How to adjust average cost of inventory?

[Glassgirl]

I bought Quickbooks Pro in November and put all of my 2007 books onto it. I have supply inventory and entered costs etc and that's fine BUT I also make items and I needed to post to invoices right away, so I didn't enter the costs at the time I set up my items that I make. Now I see that I can't manually change the average cost of the items. Even when I enter a cost (from a worksheet for each item so not too many are done yet) for an item I make, it is showing 0 on average cost. After reading some of the other forum answers, is this something that will just have to correct itself after several items are sold?

Any suggestions for correcting this so I can have more accurate books for 2007?

[suzannemead]

Quickbooks keeps an average for the cost of the items. You can go into Vendors>Inventory Activities>Adjust Quantity/Value on Hand if needed.

[Glassgirl]

Hi Suzanne,

thanks for your quick reply. I went to the adjust inventory, clicked on the value box, and another column popped up, but it is showing the sales amount, so I don't think I can change my cost there. Sigh, I've decided I just need to relax and add in the cost of my handmade items as I figure them out, and it will eventually have a correct average cost when I pull up the one report that showed cost of items sold.... in the meantime I can live without it. Just wished I'd figured this out earlier, but I still needed to print out invoices right away (after getting the program) so it wouldn't have mattered. Thank you for your suggestion, as using the value adjustment will help with some other things too, so good to check it out.

[suzannemead]

Your program might be a little different than mine. I am using Premier 2008. But the idea is the same. In my program when I bring up the adjustment screen there is a box at the lower left to check if you are adjusting the value rather than the quantity. There is a box near the top to enter the account you want the adjustment to go to. The 2 right hand columns are for the old value and the new value.

[Joe Williams]

If you are still haveing problems with the inventory adjustment. Enter a bill to "Made in House" ( a new vendor) with the item you make with the quanity and amount the just made items. Click the Expense tab and choose the account to be used for the "adjustment" like Materials expenses and enter the total amount of listed on the Items tab as a negitive. This will post a 0.00 bill and the inventory will be adjusted for the quanity and value.

[lisa_mn]

Originally Posted by Glassgirl

I went to the adjust inventory, clicked on the value box, and another column popped up, but it is showing the sales amount, so I don't think I can change my cost there.

Yes, that is where you change your cost.

If the sales amount popped up, then somehow that amount got associated with the item as the cost, but that value field does represent the COST, not the PRICE.

[Glassgirl]

Hi Lisa,

Your suggestion caused a light bulb to pop on in the recesses of my brain... I actually hate to confess, but not only did I have most of my handmade items entered with a 0 cost (until I get around to finishing my worksheets to determine current cost), but in a daze after working on the computer WAY too many hours the other night, I'd typed in the sales price on the average cost box when entering some new items.... only about 6 or so, before I realized average cost was my cost, not my customers...duh. And then when I tried to fix it, the little box was gone and it wouldn't let me delete no matter how many times I tried

Just now, I went to the adjust inventory and adjusted the value (for some reason it IS showing the sales price of my items) and TAH DAH! Back on the item description, the average cost is now correct! Thank you so so much. I'm anal enough that it was really bugging me to not be able to figure this out and have it correct on reports. I'll sleep much better now!

[lisa_mn]

Glad you got it taken care of!