Ask the Accountant…
Question: Is there any way to see what I make on an order?
Answer: Unfortunately, QuickBooks does not have the function of showing the gross profit of an order for non-inventory items, which is what most of a distributor’s orders are.
If you create orders in SAGE, however, you can see what your gross profit and gross profit percentage are in an internal form called “Office Copy.”
If you created the order in SAGE, you can select “Office Copy” at the top of the screen when you open a sales order or invoice in SAGE’s Order Management function. This is for your internal purposes only, and it shows both what you are charging your customer by line item and what the supplier is charging you with the gross profit and gross profit percentage calculations.
I think it is often overlooked by distributors, but it is a very nice way to see the entire order on one sheet.
QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise can be modified to better serve ad specialty distributors. Harriet Gatter is a QuickBooks ProAdvisor, a former accounting professor and a former ad specialty distributor. She advises ad specialty distributors to use QuickBooks Premier and Enterprise, often in conjunction with other industry-specific software, to manage the complexities of the ad specialty business, with the results being time saved, errors eliminated and an overall accurate accounting of your business. Contact her at [email protected].
