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Thread: Quickbooks, stock and serial numbers

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    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Quickbooks, stock and serial numbers

    In Quickbooks is there a way to track serial numbers of stock items? What I mean is say I buy 10 widgets, each with a unique serial number, can I keep track of which ones I have sold, and which I still have on hand?

    e.g. I've bought 10 widgets with serial numbers 20013 - 20022. I want to know which serial numbers I still have on hand, and which I've sold.

    Thanks - I'm using QB 2003.
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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    Take a look under the Help menu at custom fields, for the items your purchase or sell (your not my typo). But it doesn't look promising.

    You can buy add-ons, although getting an add-on for QB 2003 now might prove tricky. There was one I looked at that handled multiple stock centres. Something like that might also give what you're looking for.

    This search result holds some promise, although some of the solutions look pricey.

    If you do get an add-on, make sure it is compatible with the UK version, not the USA version.
    Last edited by Dave A; 18-Oct-07 at 12:43 PM.

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    You could capture each widget as an individual stock item listing with the serial number forming part of the item list, but you would end up with a really long stock report etc. Once you have sold the item you can mark the item as inactive, but I really do not think that this is going to be your answer.
    Quickbooks is a very forgiving program, so you could enter a list of the items with say 10entries of serial numbers, and then just alter the item serial number when all your stock is sold and your new stock comes in. It all depends on how important the serial number is to your retention of records and how they function in your systems?
    A spreadsheet with the serial numbers marked off as you sell them would be an easier method if you require to track them via serial number when sold.
    Yvonne

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    Platinum Member SilverNodashi's Avatar
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    This isn't really an option. 10 widgets isn't much, but try and do this with a 1000 widgets...... And then, let's say you buy a 1000 each, of 100 different products? This isn't feasible, and I'd also like to know how other people track items by serial number. It would be especially usefull to be able to see who client purchased widthed X with serial no 123

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    Site Caretaker Dave A's Avatar
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    It can be done with POS software. But essentially it's either another database or another table in the same database. From an accounting point of view it is irrelevant - it's a traceability issue. Hence it isn't built in as a default tracking option in accounting software.

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    Duncan, approx. how many widgets might you be dealing with?
    There is the option in QBooks that you could make use of another field in the invoice which would permit you to "search" for a specific serial number, but this would only give you information on the "sold" serial numbered item.

    Can you be more specific for your "need" for the serial number, could you work on the basis that "if not sold - should be in stock?"

    Perhaps a very simple access database, not linked to QBooks will be your most easily controlled option.

    Yvonne

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    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yvonne View Post
    Can you be more specific for your "need" for the serial number, could you work on the basis that "if not sold - should be in stock?"
    Right now it is just 10. Currently I'm using the easiest method in terms of effort - a spreadsheet.

    The widgets are actually just a range of unique numbers allocated for USB products. I have 10 of these, and they get allocated to a product and sold to the client. These numbers are globally (as in worldwide) unique, so I just need to keep track of which I still have, and which have been allocated.

    This is a pretty trivial case, and I was just wondering about QB's capabilities in this regard. There are a number of different solutions out there, the key is to make sure that errors don't occur when transferring from some other solution across to the accounting/invoicing domain.

    I haven't spent too much time on it yet, but will look into it further in the future. Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
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    Platinum Member SilverNodashi's Avatar
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    Yvonne, how would I use Quickbooks to track computer equipment? To give you an idea, something like mice & keyboards, CD's / DVD's, software licenses, hard drives, RAM, etc are (is?) tracked by serial number, and it would be really nice to have a way of knowing which item was sold to which client. This is especially handy for warranty purposes, as well as faulty batches. Let's say a supplier recalls all items of a certain batch, and I need to contact all clients with say HDD xyx, of batch abc123 - how would I handle this?

    The other thing is, if a client phones and says his monitor is not working, I'd like to see on my side what the serial number was, so that I can check with the supplier if it's still under guarantee. Any suggestions?

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    Silver Member Graeme's Avatar
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    Serial Numbers

    Duncan - a common form of guarding against errors in entering serial numbers is to use a check-digit, like your ID No, Bank Account No, Property Rates No etc, etc.

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    just me duncan drennan's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Graeme View Post
    Duncan - a common form of guarding against errors in entering serial numbers is to use a check-digit, like your ID No, Bank Account No, Property Rates No etc, etc.
    I don't quite follow
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