account with correct type.
- Make note of the number of the old account, then change the number of the old account to something different.
- Change the number of the new account created in Step 1 to use the old account number. Now your old account number is of the desired type.
- Inactivate the old account.
AccountMate Technical Tips
Reported Payments That Aren’t Shown in the Invoice Reports
Versions:
AM13 for SQL and Express
AM12 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for LAN
Modules: SO, AR
Q: The Payment Distribution Report shows a recent payment for an AR invoice that is nonexistent in any of the invoice reports. I also attempted to amend the invoice using the Create Invoice function; however, immediately after entering the invoice number, AccountMate displayed a message informing me that the invoice did not exist. How could this be?
A: The payment must be an advanced billing payment and the invoice is still a proforma invoice. Verify this information in the Advanced Billing Summary Report.
A proforma invoice is not a valid invoice yet; thus, you can neither find it in any of the invoice reports nor amend it using the Create Invoice function. To convert the proforma invoice into a valid invoice, you must approve the advanced billing.
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An Error When Trying to Cancel a Pre-Authorized Sales Order
Versions:
AM13 for SQL and Express
AM12 for SQL and Express (Build AM12.3)
Module: SO
Q: I attempted to cancel a sales order; however, AccountMate displayed a message informing me that the sales order was pre-authorized. I cannot continue recording the transaction. Why?
A: Before you can cancel a pre-authorized sales order, you must first void the pre-authorization by performing the following:
- Access the Pre-Authorize Sales Order function from the Transactions menu in the Sales Order module.
- Enter the number of the sales order that you want to amend.
- Click the Void button.
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Why Don’t Inventory Items on a Sales Order Show their Assigned Bins?
Versions:
AM13 for SQL and Express
AM12 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM11 for SQL and Express
AM10 for SQL, Express, and LAN
AM9 for LAN
Module: SO
Q: I printed a Pick List for a sales order. Why are there no bins assigned to some inventory items?
A: The line items without bins in the Pick List must have zero (0) on-hand quantities in all the warehouse bins. In this scenario, a bin will not be displayed for a line item in a sales order’s Pick List.
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Why Non-Taxable Wages Are Excluded in IRS Form 941
Versions:
AM10 for SQL and Express (and higher versions)
AM9 for LAN (and higher versions)
Module: PR
Q: Why are non-taxable wages excluded from Form 941’s Wages, tips, and other compensation (Line 2)?
A: The IRS Form 941 instructions state, “Enter amounts on line 2 that would also be included in box 1 of your employees’ Form W-2. See Box 1–Wages, tips, other compensation in the General Instructions for Forms W-2 and @-2 for details.” The Form W-2/W-3 instructions for Box 1 state, “Show the total taxable wages, tips, and other compensation that you paid to your employee during the year.” The Form W-2/W-3 instructions emphasize the word “taxable.” Still, we strongly recommend that you consult with your tax accountant about the amounts that should be included in Forms 941 and W-2/W-3.
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