Newsletter

Tricks of the Trade

Every day, members of The Sleeter Group’s Consultants Network tackle the day-to-day problems of their clients in the real world. The following are some of the more general problems and solutions that surfaced this month on our "Sleeter Group’s Consultants Network Forum".

Question: Can I Create A Budget by Item in QuickBooks?

I have a new client that puts on events.. BIG events! Their biggest client requires that the budget for each BIG event be quite detailed.  They are doing these budgets right now in Excel because they can have  200 line items in each budget. As you can imagine this translates to a very long P&L in QuickBooks – sometimes 30 pages.

I would like to know if there is a way to budget in great detail but have the P&L be more consolidated – but not totally consolidated.

If there were a way to budget by item and have multiple items pointing to fewer accounts then I could get the detail by item and the consolidated by account. A sales by item compared to budget would be ideal but since the budget tool does not permit you to budget by item what are my options?

Also, ideally each event would be a job but to date they have been using classes for each event. They are using QBES 6.

Jason Schroeder responded:

They could do an estimate for each event instead of using the budget function. It would allow them to compare what they estimated for each item vs. what they actually spent if they use items in the checks and credit card screens. The budget could be simply the revenue for the event and then a total of the items into a cost of services rendered account. That way the P&L would be short, but the planning can be detailed.

Question: How can I quickly change all the department names in the QuickBooks POS Item List?

I’m working on a POS installation for a retailer that has been using QB
financial to track inventory. I imported their items into POS which
worked fine, but every item’s department name is "QuickBooks Financial
Software". This retailer has three departments she would like to
separately track – handbags, luggage, and accessories. Is there an
"easy" (quick) way to change department names in bulk or do you need to
do change them item by item?

David Glantz Responded:

You could export the items to Excel, modify the departments (or any other
pertinent info), and import back into POS. Make sure you spell the
departments (and other fields) consistently as the import process will
automatically create all new departments. It won’t work for Assembly items
but doesn’t sound like that is an issue for your client. Use the default
inventory template. When asked what field to use to determine whether an
item exists, chose Item #. There are other nuances so feel free to write
or call if you have questions (we are in Marin County so we are neighbors).

There is also a semi hidden POS feature called List Edit which will allow
you to change inventory item fields directly in the Item List ala Excel.
It’s not as easy to manipulate the cells, of course, but it is functional.
You can turn this on in Item List by clicking on the pull down on the right
side of the Edit Item button and selecting Turn List Edit On. It’s a toggle
so you can turn it off by doing the same thing as before but selecting Turn
List Edit Off. Shhh – don’t tell your clients about it because it is way
too easy to mess up the data.

Steve Green added:

Ditto – but I would add that you should do this asap – once a sale is recorded in the QBPOS department – it will remain there – changing the department for an item will
not update the history and therefore distort historic reporting by department.

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