Inventory and Services

Inventory and services are the goods and services you buy and sell. They can be items you purchase on a regular basis for internal use or services you require to run your company, items you resell, items purchased to produce new inventory items or services you offer to your customers. You store both kinds of inventory items and services in the same module. Here are some examples: 

• Items you purchase for your business: painting masks and tape, office supplies. (operating costs)
• Services you purchase for your business: equipment rentals, bookkeeping services (operating costs)
• Items you stock and resell to customers: paint, door hardware, (costs you pass on to your customer)
• Services you offer to customers: painting, consulting, drafting, cleaning, or yardwork. (costs passed on to your customer)

Why do I need to store inventory records?

The Inventory and Services module is an important tool which can help you manage your business costs and analyze company profitability. Creating records for your inventory items and services offers many advantages:

• Save time when you create sales or purchase invoices. Instead of typing the details of each item, you select items from a list and Sage 50 Accounting enters all related information automatically.
• Keep track of inventory quantities. A well-organized list of inventory and service items also makes it easy to keep track of the things you're buying and selling, and to focus on areas that may need your attention. Sage 50 Accounting provides two ways to track your inventory costing, Average Cost and First In First Out (FIFO) (Sage 50 Premium Accounting).
• Use price lists to set up preferred pricing and manage cost fluctuations. Price lists are used to control prices, by automatically suggesting the price of your inventory or service items when you create invoices. This also provides an easy and quick way of discounting your regular prices for valued customers.
• Generate inventory profitability reports.
• Create Inventory Categories to help save time when looking up an item, and to generate comparison reports. (Sage 50 Premium Accounting)

Quickly add a new inventory or service item record

Sage 50 Accounting allows you to instantly add a new inventory or service record "on the fly" when you are entering any of the following transactions:

• Inventory adjustment
• Inventory transfer (Sage 50 Premium Accounting)
• Item assembly
• Sales or purchase invoices
• Sales or purchase orders (must be turned on)
• Sales or purchase quotes (must be turned on)