QuickBooks Inventory Journal

The inventory journal keeps the value of your brewery stock on your QuickBooks balance sheet. As you receive ingredients, brew, package and sell, BarSight posts journal entries so your Raw Materials, Work In Progress and Finished Goods accounts move with your real inventory. Two reports let you check that BarSight and QuickBooks agree.

Before You Start

QuickBooks Online must already be connected. See Connecting QuickBooks Online.
Setup is on the QuickBooks Options page and requires Settings access (access level 27).
The Inventory Value box on that page is switched on per account. If you do not see it, contact BarSight support.
Decide your go-live date. Nothing from before that date is ever posted.
Know whether QuickBooks already holds your inventory value. That decides which opening stock option you choose.

How Value Moves

Every stock change is posted as a journal entry in QuickBooks, one entry per action, at the cost of the stock involved. Entries are sent in the background shortly after you save.

What happens in BarSight	What is posted in QuickBooks
You receive stock on a purchase order	With QuickBooks purchase order sync on, the supplier bill is already coded to the item's inventory account, so no journal entry is needed. With it off, the receipt is posted against Inventory Adjustment.
A batch uses an ingredient	Value moves from the ingredient's account (for example Raw Materials) into Work In Progress.
You package a batch	The packaging materials used, plus the packaged share of the batch's Work In Progress, move into Finished Goods. The cost is frozen on the package at that moment.
You ship or close a customer order	The cost of the beer sold moves from Finished Goods to Cost of Goods Sold. Reopening an order or processing a return reverses it.
Stock is counted, adjusted, lost, returned or deleted	The change is posted against Inventory Adjustment.
A batch is closed or spoiled	Any value still left in its Work In Progress is written off to Inventory Adjustment.

Finished beer is valued at cost, not at the price you sell it for. This matches how Ekos handles inventory in QuickBooks.

The Accounts

Inventory Groups

Each group is one QuickBooks asset account holding the value of the items or products assigned to it. BarSight starts you with three:

Raw Materials holds ingredients such as malt, hops and yeast.
Packaging holds everything else you buy to package beer: consumables, containers (cans, bottles, kegs, labels) and deposits. It should only hold packaging you have not used yet.
Finished Goods holds packaged beer ready to sell, at cost.

You can add your own groups, such as one per ingredient type, by typing a new name in the group field on an item or product. A group's QuickBooks account is created the first time an entry posts to it, unless you point the group at an existing account.

The Other Side of Each Entry

Work In Progress holds the value of beer still in tanks.
Cost of Goods Sold takes the cost of beer you sell.
Inventory Adjustment takes counts, losses, returns, un-received orders and written-off batch value.

Leave these blank and BarSight creates accounts named [BarSight] Work In Progress, [BarSight] Cost of Goods Sold and [BarSight] Inventory Adjustment. Pick existing accounts instead if you already have them.

Which QuickBooks Accounts BarSight Changes

BarSight only posts to the accounts you set up for the journal: your inventory groups, Work In Progress, Cost of Goods Sold and Inventory Adjustment. It does not touch any other account in your QuickBooks, and it never edits, renames or deletes an account's details. All it does to an account is add journal entries to its balance.

If you leave an account blank, BarSight creates a new one named [BarSight] .... If an account with that exact name already exists, even an inactive one, BarSight uses it and turns it back on.
Every journal entry it posts has a number starting with BSI-, so you can find them in QuickBooks.
QBO Account Detail only reads balances from QuickBooks. It never changes anything.
Check the group list on the Options page before you assign stock, so you know which account each group posts to.

Setting It Up

Step 1: Turn It On

Go to Settings → Integrations and open the QuickBooks Options.
In the Inventory Value box, check Post Inventory Value to QuickBooks.
Set the Start Date to your go-live date. Opening stock and opening Work In Progress are dated on it.
Choose Opening Stock:
- Post the full value of stock on hand if QuickBooks does not hold your inventory value yet.
- Post only the difference from the QuickBooks account balance if the group accounts already hold your inventory value, so it is not counted twice.
- Post nothing, QuickBooks is already right if you have already matched the balances yourself.
Pick your Work In Progress, Cost of Goods Sold and Inventory Adjustment accounts, or leave them blank for BarSight to create.
Click Create Defaults to create the default accounts and the Raw Materials, Packaging and Finished Goods groups, then save.

[SCREENSHOT: Inventory Value box on the QuickBooks Options page with Start Date, Opening Stock and the three account fields visible]

Step 2: Assign Your Items and Products to Groups

Stock only reaches QuickBooks once its item or product belongs to a group.

Click Assign Defaults. Ingredients go to Raw Materials, other items (consumables, containers, deposits) go to Packaging, and products go to Finished Goods. This button only appears while some items or products have no group.
Confirm. Stock already on hand is opened in QuickBooks according to your Opening Stock choice.
To change one later, edit the item or product and set QuickBooks Inventory Account. Moving stock to a different group moves its value with it.
To use an existing QuickBooks account for a group, pick it in the QuickBooks Account column of the group list on the Options page.

[SCREENSHOT: Group list on the Options page showing the QuickBooks Account column]

Step 3: Seed Work In Progress for Beer Already in Tanks

If you go live while batches are in progress, click Seed Batch WIP. Each batch still in progress gets an opening Work In Progress equal to the cost of the ingredients already used, less the share already packaged. Each batch is only seeded once. Skip this if QuickBooks already holds the value of your beer in tanks.

Step 4: Watch the Queue

The Inventory Value box shows how many entries are waiting to post, failed and posted. If any failed, the last error is shown. Fix the cause, such as an account that was deleted in QuickBooks, then click Retry Failed.

Checking That the Books Match

Both reports are under Reports → Accounting.

QBO Inventory Journal

The full audit trail. Pick a date range and what to Show: everything, purchase orders, batches and packaging, customer orders, counts and manual stock, or price and product changes. Each row is one lot, with its quantity and value change, the QuickBooks account it went to, the other side of the entry, who did it, and whether it posted (the entry number starts with BSI-). Stock with no group is listed too, so nothing is hidden.

QBO Account Detail

Proof of what makes up one account right now. It does not read the journal to build the total. It works the value out live from today's stock and batches, then shows the balance QuickBooks reports for the same account.

Go to Reports → Accounting → QBO Account Detail.
Choose an Account: Work In Progress, or one of your inventory groups.
Choose View As Web or Excel and click Get Report.

For a group such as Finished Goods, every lot on hand is listed with quantity, unit cost and value.
For Work In Progress, every batch still in progress is listed with the cost of the ingredients used, the share of beer still in the tank, the calculated value, and what the journal has posted for that batch.
The bottom shows the BarSight calculated total, the QuickBooks balance, and the difference. They should match.

[SCREENSHOT: QBO Account Detail for Work In Progress showing batch rows and the total, QuickBooks balance and difference rows]

If the Numbers Do Not Match

Entries still waiting or failed. Check the queue on the Options page. QuickBooks only reflects posted entries.
Entries made by hand in QuickBooks to the same account. BarSight cannot see them.
A cost was edited after the stock moved. The report prices stock at today's cost, the journal posted the cost at the time.
Splits and blends between batches. The cost they carry between batches is not posted to QuickBooks, so a batch with one shows a difference on the Work In Progress report.
Closed or spoiled batches that still show value are flagged value left behind on the Work In Progress report.
Opening stock. If you chose full when QuickBooks already held the value, the account will read high by that amount.

Tips and Best Practices

Run QBO Account Detail for each account right after go-live and again after your first month end, before you rely on the balances.
Use your own account names for the groups if your accountant already has a chart of accounts for inventory. Select them in the group list before posting begins, since entries already posted stay in the account they went to.
Use the Excel version of QBO Account Detail to hand your accountant the supporting detail for a balance.

Troubleshooting

Problem: QBO Account Detail says the QuickBooks account has not been created yet.

Solution: BarSight creates a group's account when the first entry posts to it. Until then there is no balance to compare. Assign items to the group, or pick an existing QuickBooks account for it on the Options page.

Problem: Stock on hand is not appearing in QuickBooks.

Solution: The item or product has no group. Run Assign Defaults or set QuickBooks Inventory Account on it.

Problem: Entries show as failed.

Solution: Read the last error under the queue counts, correct it, and click Retry Failed.

Related Features

See Connecting QuickBooks Online for connecting and the purchase order and customer order sync, and the API Integrations overview for other integrations.